INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 1

Final Evaluation of CARE

International’s Strategic Direction 1:

Strengthening CARE’s Emergency

Preparedness & Response

Final Report

Hugh Goyder
Liz Hughes

October 2011
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 2

Executive Summary

Abbreviations:
AAR After Action Review
AOP Annual Operating Plan
CCG Crisis Coordination Group
CEG CARE Emergency Group
CI CARE International
CI-ERF CARE International Emergency Response Fund
CIM CARE International Member
CO Country Office
EPP Emergency Preparedness Plan
ERAC Emergency Response Advisory Committee
ERT Emergency Response Team
ERWG Emergency Response Working Group
GERT Global Emergency Response Team
HERAC Haiti Emergency Response Advisory Committee
HSP Humanitarian Support Personnel (OXFAM)
ICR Internal Cost Recovery
IFRC International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
LM Lead Member
PERAC Pakistan Emergency Response Advisory Committee
REC Regional Emergency Coordinator
RED Roster for Emergency Deployment
RMU Regional Management Unit
RRT Rapid Response Team
SC Save the Children
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.Introduction ....................................................................................................4
2. Methodology ..................................................................................................4
Constraints of the methodology.....................................................................6
3. The wider humanitarian & funding context in which the strategy
has been implemented .....................................................................................6
4. Overall Findings............................................................................................8
4.1.Implementation of the Strategy .........................................................12
4.2 Financial issues and the ‘Business Case’. ........................................14
4.3 The future role of CEG .........................................................................17
4.4 Advocacy, Communications, and Information Systems in CI ....18
5. Specific Findings .........................................................................................19
5.1 Gender......................................................................................................19
5.2 Human Resources.................................................................................22
5.3 Focus Sectors .........................................................................................29
5.4 CARE’s Use of Partners in Emergency Response...........................35
5.5 Accountability ........................................................................................36
6. Conclusions and Recommendations ......................................................38
Recommendations for CI ..............................................................................39

Annexes (separate attachments):

Annexe 1 -Annotated Bibliography showing documents reviewed ..........
Annexe 2a & 2b -Survey findings .....................................................................
Annexe 3-Key financial data .............................................................................
Annexe 4- Case studies.......................................................................................
Annexe 5a & 5b – Feedback on draft report .................................................
Annexe 6 – Evaluation TOR ..............................................................................
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 4

1.Introduction
This evaluation aims to assess CI’s emergency strategy, known as SD1, which was
adopted originally in 2006 but has had reviews and amendments over the last 5 years.1
The objective of the strategy is ’for CARE to respond more effectively and
comprehensively to humanitarian emergencies worldwide and thereby to increase the
scope and impact of CARE’s emergency programmes, as well as to strengthen donor
funding and CARE’s profile.’ Since a Mid Term Evaluation was undertaken in 2008, on
the basis of which a revised SD1 Strategy was produced in 2009, this evaluation focuses
in particular on the extent to which CI has been able to implement the key objectives of
this revised strategy (listed at the start of section 4, below).
The scope of this evaluation is vast, covering six years, several major emergencies,
numerous smaller ones, and the overall response to these by CI’s Country Offices,
supported by Lead Members (LMs), other CIMs, and the CEG. We have therefore
divided our analysis between some overall findings and conclusions (section 4) and more
detailed analysis of specific issues which emerged as of key importance in the course of
this evaluation (section 5).

2. Methodology
As anticipated in the Inception Report the evaluation has made use of the following data
collection methods:
Document Review: CI has commissioned a large number of evaluations and reviews
since 2006, relevant to SD 1 and this evaluation has tried to make full use of all this
material. The key documents are listed in the Annotated Bibliography attached (Annexe
1). Though SD1 dates back to 2006, there was a Mid-Term Evaluation (MTE) in 2008,
with a revised strategy produced in 2009. This evaluation has therefore focused in
particular on the key elements of this revised strategy. We had hoped to access more
external documentation, in order to see how CARE’s humanitarian performance
compares with other leading INGOs, but we found it difficult either to access this kind of
material. This made it more difficult to systematically compare CARE’s performance to
that of other agencies: the data available from other agencies’ documentation refers
mainly to income and expenditure, rather than actual performance, though there is no
shortage of more anecdotal data available.
Case studies: As a way to extend the global reach of this evaluation, given the relatively
short time frame in which the evaluation was required to be conducted, CEG helped in
the preparation of 4 brief case studies of different emergency types, using a template
prepared by the Evaluation Team, which were subsequently supplemented by
information from CO staff. The aim is to illustrate with a variety of examples both the
strengths and weaknesses of recent emergency responses. The criteria used for selecting
the case studies below were as follows:
-Need to cover a representative range of locations

1
'Through out this report the term CARE International (CI) is used to denote every CARE office including
members of the federation and regional, sub-regional and country offices';
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 5

-Mixture of both ‘complex emergencies’ and natural disasters

-Mixture of slow onset and sudden emergencies.
-Greater weight towards emergency responses post-2009 since the major focus of this
evaluation is on the period after the Mid-Term Evaluation of 2009.
On the basis of these criteria we prepared case studies on the following emergencies.
These are referred to in this draft report, and will be attached in full as an Appendix to
the final report.
• Benin floods 2010
• Indonesia – Padang Earthquake 2009
• Myanmar – Cyclone Nargis 2008
• Peru Earthquake- 2009

Interviews We were able to interview a total of 44 CI staff (and ex-staf) by telephone

and skype, and many others during the country visits. In addition we interviewed 16
people from peer agencies and donors, both by telephone and during the country visits.
44 internal, and 17 external people across CI, mainly via phone or skype. These
interviews were semi-structured round a range of key evaluation questions based on the
Evaluation TOR and inception report
Survey of wider group of CARE staff to gauge perceptions. A questionnaire
was designed, with feedback on the survey questions provided by CEG. The purpose of
this survey was to extend the reach of the evaluation in order to better understand the
different experiences and perceptions of personnel across a large and complex
organization We had 70 replies including many useful comments. The breakdown of
replies was as follows:

Survey respondent group Numbers of respondents %

Country Offices (Africa) 15 19.7
Country Offices (Asia) 12 15.8
Emergency Staff 24 31.5
CARE Members 25 32.9
Total 76 100

Field visits – Two field visits were conducted to Pakistan and Niger which allowed the
evaluation team to better understand issues in relation to implementation of the
strategy at country level. A similar interview tool was used for both visits but
discussions were flexible as they were held in quite different contexts, allowing us to
explore and observe CI’s response to two very different types of emergency –the quick
onset floods in Pakistan in 2010, and the slower onset food shortages of 2009-10 in
Niger. During these field visits we were able to discuss the key evaluation questions
with a range of stakeholders, including CARE staff at all levels and in different
locations, partners, peer agencies, donor and UN agencies, and, to a more limited
extent, government staff and beneficiaries.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 6

The final stage of the evaluation was a joint ERWG/ESIG Meeting in Geneva (with a
total of 45 CI staff with impressive collective experience of implementing SD1) to
discuss the findings and recommendations of a draft report. Much of the feedback
given in that meeting has been incorporated in this final report.
Constraints of the methodology
Time has been the major constraint throughout with the evaluation being
commissioned later than the original Terms of Reference had originally anticipated.
Conducting interviews during the month of August when many staff were on holidays
was also a challenge and valuable evaluation time was taken up in the administration of
this.
The recent floods in Sindh, Pakistan, led to a number of personnel externally not being
available. A number of internal staff were also not available due to this and other
priorities.
CI is a complex organization, and the progress of SD1 has been relatively intensely
documented. The quantity of information has sometimes been difficult to manage given
the scale of it and limited days allocated to its review. Information about CARE’s
humanitarian work in Pakistan was not always easily accessible in part due to time
pressures on the team and in part due to changes of personnel. Notwithstanding the
above, considerable and timely support has been given to the evaluation team from
colleagues within CEG, the CARE membership and in the field wherever possible, and
the response to the survey was very impressive.

3. The wider humanitarian & funding context in which the

strategy has been implemented
Context:
The humanitarian context is changing2 and with it there is an increased demand on
agencies to meet new challenges. In high visibility disasters and in forgotten
emergencies, the complexity of issues that have made individuals vulnerable to disaster
requires agencies to deliver strong country based context analysis, rapid response
capability3 and the ability to form a wide range of partnerships if agencies are to
effectively meet relief and recovery needs and retain donor attention.
In general one can see growing regional differences. Africa seems set to face increasing
chronic food crises, worsened by climate change population growth, and political
instability, and CI will have to maintain and if possible increase its regional and country-
level capacity to assist in these recurrent crises. In much of Asia & Latin America,
incomes are growing relatively fast, and governments and strong local NGOs will want to
take an increasing role in emergency preparedness and response. The extent to which
agencies like CI will be able to participate will depend critically on their standing in the
country, the quality of their Emergency Preparedness, and relationships with
government and local partners.
The range of actors entering into assistance activities is expanding. This provides
opportunities for new and dynamic partnerships such as with the private sector but the

2Humanitarian Emergency Response Review, DFID 2011

3Commission Staff Working Document, Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil
Protection- ECHO Operational Strategy 2011
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 7

‘for profit’ contracting market is expanding into the humanitarian arena. Equally there
are concerns that humanitarian aid is becoming increasingly politicized, with some
governments seeing INGOs as sub-contractors to support their foreign policy objectives
in countries like Afghanistan, making it far more difficult for humanitarian agencies to
appear neutral and independent. Conflict and security remain major challenges within
the global context of the ‘War on Terror’ which can often reduce organisations’ access
and ability to deliver assistance. It also impacts on how organisations’ are perceived, the
operationality of humanitarian principles, and the safety and security of staff, partners
and in some places, beneficiaries as a result. Working in partnership is increasingly seen
as a way of reducing risk, but there such risk transfer also raises other ethical issues4
The humanitarian system has grown in recent years with most progress made in internal
areas of the system such as co ordination mechanisms, in particular the UN’s cluster
system, and assessment tools. There has however been more limited progress on
coverage, effectiveness of delivery and engagement of beneficiaries.5
A general preparedness to respond appears no longer enough: INGOs will be expected to
add value in a specific ‘niche’ area where demonstrable and high quality results can be
seen. Shelter expertise may be relevant at least in earthquake or flood/cyclone-prone
parts of Asia and Latin America but integrated food security programmes linking risk
reduction to the long term is likely to remain the prevailing humanitarian response
requirement in Africa. The Middle East appears increasingly unpredictable, with a high
probability of future conflicts both within and between states, and sudden displacements
of people. Gender mainstreaming will remain a critical component of all programmes
either to ensure women reap the benefits of humanitarian assistance or to ensure their
protection, particularly in conflict contexts.
Humanitarian leadership is identified as a key issue for effective results in sector
coordination6 and there is a growing interest in the humanitarian sector to improve the
quality of senior level humanitarian leadership.7
The global financial crisis has contributed to a difficult funding environment making it
more challenging to source and secure funds, and more challenging to retain them if
delivery does not reach an expected level. Donors are increasingly embracing alliance
based modalities meaning opportunities exist for organizations that can operate
collectively with others. At country level the picture is complex, with increasing numbers
of NGOs, both local and international, competing for funds, but also new funding
instruments, like OCHA’s Pooled Funds and the CERF, coming on stream. In general
funding for transition and recovery still remains far more limited than funding for
immediate response, and this is especially challenging for an agency like CI which should
have a strong comparative advantage in the recovery phase.
The media remains a strong and influential stakeholder in humanitarian response as a
source of fundraising and as a window on forgotten emergencies. As such the media can

4 CARE’s Aid in Conflict Action Plan March 2011, refers to the need for CARE to reposition itself
in relation to the challenges of the shrinking humanitarian space and erosion of acceptance
across 7 subject areas that cut across a number of different functions.
5 The State of the Humanitarian System, Assessing Performance and Progress, A pilot study,

ALNAP, 2010.
6
Humanitarian Emergency Response Review, DFID 2011
7 Leadership in Action: Leading Effectively in Humanitarian Operations, Margie Buchanan-Smith

with Kim Scriven, ALNAP 2011

INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 8

be an ally for important advocacy issues as well as a challenger to what might be

perceived as slow or ineffective humanitarian action.8
The overall conclusion is that in future organizations will need to retain both an
operational capacity to respond to ever more complex emergencies and an ability to work
with others in a wide variety of ways to reach the scale of programme required. Mega
emergencies, and the coverage of need in urban settings or conflict areas will continue to
present particular challenges. There is real opportunity for an organization like CI to
make the links between emergencies and long term programming but to do this will
require outstanding leadership and strong focus.

4. Overall Findings
This section aims to summarize our overall findings: the following section then covers
our findings on specific components of the strategy.
The purpose of SD1 is clearly stated as:
To enable CARE to respond more effectively and comprehensively to humanitarian
emergencies worldwide and thereby increase the scope and impact of CARE’s
emergency programmes, as well as strengthen donor funding and CARE’s profile.
The midterm review found that substantial progress had been made in CARE’s
involvement in emergencies worldwide in the first two years of SD1 – specifically in
capability to respond, coordination, decision making and the development of procedures
and protocols. At a global level advocacy was enhanced by developing sector focus and
expertise. However a number of adjustments were made to SD1 for the second stage of
its implementation to consolidate gains made to deliver the above intended purpose. The
table below highlights these areas, summarizes the progress made, and indicates where
they are covered in this report:

Key priorities of SD1 agreed following MTE Summary of Report

progress made
Section
since MTE
Ref:
Stronger operational support for preparedness and response Mixed 4.1
in the field
Consistent high quality, timely media and communications to Not yet achieved 4.4
support CARE’s humanitarian work and increase CARE’s
profile
Consistent and stronger understanding internally regarding Not achieved 4.0
CARE’s humanitarian work
Improvement in CARE’s performance in responding to Partially achieved Whole
emergencies but major report
challenges remain

8The Humanitarian’s Dilemma: collective action or inaction in international relief? Ben

Ramalingam and Michael Barnett, Background Note August 2010, Overseas Development
Institute.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 9

Recognition of CARE as a leader in its programme focus areas Partially achieved: 5.3
and in accountability
A well functioning CARE wide staff roster system enabling Not achieved 5.2
country offices to secure qualified staff on time to assist in
emergency response
CO staff and CI members’ acquisition of skills and knowledge Partially achieved 5.3
to manage and support effective humanitarian preparedness
and response.
Better integration and linkage between humanitarian Partially achieved Whole
response, risk reduction, community preparedness, recovery, report
and long-term development and more focused and better
quality humanitarian programming
Establishment of a robust humanitarian accountability Largely achieved 5.5
framework that meets ‘industry’ standards
Humanitarian policies in support of field work and to Not achieved 4.4
contribute to fulfilling the rights of people affected by
humanitarian crises are influenced
Achievement of a sustained level of emergency revenues to
FY2011 total 4.2
€165 million ($200 million)per year by 2012-2014
emergency revenue
was €139 million
This table suggests that progress has been made in the majority of these areas. In some
areas such as accountability there is evidence that CI is seen increasingly as a leader in
this field. However in other areas the evaluation finds that whilst there are areas of
individual expertise and excellence, gains have been insufficiently consolidated across
the organization: the internal aspiration for CI to be perceived as a leading
humanitarian agency is not matched by its actual capability to respond to the level or
quality proposed. This evaluation aims to analyse why this shortfall exists, and to make
recommendations on how the revised objectives of SD1 summarized above can be
achieved.
Finding 1
SD1 is insufficiently internalized within the organization, and there are
differing views on the overall appropriateness and degree of acceptance of
CARE’s Emergency Strategy.
The first set of views appeared to be positive, both about the strategy itself and its
implementation by CEG: almost 87% of survey respondents, and the majority of
interviewees felt that the strategy was appropriate in its intent although many felt that it
did not necessarily deliver this intent on the ground. Our interviews and field visits both
showed very different levels of awareness, and often different perceptions, of the
strategy. In particular there was disagreement across CI about the extent to which CI’s
humanitarian mandate should always take precedence over other strategic goals. In
addition the financial allocations to SD1 appear to reinforce this ambivalence to SD1
across the membership.
These divergent views on the strategy were influenced by the respondents’ personal
experience: those COs that had experienced a recent Type 19 or 2 emergency response

9Note: the typology used here is based on the 2009 typology as described in the CARE Emergency
Response Protocol.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 10

were, with a few exceptions, more explicitly supportive of the strategy than those who
had not had this experience. Those who had experienced only Type 1 emergencies, (and
therefore had had less engagement with the wider CI humanitarian response system),
had less knowledge of the strategy and its benefits overall. In some cases no knowledge
was held about the strategy at all.
Both the interviews and the survey highlighted that the extent to which SD1 has been
internalized across CI may be limited with organizational culture being a factor in
progress on this. Some respondents feel that this is the result of a lack of commitment to
the humanitarian mandate at the senior leadership level evidenced in a reluctance to
release personnel during times of crisis and in longer term planning for preparedness. It
is clear that a long established ‘contract culture’, which rewards the successful
completion of donor funded projects is unlikely to be an especially supportive
environment for humanitarian work, which requires rapid decision taking, an ability
both to assess and take considerable risks, backed by highly flexible HR, procurement,
and financial procedures.
Closely linked to this perception is a third set of explanations related to the priority being
given to development and partnership and to efforts to move to a programme approach:
the evidence both from some AARs and interviews suggests that many COs feel they have
to focus on implementing development type projects within what is often an
unrealistically short timescale due to the short term nature of funding contracts. This can
detract from an ability to go to scale and leaves a perception that emergency
interventions are an unwelcome distraction.

As an example of where SD1 can be misunderstood several interviewees believed that

CARE USA considered they had fully discharged their obligations to SD1 by becoming
the major contributor of funds for CEG. Although humanitarian work remains a key
strategy for CARE USA the amounts of money it has been able to raise in response to
recent emergencies, and in particular for the current Horn of Africa food crisis, has
declined over the last two years.

It is notable that success factors described by peer agencies widely seen amongst
respondents as successful in humanitarian response, included establishing commitment
to their humanitarian mandate through senior level leadership and a constant
reinforcement of the mandate as a corporate responsibility; establishing dedicated
unrestricted funds and readily deployable technical personnel; and investing
considerable senior management time on building and maintaining relationships with
the key humanitarian donors in their particular countries and regions.
Finding 2: Internalising SD1 will require major changes in organizational
culture throughout CI, but especially in the largest LM, CARE USA. This
culture change will require very strong leadership over many years but it will also need to
be supported by the identification of new types of funding. Unless this point is
recognized, investments in training and capacity building for improved emergency
preparedness and response will not yield the full potential benefits, and CI may not be
able to attract and retain the right people for emergency work, either for leadership, or
for implementation.
This finding echoes the conclusion of the 2006 International Emergency Meeting Report
which said (with our emphasis added) that: In developing our recommendations for
the next phase of strengthening our emergency work, it is important that all parts of
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 11

CARE have the same understanding of CARE’s overall guiding strategic framework.
The task is not just about how many positions to add, but also ensuring that CARE has
a coherent strategy for the future that all parts of CARE can contribute to and be
guided by…..All CARE offices need to see emergency work as a fundamental
part of their core business and this may require a shift in the culture in
some parts of the organization. It also requires that this commitment is backed-up
by sufficient resources, while not damaging our work in development or other areas at
the same time’10
Internalizing SD1 requires all CIMs to build a close relationship with key national
donors, ensuring strong ‘marketing’ for individual appeals to private supporters, with
supporting national advocacy and communications where relevant. In the interviews we
came across many examples of where CIMs had been able to do this successfully, with
strengthening links being reported in some cases with official donors and corporate
sponsors, and emergency appeals being used to bring in new, and sometimes longer-
term supporters. However we also formed a view that different members are at very
different points in the extent to which they have really understood the need to alter their
organizational structures and processes to support the strategy.
The key for the future will be the extent to which CARE USA, as the largest Lead
Member, will be able with its recent re-structuring to support SD1. It is certainly very
positive that humanitarian response has been preserved as a key corporate strategy in
CARE USA, even with the loss of its logistics capacity11. It was outside the scope of this
evaluation to establish the extent to which all parts are now able to respond to an
emergency efficiently and effectively, especially Regional Management Units, HR,
Finance, Procurement, Communications, and Fundraising Departments. For the future
key indicators of progress in CARE USA will be the extent to which its humanitarian
mandate can be fully internalized in all its different divisions and business processes,
especially Human Resources, and the amount of income raised in response to major
emergencies: while the recent trend has been downwards, there is no reason why this
could not be changed in future. But this will require strong leadership and a major effort
to identify new sources of funding.

Equally it is important to understand the influence that donors have over SD1 itself, at
least while CARE’s own emergency income is relatively modest. All of CI’s peers worry
about the influence, sometimes benign, sometimes less so, that their official donors have
over their humanitarian operations. At worst, this funding can persuade agencies to
intervene in contexts when they might be better to stay away; or to exit from contexts of
great humanitarian need just because funding is unavailable. In particular the preference
of some donors for short term emergency funding over longer term recovery funding,
means that there will always be pressure both on LM’s and specific COs (for instance in
the current crisis in the Horn of Africa)to focus on relief interventions rather than
transition and recovery. There could be perverse incentives at work here, with
opportunities to maximize short term income conflicting with the need to invest more
resources on transition and recovery, and on more advocacy with both private and public
donors in support of this goal. While CI’s peer agencies share these dilemmas, they
appear more acute in CARE given both its lack of unrestricted funding and the fact that
different CARE members are developing both their humanitarian and fundraising

10 Emergency Preparedness & Response Strategy Meeting- Vienna-March 2006

However there were questions about the actual performance of this logistical capability, especially in the
11

2010 Haiti Earthquake.

INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 12

capacities at very different rates and sometimes with divergent, rather than convergent
individual member priorities. We conclude that given all these conflicting pressures SD1
probably requires even stronger leadership, and will return to this issue both in the
section on management structures below, and in the recommendations.

Finally our own comment on SD1, supported in several recent reviews, is that it may
simply be over-ambitious given CI’s overall resource constraints. There is a sense that CI
is trying ‘to do everything everywhere’, and it may now be good opportunity to focus
down on a few more achievable goals. The following sections suggest the direction in
which it may need to proceed.

4.1.Implementation of the Strategy

Overall there is some sense of achievement across CI about what has been achieved,
always tempered by the scarcity of unrestricted funding. This positive sense is
important, as to an outsider, CI does often appear rather self-critical in its organizational
culture, and it is essential to document the progress that has been made based on the
highly professional approach taken by CI staff, in the face of considerable constraints.

In 2010, CI responded to 32 emergencies of which 10 were Type 2 and Type 3

emergencies. All emergencies met and exceeded their funding target, appropriate ERF
funds were approved within 48 hours (though at least in Pakistan it took much longer
before this funding was actually transferred.) Emergency capacity assessments were
done within 72 hours in all but one of the responses.

The major ‘milestones’ achieved are plotted against key external events in the table
below:

CARE Implementation of SD1 - Timeline

Major internal developments in SD1 Key external events

Implementation influencing SD1
implementation
2005 2004 Asian Tsunami recovery
Review of CARE’s emergency preparedness and
programme
response capacity, (ODI, London -Oct)
2005 Pakistan earthquake

2006
CARE emergency strategy summary -June
SD1 business case, October
CI emergency strategy: ‘How we work together’
December
EPPs developed
ERWG formally established
2007 CI SD1 implementation plan, May 2007 Bangladesh cyclone
Emergency Training curriculum developed
Interim version of toolkit in Aug
Regional Emergency Co-ordinator (RECs) posts
established,(though all 5 posts not filled until
2011)
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 13

CI Emergency Protocols defined.

2008 Mid-term evaluation of CARE’s emergency 2008 Myanmar/Burma cyclone;
strategy;
Emergency Strategy Implementation Group
established.
ERWG established with CO involvement
Aug: on-line emergency toolkit launched

2009 SD1 MTE management response, February 2009 Bangladesh cyclone

SD1 Report on cost recovery, October
May –revised SD1 strategy
Aug – RED Roster launched
Emergency Leadership training established
Draft Humanitarian Accountability Framework
(HAFs) endorsed by ERWG
2010 HAF- Pilot Version launched (Feb) 2010 (Jan) Haiti earthquake
SD1 revised strategy, September August: Pakistan Floods

2011 Focus Area Evaluation 2011 Japanese earthquake and

May - RED Roster re-launched Tsunami

From this timeline the major outputs from the strategy are the endorsement of the wide-
ranging Humanitarian Accountability Framework (HAF), the production of relevant
guidelines, especially the well regarded Tool Kits on line publication, and a number of
training courses, especially Emergency Leadership & Management Training.12 Some of
these initiatives – for instance the HAF and the ELMP – have major relevance also for
CI’s development work.

Emergency Preparedness Plans (EPPs) Although it was not within the brief of this
evaluation to evaluate the impact of EPPs, the evaluation did examine the extent to
which people found these useful and the extent to which they were in place and utilized.
There is evidence within the performance metrics system that most COs review and
revise the EPP every six months. However further evidence points to limited use of these
plans during an emergency.
 
Both the interviews and country visits suggested that it would be a mistake to equate the
preparation of a written EPP by a CO with that office being really prepared for an
emergency. Most interviewees with CO experience felt that the EPP could easily become
a rather academic data collection exercise, the output of which was often no more than a
long document. With staff turnover and the passing of time, this document can quickly
become forgotten unless the prevalence of emergencies as in a country like Pakistan
means that the document is used within a short space of its completion. Operational
EPPs need to include standing arrangements for suppliers and other preparedness
activities and thus require constant maintenance if they are to be of any use: this
stresses the importance of maintaining a ‘process’ approach to preparedness rather than

12
The Oxfam Humanitarian Coordinator in Niger keeps a copy of the Pocket Book on his Desk and speaks
very highly of it.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 14

a focus on a detailed document that is not used: CEG’s own performance metrics confirm
that there is still too little use made of the EPP in emergency responses.

Other interviewees suggested that there was a wide variation at present between the
extent to which different COs were really ‘linked in’ to the key humanitarian fora in their
respective countries: some appear very well connected, while others are reported to be
far less interested and involved. At present it is only required that every CO has an EPP
in place: we believe that it should become standard practice across CI that in
every CO there should be one ACD post in each CO with specific
responsibility for EPP and response, and make a recommendation to this
effect below. This person should lead the process of revising the preparedness plan,
ensuring that the tasks included within it are updated regularly and providing an
oversight role of its upkeep and delivery. In countries where no ACD post exists, the CD
should be required to have a properly trained Emergency Response Team, led by
another senior staff member. Rather than being seen as a separate exercise,
humanitarian action should increasingly be integrated into the programme approach,
with the EPP including a holistic analysis of vulnerabilities

Overall the survey results very much reflected the evaluation team’s own findings about
the implementation of SD1, with the majority of respondents seeing positive responses in
relation to CI improving its timeliness (65%) , and quality and accountability of CI’s
emergency responses (79%). However these results need to be interpreted cautiously.
While CI staff may perceive that its timeliness of response has improved, external
stakeholders were more uncertain and many felt that CI’s strengths still lay not in the
immediate response phase but in the later phases of response, especially in recovery
activities. In addition the survey replies in relation to the mobilization of resources and
the focal areas were much less positive: we therefore come to these two critical issues in
the next sections.

4.2 Financial issues and the ‘Business Case’.

CEG costs CI, roughly €2million per year against total expenditure on emergencies by
members of €124million in FY11. This represents just 1.4% of their total expenditure on
emergencies (Detailed financial data in Annexe 3)
In 2011 3 CIMs (USA, Canada, & UK) raised 79% of all CI’s Emergency income.
The CI Cost Recovery Report suggests that with tsunami expenditures excluded,
emergency program expenditures show growth from €92 million in FY07 to €131.5
million in FY09, and a reduction in FY10 to €129 million, and €124 million in FY2011.
This same report suggests that over the 4 years from FY07-10, total cost recovery
assuming a 7% overhead was €28.6 million.13
On this same basis, total cost recovery by members on €124million in FY11 can be
estimated to be about €8.68m, of which roughly 23% is used to fund CEG.
At the start of this evaluation, the Steering Committee requested us to identify the
‘business case’ for CARE investing more resources in SD1. The interviews suggested
little unanimity, and a degree of confusion about how much joint investment CI
members should make to promote SD1. Some members argue that their contribution to

13
CI SD1 Cost Recovery Report (updated June 2011)
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 15

SD1 is their financial support to CEG, on which they expect some kind of financial
‘return’ in the sense of CARE increasing its long term global income.
We have already disputed this approach, and suggested that a financial contribution to
CEG, however large, will always be a necessary, but never a sufficient condition for the
successful implementation of SD1, as it requires wider changes in all CIMs. Secondly
given its potential workload, including capacity building, co-ordinating more effective
responses, and leading on international humanitarian advocacy work, CEG’s budget just
appears far too small, and the very modest size of this budget reflects the doubts
expressed by some interviewees about the extent to which CI should invest in a central
emergency response capacity.
The financial data became available only at the very end of this evaluation, so we have
been unable to discuss its implications either with CIMs or CEG. However it seems hard
to dispute the conclusion that CEG is currently rather seriously under-resourced. From
the estimates in the box it appears that CIMs are collectively contributing about 23% of
their aggregate cost recoveries on emergency grants back to CEG. This ratio will of
course vary, as CEG is a fixed cost while emergency expenditures will by definition
fluctuate from one year to the next.
During the ERWG discussions on the first draft of this evaluation, it was proposed that
the funding of CEG be switched to a different basis – perhaps a percentage levy on all
CIMs’ Emergency incomes. We have not been able to research this in any more detail,
and donors would have to be consulted, but we think this proposal does merit an urgent
feasibility study, and have added a recommendation to this effect below.
CI’s Fund Raising Strategy (November 2009) aims to increase CI’s Emergency income by
35% from its current level by FY12. Whether or not this is achieved does of course
depend on whether there is one or more high-profile ‘mega-emergency’ in the coming 9
months: the Horn of Africa crisis will definitely assist in increasing emergency income,
but at present it is being prioritized differently by different CIMs. We agree with the
ERWG’s proposal that CI needs to ‘join up’ its fundraising messages so that there is far
greater consistency across Member websites, but the pre-condition of this is that all
CIMs give the same degree of priority to a designated ‘corporate emergency’.

In addition to the funding they commit to CEG many CIMs also support their own
Humanitarian response sections. While there is a possible risk of duplication with CEG,
some CIM-based Emergency capacity is essential both for co-ordinating a member’s
response to an emergency and for providing some standing capacity for emergency
deployment. In this context CARE USAs EHAU unit appears to be severely under-
resourced: while CARE USA’s emergency expenditure in 2011 was $38million, EHAU’s
budget was only $700,000, just over half of which came from unrestricted funds.

However we believe that these findings still understate the potential financial return
from investing in SD1 in the widest possible sense. As indicated in a recent paper,
CARE’s income from a key donor, ECHO, has fallen sharply in recent years compared
with that of its peer agencies. One senior interviewee suggested that the principal reason
for this is that CARE Country Offices are often slow off the mark in major crises
compared to our peers. We were also sometimes not successful with key factors being
poor or typically non-existent assessment info, poorly developed programme strategies
and late submission of information to the ECHO partner...to build the proposal. The
Country Offices often did not appear hungry for the funding. In some cases this was
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 16

due to other larger funding from other donors …. Mostly though I think it was due to
insufficient priority being given to the humanitarian imperative/ mandate.

This issue was already discussed in the 2009 Emergency Fundraising Strategy which
said that the key to maintaining a strong reputation with institutional donors is the
implementation of timely and high quality emergency work and ensuring quality
information, including concepts, reports and acquittals, is provided to donors.
However improving the quality of reporting is seen as heavily dependent on CI
improving the quality of its information management in relation to emergency response:
an objective to improve information management is now included in the AOP for FY12,
and in order to achieve this objective both COs and CIMs will need to ensure improved
monitoring and documentation of all emergency grants. (See recommendation 2 below).

Senior staff of CARE USA have been told by OFDA that their agency was no longer seen
as a credible agency to receive their emergency funding as they came to them with
proposals far too late (and often long after other US INGOs) Recent experience suggests
a much better success rate with OFDA funding for DRR proposals submitted by CARE
USA for the Latin America & Caribbean Region
Further evidence to support this argument came from the Niger visit, where the CO staff
explained that they lacked capacity to write strong proposals for donors, and felt a need
for more technical assistance with this. Meetings with peer INGOs in Niger confirmed
that with the huge increase in the number of INGOs seeking donor funds for
emergencies, the competition for funding for all types of work, (both emergency and
recovery ) would now be more far more intense in any future food crisis. We accept that
given resource constraints it would be unrealistic to expect CI to invest in emergency
response in all countries likely to face T1 emergencies, but there is a wider issue about
what level of investment both LMs and other CIMs are able to contribute to COs in order
to ensure that CI does not face a declining share in the resources available from official
donors for both development and humanitarian purposes.

The Emergency Response Fund (ERF) Since the ERF was reviewed in detail only in
February 2011, we did not collect any more data on this fund. Our own conclusions
would however tend to support the ERF’s evaluation’s broadly positive conclusions about
the ERF, which can also be seen as a positive example of the benefits of a more co-
ordinated approach to resourcing the SD1 strategy. It does however need to be applied
flexibly and with minimum demand on field teams, to be a useful tool at the operational
level. This review found that the current size of the CI ERF is smaller than similar peer
funds, and has higher reimbursement targets

More broadly we would suggest that CI needs to ensure that its humanitarian strategy
does not become diverted by too many short term financial considerations. The key
motivation for investing in the strategy always has to be humanitarian, and not the
expectation of an immediate financial ‘return’. As argued in the following sections
investments in humanitarian capacity are very likely to result in higher income and
expenditure in the long term, but we would recommend that CI commits itself to
‘quality’ in relation to emergency responses and related activities, rather
than ‘quantity’.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 17

This approach would imply that CI should continue to be cautious about intervening
either in emergencies in areas where it has no CO, or in major emergencies in developed
countries where it has a LM, and that the priority should continue to be given to
effective EPP and responses in those countries where it does have a CO.

4.3 The future role of CEG

Finding 1: Given current resource constraints CEG needs to focus its efforts
on the co-ordination of emergency responses and deployment.

Many interviewees commented on CEG’s dedication and professionalism, as well as the

quality of its training and written outputs. There is however a strong perception that
while it was appropriate initially for CEG to concentrate on capacity building, training,
and the production of guidelines and protocols, it needs now to also focus its energies on
ensuring timely and effective emergency responses whilst recognizing that capacity .
building is an important and essential process that CEG should continue to co-ordinate.
There should however be a greater emphasis across CI in building capacity during
deployments by coaching/mentoring and training, especially when technical staff are
deployed, and a stronger emphasis on building up relevant capacity at the regional level.
Given the very limited numbers of staff involved there will continue to be difficult
decisions to be made to ensure that at times of emergency CEG staff are deployed where
required while leaving sufficient staff in Geneva to co-ordinate the response.

Assuming that in the current financial climate CI is unlikely to be able to commit more
resources to CEG, this evaluation believes that CEG, at least temporarily, may need to
reduce its span of activities. Further evidence in support of this finding comes from the
conclusions above about the need for both LM’s and other CIM’s to ensure complete
‘internalization’ of SD1 across CARE: for example the CEG’s Emergency Leadership &
Management Training has been very well received, but unless Lead Members alter their
HR and other systems on the lines argued in this evaluation, CARE will not experience
the full benefit from this training investment, since the senior staff trained will not feel
empowered and supported to implement all that they have learned on this course.

Finding 2: Though there have been some recent improvements, in its

emergency responses CI is still facing excessive transaction costs and poor
performance in at least some of its emergency responses, as the respective
accountabilities of the LM, RMU, CO, or CEG are not always clear. The kinds
of transaction costs mentioned by interviewees in the process of this evaluation include
arguments about, and delays in, the deployment of key staff even at critical times in an
emergency response; and debates about cost recovery, and who pays for what. Cases in
the recent past where these unclear accountabilities have had negative impacts on the
response include the extent and timeliness of support offered by both the LM and other
key members, to the response to the 2010 floods in Pakistan, and the current debates
about the most appropriate regional response to the 2011 Horn of Africa famine. A
further example was CARE-USA’s abrupt dissolution of its Supply Management Unit
without apparent reference to CARE-USA’s commitment as “lead” in logistics and
without consultation with CEG or ERWG. Therefore we believe the HD needs more
authority in any ‘corporate emergency’ as outlined in the box below:
 INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 18

Essential Decision Making areas for the HD in a corporate emergency14

• Designation of an emergency as a corporate emergency (in coordination with
ExCom)
• Management arrangements at the CO level – the use of step aside, the
introduction of technical personnel, the establishment of a member led ERRAC at
the earliest possibility
• Defining the scale and scope of the programme commensurate with i)
institutional capacity to scale up and deliver, ii) institutional guidelines e.g. core
sector coverage and iii) risks in proportion to the humanitarian imperative.
• Defining Funding targets for the programme in respect of amounts to be raised
(based on the point above) and sectors for delivery.
• Deployment decisions regarding CARE’s human resource base –i.e. the corporate
imperative to respond to the emergency is paramount

Finally, as raised in the discussions of the first draft of this report, it would greatly assist
CI’s response to an emergency like the current Horn of Africa Food Crisis if all Appeal
money raised by CIMs was pooled, as is the practice with agencies like the IFRC. This
would require some negotiation with different donors, but it would enable CI to have a
far more strategic and co-ordinated response, especially in an emergency response
involving more than one LM and CO. We have therefore added a recommendation on
this point (Rec. 5 below).
4.4 Advocacy, Communications, and Information Systems in CI
Finding 1: Although the strengthening of CARE’s advocacy and
communications capacity was a key recommendation of the 2008 MTE,
CARE has not so far been able to implement this recommendation. This
partly reflects its lack of unrestricted funding, but this is only part of the explanation.
Many interviewees reflected that CARE, has never been especially strong in advocacy
and communications. Some members (for example CARE Austria) would like to
prioritize advocacy far more, for instance in relation to Gaza, but they had found that
advocacy proposals in such a politically sensitive area were often vetoed by CARE USA.
1. There is however a need to separate communications and advocacy, with
communications aimed at trying to raise CI’s profile, and advocacy aimed at altering
policy and behaviour of governments, aid donors, and others with power to achieve
change. In the survey, 54% of respondents felt that CI’s Emergency activities did not
receive sufficient media attention; and many felt that CI’s was the ‘poor relation’ in this
respect compared to its peer agencies. In answer to the question in the survey about
which were the most important areas for CI’s future humanitarian investment, the lowest
score went to humanitarian advocacy, which perhaps underlines a lack of confidence
amongst respondents about CI’s advocacy potential. CARE USA has no one based in
Washington able to lead humanitarian advocacy there on behalf of CI, and it appears to
be difficult to do this effectively from Atlanta.
This evaluation does not pretend to have been able to do justice to this very important
area, partly because the key question is really the extent to which CI is prepared to pool
more of its human and financial resources to achieve a higher collective profile, not just
for emergency work, but also for all its other activities. At least as regards SD1 we would

14
From Typology Review October 2011 Working Group Draft in Response to the April 2011 review report.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 19

recommend that CI should give a far higher priority to humanitarian advocacy at

country, region, and international levels. While this is partly a question of investment, it
is also once again a question of CI being able to be less risk-adverse and occasionally
risking the ire of key donors or particular Lead Members: a cautious, consensus
approach is unlikely either to influence decision takers or raise CI’s global profile.
As regards communications within CI, discussions around the first draft of this report,
the lack of information sharing between CI members was highlighted as an area of
concern. One indicator of this was the difficulty experienced in this evaluation of
securing accurate financial information from CIMs about their humanitarian income and
expenditure. Another problem raised by many CIMs was the difficulty they found in
getting accurate and timely information from COs about the exact outcomes of different
emergency programmes to which they had made significant financial contributions. This
issue was also highlighted in the 2009 Emergency Fundraising Strategy which argued
that ‘to compete successfully for public funds it is important that fundraisers have
access to rapid and high quality information, maximize media opportunities, and
maintain a website that has consistent and up to date information’ ERWG staff also
argued that there needed to be a far greater coherence in the fundraising messages that
appeared on Member websites at times of emergency.
There is also a need expressed for improved communication between CIMs both on
technical issues, especially focal areas discussed below, on advocacy, and on different
international fund-raising opportunities. This is a vital part of the long term
harmonization of systems that the CI Board and ExCom need to prioritize if CI is to
become more effective as a Confederation.  

5. Specific Findings

This section reviews progress on specific components of the strategy in more detail.

5.1 Gender

Finding 1: There is a commitment to incorporate gender issues more

strongly in CARE’s humanitarian work, but we found inconsistencies as to
what is required to make that commitment a reality in humanitarian
preparedness and response.

Vision 2020 sets out the organisation’s commitment to the empowerment of women, and
several interviewees spoke about the rebranding exercise the organization has gone
through particularly in relation to gender and in its use of the programme approach, to
work towards this. While there has been progress on gender the evidence from some of
the After Action Reviews suggests that gender is not as high profile as it might be (it is
not specifically analysed in the AAR’s for Haiti or Western Sumatra) or that more could
have been done to address women’s needs more distinctly (Myanmar).

An organisational gender policy sets out CI commitments, mechanisms and minimum

standards to promote gender equity. This includes making gender and power analysis
mandatory in programme design. The Gender in Emergencies Strategy was approved in
2010 – with a focus on women’s needs in humanitarian response - and the CARE
Emergency Toolkit and other guidance, provides information in applying gender analysis
to humanitarian contexts and emergency preparedness planning. Leadership for Gender
is held by the CEG Emergency Response Working Group and a review of minutes over
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 20

the last two years, indicate that gender has been a regular part of the group’s discussions
and focus. A framework for gender now appears in place, albeit quite late into the
strategy. However we found that there is still some confusion within CI on the issue of
gender vis a vis the organisation’s position to work towards the empowerment of women.

Examples where gender analysis has been applied to emergency response programmes
include the provision of mobile female medical personnel in the Pakistan 2009 Swat
crisis and in the 2010 floods – making medical care much more accessible for women. In
Myanmar a gender advisor had been recruited just before Cyclone Nargis struck allowing
gender to be incorporated from the beginning in assessment, data collection and
community representation. The 2010 performance metrics highlight the majority of
responses providing disaggregated data within the required timeframe.

However a number of interviews highlighted the need to ensure ground gained in this
respect was not lost, that there was a need for CI to translate its more general aspirations
with regard to gender into specific programmes that brought real benefits for women
and their families both in relation to immediate responses and longer term recovery
programmes.

Finding 2: Gender analysis and staff and partner capacities need to be

strengthened for humanitarian response to meet women’s needs. In the
Survey, when asked to rank areas for further investment respondents ranked gender
higher than advocacy and investment in the focus areas. As regards investment priorities
within gender, 73% of respondents thought context analysis and understanding the
impact of the emergency on gender were important. This highlights some of the
increasing challenges staff face dealing with the complexity of emergencies.

Following the 2010 Floods, the Pakistan CO adopted a quite different approach to
context and gender analysis: starting with women’s perceptions of the emergency and
their role in it. A detailed survey was carried out at household level that highlighted the
role women play as first responders to their families’ needs. It also highlighted what
women need from humanitarian agencies. The next challenge for the Pakistan
programme is how to apply these findings in programming.

72% thought training for staff important, and while gender is incorporated into the
new training programmes of ELMP and CHEOPS, country level training is also needed
for a wider number of personnel than are likely to attend these courses. There is evidence
that these activities are being built into some EPPs for both staff and partners.
Over a third of respondents highlighted other issues of concern in applying gender in
humanitarian response - falling into three broad categories of leadership and political
will, resources and staffing, and organisational culture (See Appendix 1 for detailed
comments)

Finding 3: Although there is a gathering structure around Gender in

Emergencies, there is limited field deployment of technical personnel.
Besides the Senior Specialist for Gender in Emergencies and the Gender in Emergencies
Taskforce, in theory there are personnel resources available for surge deployment and
technical advice in the field. RED currently holds 17 names of potential personnel for
deployment of which 7 are consultants. However as identified in the human resource
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 21

section, this depends on whether personnel are released and how long they are available
for.

It is not common practice for a gender advisor to be deployed at the onset of emergency
resulting in initial assessments missing the issues from a gender perspective. The value
of deploying a gender specialist early on was verified by respondents who thought that
on the job coaching and advice particularly where personnel are new, in the height of an
emergency would be really helpful. It is also not clear how the mandatory element of
CI’s policy on inclusion of gender in programme design is enforced in the event that a
proposal is developed with inadequate disaggregated assessment data or insufficient
consideration of the gender dimensions of the programme design. Each of the focus
sectors incorporate gender into the sector strategies for emergencies however.

Finding 4: Advocacy around women’s rights in emergencies is a topic that

could play to CI’s strengths.

Several respondents highlighted this as an area where CI could carve a much stronger
niche based on its programme approach, and work with women as a thematic area. This
would have the advantage of bringing emergency response and the longer term focus of
the organisation more closely together although it would not be appropriate in every
context to take a public profile on advocacy on women’s rights. Any advocacy would need
to be grounded in programme experience, but this kind of activity would be a natural
evolution from an approach that is seeking to make women more clearly the
organisation’s constituency. CARE already works in a range of different alliances and
partnerships that give it a strong foundation to be an effective lever, with others, for
donors and where appropriate Governments and Local Authorities. Although not
specifically stated in reference to gender, several peers suggested that CARE needed to
raise its voice more assertively recognising that when this does happen, it is well
considered, well founded and welcomed amongst colleagues. It was not possible in this
evaluation to verify the impact on beneficiaries of the efforts to mainstream gender. This
reflects a broader challenge regarding the organisation’s ability to demonstrate results
and the quality of programmes in general at the beneficiary level.

Conclusion
The commitment to gender appears clear in the guidance provided for staff in CARE’s
Emergency Toolkit, and in the organisation’s policy on gender. As with other issues,
operationalising this remains the challenge though a start has been made. There is
potential for CARE to build on its strengths as an organization with a global commitment
to women’s empowerment rather than focusing on gender mainstreaming alone. CARE
should build on this in emergencies, making women its primary constituency, building a
much stronger niche area in emergency response around this. Emergency response
should be focused on meeting women’s needs as the priority. As with other elements of
programming, such efforts would need to form part of EPP and annual planning rather
than be addressed in the height of the emergency but the benefits would be a stronger
linkage with CARE’s longer term work and a stronger potential advocacy platform.

While in the first phase of an emergency CI needs to target the whole population, once
immediate humanitarian needs had been met CI should focus on delivering more
targeted and effective programmes to women (this would not prevent working with men
but would involve reframing the starting point) and on providing more technical
packages with women as the end user (although family members would probably benefit
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 22

too). This approach would require much deeper gender analysis and a perspective that
starts with what women need as a vulnerable group (assuming that has been
demonstrated so in assessment) rather than coming to this point as an afterthought once
programmes have been designed: this is how gender is often addressed across the
humanitarian sector, not only in CI.

5.2 Human Resources

Human resource capacity has been considered in terms of three aspects across this
section and the section on focal sectors. These are capacity to deploy (numbers,
procedures and processes); capacity to deliver (skills and abilities) and capacity to
manage (this is particularly referenced in relation to technical oversight of what CARE
delivers in the field).

CARE’s capacity building sub strategy recognizes the broad range of elements that
contribute to strengthening institutional capacity to deliver SD1. These incorporate the
development of staff skills, knowledge and practices to the CO level; the provision of a
training curriculum to incorporate a standardized and clear set of priorities, the
establishment of an effective emergency roster and the focus on core sectors.

At the core of the analysis reflected here, is that there is a systemic problem as regards
HR within the organization and that a comprehensive effort will be required to address
this.

Finding 1: SD1 rightly prioritises an intention to provide operational

support to preparedness and response activities in the field(with a specific
emphasis on staff deployment). This additional human resource capacity is
expressed under several different objectives of the revised strategy for 2009
onwards. However CARE has not been able to deploy staff sufficiently to
meet all objectives of the strategy

87% of survey respondents considered SD1 was broadly appropriate with some
highlighting the commitment expressed in SD1 to humanitarian preparedness and
response as well as improved internal coordination to delivering humanitarian
preparedness and response, as key aspects of why the content of SD1, as a strategy, was
appropriate.

In relation to progress on emergency preparedness - the last of five Regional Emergency

Coordinators was appointed in 2010 providing a regional capacity for preparedness work
as well as support to emergency responses where needed. Delays in filling all five
positions relate to the availability of funding. Several regions have now completed
emergency preparedness planning in all COs, and the effectiveness of this planning
process has been discussed above.

97% of survey respondents and the majority of interviewees, highlighted blockages to the
functioning of the emergency roster (RED), CARE’s principle first phase deployment
tool. This is in contrast to the majority referred to above who thought SD1 in its intent
broadly appropriate. 77% of survey respondents thought this was due to there being
insufficient people available for deployment, 72% thought that managers did not release
personnel. Other blockages included deployed staff not having sufficient technical skills
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 23

or knowledge of the organisation to be able to respond to requirements in the early

stages of an emergency. An example of this is that the performance metrics for 2010
show only 22% of the target on timely staff deployment to have been met.

An issue repeated highlighted was the short term period of release when people were
able to be deployed.

In Pakistan 14 temporary staff were deployed for between 1 and four weeks15 during the
first month of the 2010 floods, covering key positions such as Team Leader, Logistics
Management and Emergency Management. A further 11 CI and LM advisory and
management visits were received by the CO during the same period.

Whilst the inclusion of a roster as an objective in SD1 seems logical, a majority view
highlighted a loss of confidence in CI’s ability to mobilise personnel with the requisite
skills rom this roster for either first phase or second phases of an emergency response.
The section below addresses the effectiveness of RED further. There appears no specific
tool, such as the RED, to address the needs of second phase human resource planning –
an issue well illustrated in the Haiti Earthquake AAR.

Peer agencies confirm that an ability to fulfil commitment to the humanitarian mandate
lies in having a deployable capacity for first phase capability. Save the Children and
Oxfam each have current capacity of around 80 emergency response personnel deployed
on a cost recovery basis (although this is not an essential requirement for deployment).
Even where a response is mainly through local partners, we found that COs still require
technical support, and assistance in monitoring and evaluation, fundraising/proposal
writing, contract management, programme support and media and communications.

Finding 2: SD1 reflects a further intent to ensure technical capacity is

available to the field to promote CARE’s leadership role in the three focal
sectors (with Senior Advisors for Food Security, Shelter and WASH
appointed between 2007 and 2008). Although there has been progress on
this intent it is only partially achieved.

Challenges lie in stretching few resources across a large global programme portfolio and
in trying to address field advisory needs alongside more strategic leadership roles.
Currently emergency advisory capacity available to CI in its focal sectors and
mainstreaming areas includes the following:

Senior Field Specialist16 Cluster Planned

Sector Advisor Advisor or
Advisor alliance
secondee
Food security17 1 1 1

15Documented from the Pakistan CO Staffing Annexe, dated September 22nd 2011. – the start date
of the emergency is taken from the launch date the UN appeal i..e. August 11th 2010. Health and
shelter advisors were deployed on 20th September 2011.
16Geographical -e.g. regional advisor or thematic e.g. accountability advisor
17CARE UK, CARE Austria, CARE Australia, and CARE Canada have positions related to food security in
addition to those described above funded by CARE USA. These positions participate in global strategy
development but are dedicated to the members’ own initiatives and are not as a matter of course available
for deployment.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 24

Shelter 1 2 1 1
WASH 1 1 Closed 1 4
position
Gender 1
Accountability 1 1
Disaster risk
reduction
Logistics 1

However this table does not really indicate a real deployment capacity: there are many
reasons why the staff concerned will not in fact be able to deploy for emergency
response, not least because they may already be deployed There appears no dedicated
disaster risk reduction or humanitarian logistical capacity available to CI through its
Lead Members18 or CIMs for these functions or within CEG. Whilst in principle
technical capacity is available to field operations for each of the core and other
mainstreaming sectors (as well as for a non core sector such as health), this remains on a
cost recovery and availability basis in the majority of cases19. A key issue identified in
discussions on the capacity building needs of the organization, is the importance of
turning ‘paper to practice’. Thus while there is technical guidance included within the
CARE Emergency Toolkit, CI is finding it far more challenging to provide the support
needed to the field to turn this into quality programmes that deliver results.

We conclude that one global advisor for a sector is insufficient to achieve an effective
accompaniment, and oversight role across the range of countries in which emergency
response or preparedness planning is required. It is also insufficient to cover the scope of
a post dealing with field advisory requirements whilst also leading the organisation in
the establishment of CARE’s reputation within global fora, and in the development of its
sector strategy and policies. Whilst some sectors have started to address this shortfall of
personnel, resources still appear to be spread far too thinly.

In addition to their team 80 HSPs Oxfam GB employs the following Advisors, based in
HQ: this does not include Advisors based in different Regional Offices:
5 Public Health Engineering Advisors
3 Public Health Promotion Advisors
5 Emergency Food Security and Livelihoods Advisors (one is a Social Protection Advisor)

Finding 3: RED has been the principle tool for mobilising resources through
the organisation for first phase deployment and is viewed to have failed in
that task despite the significant efforts of the Human Resource Working
Group.
RED was launched in December 2009 to replace the CARE Emergency Response Team
(CERT) and individual rosters of some CI members, following a two year investment by
the CI HR Surge Reference Group. It was re-launched in May 2011 following widespread

18 There remains a capacity within CARE USA for procurement and service contracting within its
Administration and Information Technology section but this does not necessarily reflect a capacity for
humanitarian procurement particularly for technical sectors such as WASH, shelter and food security.
CARE Netherlands, as the Lead Member for Disaster Risk Reduction provides technical advice to COs but
has limited resources with which to do this and no dedicated senior advisor due to lack of funds.
19 The Field WASH advisor is funded under a contract for advisory inputs to Haiti and Pakistan ( and

therefore his time is ‘free’ to those COs) with leverage to provide advice to other country programmes on a
cost recovery basis.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 25

recognition that it had not worked during those two years of its operation. In 2009 14%
of deployments were drawn from RED. Currently there is no overall tracking mechanism
held at the CEG level that summarises which global deployments are RED based
deployments making it difficult to assess its use across CI. However 59% of survey
respondents and the majority of those interviewed indicated that although decisions to
initiate a humanitarian response were timely, operationalising that decision was in
general slow, in part because human resource capacity was lacking.

In the re-launch of RED, the intention was to balance the establishment of a roster with
an improved system to manage people by providing a tiered deployment capacity with
closer liaison between roster members and team leaders on the RED with the
responsibility for their specialist group. Three tiers of deployment capacity were
identified with tiers relating to immediacy of deployment capacity and length of stay (i.e.
the intention is second tier personnel would stay for between one to three months or
longer). 20 40% of survey respondents thought the functioning of RED had slightly
improved or improved (4.8%) over the last few years with 60% remaining neutral or
indicating it had declined in functioning. The majority of interviews were more candid
regarding their view of its failure.

Minority views were expressed that the RED had not failed since it had not been tested
and that although RED had not deployed people, by other means, people had been
deployed to the field nonetheless. This evaluation questions why RED was not tested in
the Horn of Africa response, which might have provided a good opportunity to review
these new modalities and concludes that the reason for this was lack of sufficient
dedicated human resource capacity to implement the roster effectively.

A majority view was expressed that the lack of release of personnel on RED by
management is a critical blockage to its success. There is no institutional policy
governing corporate responsibilities in emergencies to release personnel for deployment.
Another issue raised was that it is difficult to redeploy donor funded personnel. It is
assumed that staff on the RED would be personnel who are at liberty to relocate either
because there is flexibility in the donor contract or because these roles are funded in a
different way. However we are also adding a recommendation that all donors to CI’s long
term programmes should be informed about CI’s commitment to respond to
emergencies, and should be warned that should an emergency happen, timetables for
implementation may have to be re-negotiated (See Rec 7 below).

Several respondents felt that leadership at the senior level in the form of a policy or
communiqué would help galvanise support behind RED.

20
It is anticipated that 15 – 20 personnel will populate tier 1, up to 150 tier 2 and a broader base for tier 3
staff who are likely to have had either less CARE experience of less exposure to emergencies. Tier 2 is
broken out into 19 functions, and each function has a technical specialist who is responsible for maintaining
communication with database members and responsible for recommending technical personnel for the
database
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 26

As of September 2011 the RED database currently comprises:

Total Consultants Members CEG 21

Core 4 0 3 1 Canada
WASH 13 12 1 0 US
Safety and
security 4 3 1 0 US
Shelter 13 9 4 0 Canada
Quality and UK,US,Australia
accountability 16 2 14 0 Canada
Canada,UK,
Psychosocial 17 2 15 0 Australia, US
Australia, US
Proposal writing 16 7 8 1 UK, Canada
Australia,
Project manager 8 4 4 0 US,Canada
Germany, UK,
Communications 12 4 6 2 US, Canada
Information UK, US,
management 15 7 6 2 Australia
Health 9 7 2 0 US
Team
leader/ACD 32 17 10 5 US, Canada
Advocacy 2 1 1 0 US
Food security 9 6 3 0 Canada, US,
Assessment and
coordination 5 3 2 0 US
Canada,
Gender in Australia,
emergencies 16 7 8 1 US
Logistics 23 15 7 1 Canada, US
Procurement 3 1 2 0 US
Telecomms 1 0 1 0 US
Human
resources 6 4 2 0 US
Finance 10 4 5 1 US

In terms of the effectiveness of the above, a small but strong basis for the core leadership
roles -critical roles in any emergency response - are populated with senior internal staff
from CEG and a CI member. However their investment is likely to be short term and they

21
Refers to which members are supplying personnel to the RED for each function, it does not denote
leadership of the function
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 27

are few in number to guarantee deployability. The table clearly indicates also a
significant gap in capacity in some of the most critical functions for first phase delivery
i.e. technical personnel, logistics and management with consultants comprising between
50% or more of personnel available in these categories. In many emergencies this is
likely to mean, that unless consultants are working on a retained basis, CI will have to
compete with others to secure services.

A second risk to using consultants for first phase response is the absence of a familiarity
with the organisation’s learning and constantly evolving technical and managerial ‘DNA’
that defines CARE’s offer. Without this, there is a risk the organisation fails to mobilise
the weight of its cumulative global experience to deliver a reliable and recognisable
CARE response.

Finding 5: Different views were expressed as to the reason why RED does
not work, some of which are outlined in the above section. However a
consistent theme appears to be lack of application of the protocols for
approaching people on RED resulting in duplication of effort.

The net result appears to be that individual managers, because of lack of confidence in
RED, spend considerable time sourcing personnel for recruitment, at key moments when
they should be focused on leading the emergency response. Commitment to RED
appears confused, perhaps related to the lack of confidence and trust in it expressed in
multiple interviews. Although there are currently 4 members with representatives
dedicating up to 25% of their time to RED and emergency recruitment they also have
other priorities. The lack of dedicated staff to manage and profile RED may be a
contributory factor in the lack of its take up along with the fact that deployment when on
the RED is currently not mandatory. Where an emergency response is complex, as with
the Horn of Africa, there are a number of stakeholders involved in deployment and
recruitment. Whilst the protocol to govern this is set out in the CARE Emergency Toolkit
(CET), this is not always followed with different people seeing it as their role to identify,
approach and secure staff for an emergency. Duplication of requests to staff to deploy are
common. Some delays are related to the pace of recruitment with a seeming challenge
for the organization to move swiftly for an emergency response. In addition the absence
of a centralised technology for recruitment makes it difficult to provide a rapid and
accurate information flow to stakeholders, and also means time is wasted approaching
staff who are unavailable. This problem is now being addressed with the idea that team
leaders will know their group of specialists and keep in touch with changes in their
circumstances.

Finding 6: The absence of a comprehensive humanitarian human resource

strategy to address the wider human resource requirements of CI in
emergencies contributes to a lack of overall planning regarding human
resource needs.
A more strategic approach to human resource needs for emergency response will be
needed to address the blockages to deployment of staff on RED, as well as the gaps in
second phase personnel coverage and beyond.
94% of survey respondents considered that there was a need for more emergency
personnel with 83% wanting those staff based in the CO, Regional Management Units, or
alternative locations. Only 17% wanted additional staff to be placed with Lead Members
or CEG.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 28

A majority of interviewees further stressed the challenges evident in staffing teams after
the initial support received at the beginning of the emergency. Problems were identified
in people’s knowledge of the organisation and technical approach. Various reviews over
the last year have indicated the need for further human resources although these have
not always been prioritised. Retention of senior personnel at the CO level, especially
senior local staff experienced in EPP, DRR, and emergency response, also appears to be
critical in retaining the organisational capability to deliver high quality humanitarian
programmes: we recommend that all LMs review whether their salary, career
progression, and incentive systems all encourage the required level of staff retention.
Beyond financial investment there is also a need for much greater ownership by
members of their contribution to the human resource pool required for high quality
emergency response programmes. This revisits the issue of the organizational culture,
and the need for greater commitment, and action regarding the interdependent model

It was striking in Niger how many senior humanitarian staff working for such agencies as
World Vision, Plan, and Oxfam, had previously worked for CARE Niger. Currently CARE
appears to be seen as an excellent source of experience and training, but not necessarily
the preferred agency for more senior national staff.

A comprehensive human resource strategy would provide a way to address these various
issues but would need to be owned by the organization corporately not just by those
active in its humanitarian work. It will need to relate to development based staff (and
their progression through the organization on the basis of humanitarian experience
gained and their ability to provide leadership in this area as well as others). It will also
need to relate to what humanitarian based personnel need and would therefore need to
link closely with the capacity development sub strategy that provides a comprehensive
approach to the development of humanitarian capacity across the organization.

Conclusions on Human Resources:

All internal interviewees highlighted staffing as the key issue both for short term
deployments and for the mid-term stage from relief to recovery. The current roster is not
well populated with CARE personnel, is not well used, and not backed up by a
comprehensive institutional commitment to the humanitarian mandate. Many
respondents highlighted leadership as a core issue - with a lack of senior level leadership
or confidence to push back on the membership as needed as well as to provide the
direction teams need in type 2 and 3 emergencies.

Since RED has yet to prove itself as a worthwhile endeavor for the organisation
despite considerable investment, skills and commitment from staff who have sought to
strengthen it, a decision is needed whether this resource is worth pursuing however
given costs expended on it thus far and its current poor performance. This evaluation
does not make a counter recommendation to that of the February 2011 review of RED
but does advise a time limit on its further investment of one year against indicators of its
use22 (numbers deployed compared to coverage of needs for deployment) and efficiency
(time deployed). If it is to continue, dedicated fulltime resources are required to

22
Requiring CEG to establish a more robust tracking system of deployments called for during the CCG and
deployments achieved within the first week of a response using RED.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 29

manage23 and deliver it as well as senior level leadership to ensure blockages are
resolved. A CI policy to guide its use and priority within the organisation would
strengthen this. This needs to be matched by rigorous adherence to procedures and
protocols in its application that avoids the duplication and confusion currently apparent
in its use.

On its own, RED is likely to fail, as it cannot address the range of issues arising around
human resources for response. We therefore recommend that CI adopts a more
comprehensive humanitarian human resource strategy that is linked to
professional development and progression within CARE more widely. This
would mean that deployment in emergency response becomes a prerequisite for
progression in other areas of CARE’s work. Such an approach would support the
crossover of development focused staff into the humanitarian domain (potentially
strengthening programme transitions) and expose a much wider proportion of CARE’s
strong human resource base to the humanitarian aspects of its mandate. It would set out
priorities for additional surge capacity with a recommendation from this evaluation that
that should focus on leadership, technical advisory response capacity in focus sectors
only and a professional logistics function. These functions should also become the
primary focus of RED prioritisation and utilisation (if the roster is to be continued) for
the foreseeable future.

Towards a Permanent Rapid Response Team

All the analysis above supports the recent proposal for a CARE Rapid Response Team,
with people working from their own home bases, and financed and managed by a core
group of LM’s, but able to deploy at short notice. This paper only came out at a late stage
of this evaluation, and we have not been able to discuss how the transition between the
RED and the proposed RRT would be managed. However we strongly support the
idea of the RRT and see it as offering an opportunity for all members to
increase their financial commitment to SD1 without having to increase their
funding for the CEG, as it should be possible for LMs to seek funding from their own
governments and other donors for RRT members based out of their countries of
operation. This recommendation is offered with a significant caveat that the underlying
issues that the RED has encountered need to be dealt with if these are not to reappear
with a Rapid Response Team. This includes: timely availability and deployability of the
best staff to deliver quality programmes in the field, greater acceptance that RRT
members are not held back from deployment for any reason, and technical oversight to
ensure consistency of programming. This also involves standardizing packages of
remuneration and terms and conditions to the extent possible.

5.3 Focus Sectors

For CI to be a leader in its chosen sectors it will be necessary to set out a much clearer
profile to what its leadership consists of, and this in turn requires some level of
consistency and technical sector oversight in programme implementation in terms of
approach, content and quality. Establishing a clearer niche in each area may be useful.
CI must also become more proficient in documenting the results of programmes and
demonstrate those results for communications, profile, and donor engagement. As such

23
RED requires roughly 25% of the time from one staff member in each of the 4 members involved, plus
one full time post in CEG.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 30

this will require a greater data management capacity than is currently demonstrated
within the organization.

A minority of staff interviewed believe that the proposed focus on women, in line with
CIs 2020 vision to empower women, as discussed above, should result in a realignment
of the focus sectors to include reproductive health, since this is as a core issue for
women. Whilst the evaluation recommends remaining focused on the core areas already
selected, this should not prevent closer alignment of this issue with women’s emergency
needs either in countries where CI already has health programmes or where it is able to
form partnerships with other health providers in order to work with others to meet
women’s needs comprehensively without necessarily trying to provide for all those needs
directly.

Finding 1: The selection of three focus areas appears to be accepted by the

majority of personnel providing flexibility can be retained to take account of
local context and CO strengths. There appears to be confusion what this
means in practice.The focus sector review proposed engagement of emergency
programmes in at least two or more of the focus sectors and two additional areas of CO
competency. This evaluation finds that the scope of that recommendation is too broad.
In particular we feel that food security and DRR should be seen more clearly as wider
cross-cutting issues requiring a strong organizational commitment, and one not limited
to the Emergencies strategy: a detailed recommendation is made at the end of this
section.

In the survey 87% of respondents and the majority of interviewees thought that the focus
sectors strategy was appropriate or partially appropriate, although as noted above, a
minority believe that health is an important sector omitted from the selection and
relevant to CI because it has long term health programmes and contest the focus on
shelter as CI does not have long term programmes. 24. In spite of this disagreement we
conclude that CI should continue with the current sectors and not expand them bearing
in mind its tendency, noted above, to stretch too few resources over many areas.

Clearly some members, such as CARE USA and CARE Canada have sector capacity in
certain areas outside the current choice of focus sectors, but they either may not always
be in a position to provide this to emergency responses to the level and scale required or
if they do provide support in such sectors it may encourage a CO to spread itself too
thinly in a response. We believe CEG should have a greater say in deciding the overall
sectors for response based on the overall collective capacity of CI and not on the capacity
of any one member. For success in this respect CI will have to focus far more on
operationalising the interdependent model and offer more collective support to the
agreed focus sectors.

However 57% of survey respondents thought that CARE had been unsuccessful in
becoming known for its focus areas with a variety of reasons given for this including
engagement with too broad a range of sectors and un-clarity at the CO level of what the
focus of CARE’s technical interventions should be. Shelter was seen to be more

24
CARE has had long term programmes on school and health centre construction and as such could be
seen to have long term programming in aspects of work covered by shelter. However it has broadly not been
involved in household level shelter construction outside emergency programming.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 31

successful in becoming known but WASH was cited as a failure to be a leader due to
inadequate staff resources.

Two different approaches to focus sectors

A key lesson identified in the After Action Review for the Pakistan 2010 floods response
was that the programme was too ambitious (covering shelter, WASH, food security,
health and psychosocial support )for its complexity (in being delivered through new
partners in new programming areas). It was felt that this may have compromised quality
and that future responses should focus on fewer sectors. Despite this the programme was
estimated to have reached 1m25 beneficiaries and to have delivered a high level of
accountability to beneficiaries. The lesson learned has been applied in the SIND 2011
flood response.

Following the Peru 2007 earthquake, the CARE CO decided to take a programme
approach to its response using CARE’s intervention in one sector, shelter, as a model
and evidence-base for advocacy to influence the Government response. Working with
experienced partners, CARE was able to influence government policy on risk reduction
in construction guidelines whilst also delivering shelter to 164 households. It is difficult
to estímate the indirect benefits in terms of numbers of lives and livelihoods saved if
these construction guidelines are properly applied but it is assumed that this would be
significant.

This illustrates how in the case of Pakistan an over-ambitious emergency programme led
to challenges in its implementation, while in Peru advocacy was used to scale up the
programme impact.

Geographical focus of CO programmes.

There appear to be limited guidelines regarding the geographical focus of CO
programmes. This has not been explored extensively within this evaluation, but field
visit data would suggest that geographic focus is as important in complex
responses as sector focus from an effectiveness and efficiency perspective. It
is difficult to target small number of beneficiaries for household level benefits –
particularly some time after the immediate crisis, amongst a large impoverished and still
vulnerable population, and some interviewees also suggested that sometimes CI had to
be prepared to undertake a multi-sectoral intervention in a particular area, especially
when it already had previous experience of working in that area. It is also expensive to
provide the logistical, technical and monitoring oversight or delivery necessary across a
wide geographical area for small numbers of beneficiaries. Ultimately the decision on
where to work, needs to be guided by a combination of criteria regarding unaddressed
need, and potential for positive impact assessed at the CO level but to do this requires
the support of the membership and CEG . There appear some innovative but as yet
nascent programming alliances in Pakistan that have the potential to contribute much
more coherent coverage to affected populations.
25
In: CARE Flood Relief and Recovery in Pakistan July 2010 to July 2011 supplied by the CO.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 32

Finding 2: Field operations seem to vary in quality; and at present there is

too little requirement for technical oversight of programme designs and
delivery.

The picture on programme quality is mixed although overall interviews suggested that
staff did not think programme quality was consistently achieved. There seems to be an
absence of independent technical evaluations at least of the more recent emergencies
although provision for such is made under the Humanitarian Accountability Framework
(HAF). Some of this appears to relate to staff capacity - 32% of survey respondents
suggested that staff lacking technical skills was one of the blockages to successful RED
functioning. The Pakistan After Action Review highlights that initial deployments
included generalists until specialists arrived two and three months into the operation, at
which point programme designs had already been completed. The Haiti After Action
Review 2011 similarly highlights deficiencies, one example being the absence of
knowledge of Sphere standards amongst some, though not all, international personnel.

Both the PERAC and the HERAC appeared to provide valuable oversight on behalf of the
membership for these two major responses, providing strong strategic leadership on
some of the complex issues the CO was dealing with. There appears clear value to these
structures. However these did not incorporate a technical assessment – though
reference was made to the technical issues but no technical global advisor was included
in the groups and in both instances came late into the emergency response. The place of
earlier deployment of these structures and of the incorporation of real time evaluations
or of global advisors into the ERACs might provide closer technical oversight earlier on
in the response, which can rectify problems more quickly when identified.

Examples were given where technical capacity was clearly strong and partner expertise is
cited in the Peru case study as the reason why CI and others were able to influence
government construction guidelines to include risk reduction elements. Partner local
knowledge was also important in maintaining a secure operating environment for
Pakistan’s 2010 flood response, and the Benin flood response in 2010 combined CI
technical staff expertise deployed early on (WASH and shelter) with implementation
through partners.

Staff capacities, particularly in mega-emergencies are challenges for all organisations but
perhaps the more important issue facing CIis the extent to which it institutionalises its
technical standards. Whilst there are some clear ways this is done for certain issues -
e.g. the gender policy and HAF, it is not clear that this carries over into technical areas.

We conclude that technical oversight is not seen as a sufficiently high priority within the
organization. CI needs to be in a position to provide its best technical staff to the CO
whether or not the CO recognizes the need for this. The decision for when to provide this
technical input should come from the CO ideally but where there is a failure to provide a
realistic capacity assessment, the HD should implement ‘step-aside’ procedures not only
at the management level but also at the technical level.

Although sector advisors are involved in programme design and development, and in
field visits to support in country technical personnel, there appears no requirement for
technical oversight of interventions. This is unusual in comparison to peer organisations
where most programmes submitted to a donor are reviewed by technical advisors first. A
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 33

technical profile that describes CI’s specific approach in particular sectors, without
limiting CO flexibility in interpreting that approach to their context, would ensure a
more consistent baseline from which to deliver a global offer in humanitarian response.
Technical specialists are accountable to their management line currently but not
specifically to the global advisor and there is no requirement for CO to utilize the global
advisor. A matrix management line for technical guidance and oversight, to the global
advisor would be one way to address this gap. This would however place quite a burden
on the current small number of global advisors without more resources at this level.

Finding 3: Although there is a desire to deliver smooth transitions,

particularly towards long term programming, this is an area that presents
challenges, particularly given the constraints of donor funding .

Interview respondents highlighted the wish to develop better transition programming

and a majority view that it is in the recovery phase that CI can really play to its strengths.

The Myanmar 2008 Cyclone Nargis response presented the CO with a number of
challenges due to its lack of preparedness for such a major emergency. The initial
response phase was felt to be ineffective due to lack of experience in first phase response
and other constraints. During the second and third phase of the programme, it was felt
the team could build on their development programme competencies delivering a much
stronger programme resulting in CARE Myanmar being ranked as number three out of
13 implementing partners by the WFP in terms of efficiency and contribution to WFP’s
overall Cyclone Nargis programme.

The CARE Emergency Toolkit has a recently updated section on transitions which is seen
as extremely useful though they are yet to be tested. There is general agreement on the
principle of good transitions with examples of efforts to achieve this drawn from the
Pakistan 2010 Floods response. However an obstacle to this is both planning time for
considering the longer term in the height of the emergency and the difficulties of funding
the process of transition: the Haiti AAR also highlights deficiencies in CI’s planning of
this transition. In addition it is not yet clear who should lead on ensuring these
guidelines are implemented. In CEG’s oversight role, it would seem appropriate that this
is one area that it should lead on ensuring that the programme strategy reflect transition
as a core element.

Peer agencies have initiated the deployment of personnel with that longer term overview
(IFRC deploys recovery personnel on its Field Assessment and Coordination Team, its
first phase assessment tool, where possible). This may not always be a smooth process,
but does set down a marker for the next stage of programming. The provision of the
Emergency Programme Strategy also allows for this longer term thinking potentially but
may require resource personnel to support this. The EPPs provide an opportunity for a
more considered view of the linkages between any planned for emergency response and
recovery programme with the COs longer term development programme.

Finding 4: CI is well positioned reputationally within global fora like the

clusters to influence humanitarian policy and practice. However this high
profile needs to be supported by consistent high quality delivery in the field
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 34

CI is an active participant of WASH, Food Security and Shelter global cluster discussions
and chairs the SCHR currently. It is also a member of the health cluster and is an active
member of the IAWG on reproductive health in emergencies. It also has a leadership role
in accountability work in a range of fora, most recently collaborating in the shelter and
WASH clusters respectively to promote improved accountability both between cluster
members and to beneficiaries of those members.

In addition it is an active member of Sphere, HAP, IASC, Interaction and ICVA and has
liaison offices in New York for the UN and elsewhere. It has worked with others on the
UN Humanitarian Reform agenda, humanitarian access and women and peace issues.
Active participation in these fora and on these topics has allowed CI to be seen as
influential in humanitarian advocacy although it was beyond the scope of this evaluation
to assess the actual impact of these activities. However the scope and range of issues
covered by CI did not seem to be fully appreciated by its staff. 55% of survey respondents
thought that CI is slow to scale up its advocacy capacity during emergencies in part
because it seems reluctant to have a voice, lacks resources and investment.

Although advocacy on specific emergency issues is different from the core global fora in
which CI participates, the two are linked in the sense that CI’s reputation at global level
will influence whether others will partner with the organisation at CO level. Conversely if
CI does not participate in significant sector or generic advocacy initiatives at the CO
level, this will have a negative impact on perceptions of the agency by others in these
global fora. Peer agencies confirmed CI’s valued participation in a variety of different
fora at all levels, several commented that they either did not hear CIs voice assertively
enough or that its contribution was smaller than expected given the size and expertise of
the organization: for instance CI provides 1 part time staff member to the WASH cluster
surge deployment team. Of the 125 deployments and 25 000 mission days covered by
this standby team last year, CI provided 4 deployments.

Finding 5: Though CI has considerable expertise on Disaster Risk Reduction

(DRR) in different country programmes, it has yet to succeed in
establishing itself in the eyes of donors and peer agencies as a lead agency
on this issue. It was notable that references to progamme activities, although
implemented within core focus sectors were often programmes that in general would be
seen as stand-alone programmes, for example establishing early warning systems etc.
Therefore we recommend that more clarity is provided on what is meant by
mainstreaming risk reduction, with guidance given as to what constitutes stand alone
programming and what constitutes mainstreaming risk reduction in each sector like
Shelter or WASH. This would enable CARE to establish a risk reduction agenda very
firmly within its technical sectors and if properly communicated, this should in the long
term attract additional donor finance.26 All humanitarian interventions beyond the
immediate life-saving relief phase should be required to pass a DRR ‘test’ on the lines of :
are the people & partners with whom we have worked now better able than before to
deal with disasters that they may face?’ This will require a thorough examination of
technical interventions particularly at the recovery stage, (and links to the impact
monitoring proposed above) and greater understanding of risk reduction as a
mainstreaming rather than stand alone activity. This commitment would also provide an
opportunity for CI to build partners’ DRR capacity between emergencies, and to seek

26
DRR was for instance prioritized in DFID’s recent Humanitarian Response Review (2010)
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 35

more donor funding for this purpose. It was beyond the scope of this evaluation to
explore how risk reduction might be incorporated into CARE’s development work but
this would be an invaluable opportunity to bridge the long term work with programmes
that resulted in less exposure to risks during emergencies.

5.4 CARE’s Use of Partners in Emergency Response

Finding 1: . Useful lessons came out of CARE Canada’s recent Partnership Review
(2011) especially the need to develop systems that work to the needs of more rapid
contract management and greater risk taking with partners in emergencies than the
current development orientated processes allow. Other key lessons are summarized in
the box below:

 
  Putting  the  right  structures  in  place  –  accepting  the  time  and  transaction  costs  of  
partnership  is  essential.  There  is  a  need  to  put  in  place  dedicated  human  resources  at  the  
global  level  and  at  the  country/field  level  to  support  the  identification,  development  and  
nurturing  of  partnerships.    
 Linking  Partnership  and  emergency  preparedness  planning  –  local  partners  need  to  be  
identified  in  advance  of  a  crisis  and  these  relationships  need  to  be  nurtured  before  a  crisis  
hits.      
 Capacity  building  –  in  order  to  be  a  partner  of  choice,  CARE  must  prioritize  capacity  building  
with  partners  both  before  and  following  a  crisis.    Identifying  funding  for  capacity  building  
will  continue  to  be  an  important  challenge  for  fostering  strong  partnerships.    
 When  to  use  partnerships  in  emergencies  –  while  it  is  clear  that  partnership  is  an  essential  
tool  in  emergency  response,  there  may  be  circumstances  where  it  is  more  efficient  or  
appropriate  to  deliver  assistance  directly.    Ensuring  that  we  meet  the  immediate  life-­‐saving  
needs  of  those  affected  by  a  crisis  should  always  be  at  the  centre  of  our  decision  making  in  
this  regard.    
.

The issue of the use of partners in emergency response has recently come into
prominence as a result of the problems encountered as a result of CARE trying to scale
up its response through partners following the 2010 Pakistan floods This experience may
influenced the majority of respondents to the survey (55%) who do not believe that CI
has been effective in its use of partners for the emergency response.

The comments made by respondents to the survey support the key finding of the
Partnership Review quoted above – that CI has experienced more success in
implementing emergency programmes through partners where there are long-standing
and effective relationships in place - not just in emergencies but also in implementing
development projects. But other survey respondents felt that CI’s systems to provide
funding to partners ineffective were still too slow and needed to be streamlined.
Interviewees tended to endorse the Partnership Review finding that in some highly risk-
prone countries, even when there is good partner capacity, CI should aim to retain some
operational capacity as part of its EPP – both because a really large Emergency like the
2010 Floods in Pakistan can be overwhelming for partners, and because in many
countries emergencies often hit more remote areas where no partners are available.
However in line with CI’s long term vision, working with partners is a necessary part of
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 36

humanitarian response : the real question is the scale of investment in capacity building
and systems development that CI is able to commit to partners so that they are able to
respond effectively, and on an appropriate scale, to emergencies.

The CO in Niger is encouraging its national staff to form new local NGOs as it phases out
from long term development programmes, and plans to use these partners for future
emergency responses. These new NGOs will have the advantage of being run by people
with a good knowledge of CARE’s systems and HAF. The long-term problem for CARE
and other INGOs following similar partner-led emergency strategies is that all donors
are now increasingly looking for ‘value for money’, and in this respect CI can seem
relatively expensive compared to local NGOs. 27 This move towards direct funding of
local NGOs is a logical result of the long term capacity building work undertaken by CI
and many other INGOs, but it does suggest that the overall context in which CI operates
could change quite rapidly in the coming years, and CI will need to adjust to this.

5.5 Accountability

Finding 1: CI has been successful in incorporating accountability

mechanisms increasingly into humanitarian response and as such the
revised SD1 seems to have put the right emphasis on maintaining those
gains but focusing further quality efforts on gender and transitions in the
second phase of the strategy.
In referencing accountability above, this finding speaks to accountability in terms of the
mechanisms established with beneficiaries. It does not reflect on the technical results
and impact of the programmes i.e. the quality aspects of accountability as these have
been dealt with under the focus sector section that identifies a weakness institutionally in
this respect.

78.3% of survey respondents thought that CI had been successful in increasing quality
and accountability in humanitarian response. This view was echoed in interviews where
respondents thought success was based on good leadership of the organisation’s work on
accountability and CARE was positioned now at the forefront of this work in several COs.
Some respondents felt that the timeframe for implementing accountability mechanisms
was slow (rare to happen in the initial phases) but that in general these mechanisms
were increasingly being applied. The Humanitarian Accountability Framework (HAF)
was seen as comprehensive by many respondents and the fact that it is provides the basis
for development of an Accountability Framework for CI seems a marker of institutional
commitment to this area of work. But some survey respondents expressed a need for
greater accountability around decision making at more senior levels and in particular,
the importance of holding managers’ accountable for their decisions. Both this issue, and
how LM’s and other CIMs can be held to account by their peers remain key challenges
for CI’s interdependence model.

Finding 2: There are examples of good practice in the field based on field
leadership of this work that will need to continue to maintain progress.

Accountability towards beneficiaries is an area that was identified in interviews as one in

which considerable progress had been made. Emergencies have provided the
springboard for this work but CI’s membership of alliances and consortia, such as the

27
Interview with WFP, Niamey – 29/09/11
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 37

ECB - seems to have provided the field level focus for some of this to be taken forward.
Several respondents felt that whilst this was moving in the right direction, it could still be
patchy.

In the 2010 Flood response in Pakistan, CARE translated the ECB’s partnership’s ‘Good
Enough Guide’ into Urdu under its Quality and Accountability section, as a way to make
the linkage between good field skills and greater accountability to beneficiaries. Given
the frequency of disaster in Pakistan, and the importance of the accountability agenda to
the humanitarian sector, this is an important contribution to the sector’s practitioners in
Pakistan.

A critical factor in such initiatives is the leadership of the process. This is particularly the
case where personnel are rolling out accountability to partners and where partners may
have a different understanding and experience of this from CARE.

In the 2010 Floods in Benin, CARE trained its staff and partners in the Humanitarian
Accountability Framework and trained community members and local authorities
around accountability concepts. This process was championed by the Country Director.

The After Action Review (AAR) process provides a very strong base to systematise
reflection on accountability and potentially programme quality. The process, widely
supported by those who have been involved in it, provides a period of reflection for
stakeholders on how well the humanitarian response has been delivered, and what
lessons could be learned from the process. There is evidence that lessons from these
reviews have been reapplied, though also examples where applying these lessons was
harder to do, for example where they involved reflections on structural issues like human
resource deployment. The 2010 Flood response in Pakistan extended the process of
AARs to include partners for the first time, a positive accountability step in itself. A
further step would be to see how beneficiaries might be included in this process and
where the place of technical evaluation of intended results might sit.

However this approach exemplary though it is, is also quite time consuming. Whilst
CARE may be able to commit staff time to this process, it will be more challenging for
external stakeholders to participate in these processes for all the partners with whom
they work. A further step may be needed therefore, in contexts where CARE is working
with others -to see how such internal reflections can be rationalised with the wider
consortia/alliance evaluation process. CARE could offer its AAR process as an example
of good practice to peers in these alliances for further use.

Finding 3: The increased profile of accountability in CI’s emergency

response work has been achieved with limited resources

CEG leads accountability on behalf of CI with one staff member responsible for Quality
and Accountability. It is therefore surprising so much has been achieved with relatively
limited resources. There appear to have been several contributory factors to this. First
dedicated funding has been supplied through the Emergencies Capacity Building project
(ECB). Secondly CI has backed the work on accountability, demonstrated by the
incorporation of the Humanitarian Accountability Framework into the Accountability
Framework, and in addition personnel have been appointed to lead accountability at the
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 38

field level, although it was not clear from this evaluation either the extent to which this is
common or whether it was always done early enough. It is also difficult to know the
extent to which these initiatives have really resulted in better outcomes for beneficiaries.
However the evaluation concludes progress on the accountability process has still been
significant, and that it has been significantly assisted through the AAR process. A further
way that accountability has been profiled in the organisation is through its global
representation network, for example through the forthcoming plan to deploy a staff
member to the shelter cluster to develop the performance metrics for the cluster’s shelter
and accountability work. Lastly the work of the Emergency Capacity Building project has
been a key opportunity both to provide funding for this work and to support interagency
networking on accountability issues. A forthcoming opportunity to present ECB
perspectives on accountability and clusters to WFP and FAO at the IASC working group
meeting in New York is one illustration of this.

Another indicator of the greater profile of accountability is the Standing Team of Quality
& Accountability Specialists that has been established. The Standing Team, which
includes the RECs, has provided an opportunity for tools to be tested and for aspects of
the HAF to be promoted.

However these successes are not to detract from the need for further application at the
field level, particularly in the initial phase, and for better links between accountability
mechanism inputs and improved programme outcomes.

Finding 4: There is a good opportunity for CI to build on its work in

accountability and use this as its evidence base for further advocacy work.
Although this evaluation did not explore this in detail there is an opportunity, given the
increasingly strong foundation for CI of its accountability work with beneficiaries, to link
this to a stronger advocacy agenda in emergencies.

6. Conclusions and Recommendations

‘If we don’t find a more effective way to focus our resources to build and sustain
capacity for humanitarian action, then we won’t go anywhere.’ (Senior CI staff
member)

The key conclusions of this evaluation are that SD1 is accepted, but not completely
internalized across CI. It is also understood by different members in differing ways, and
these different interpretations can cause internal tensions and complicate its emergency
response reducing CI’s effectiveness.  While acknowledging the progress that has been
made, some CIMs are in practice still ambivalent in their support for the strategy. The
real problem seems to be the extent to which CIMs are prepared to sacrifice some short
term income in order to enable CI to build up a powerful and well resourced
international ‘brand’ in humanitarian preparedness and response. Equally there needs to
be a greater commitment by all CIMs to harmonize their systems (including HR,
Financial, & Information systems) and make other investments that enable CI to achieve
its considerable potential in relation to emergencies.

Recommendations have been made in line with the analysis of this evaluation that future
emergency responses will provide particular challenges for INGOs but they will also
provide opportunities for an organization that can make links internally across a wide
membership base; can effectively link emergency programmes with long term work; and
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 39

that is able to collaborate with other agencies in partnerships and consortia. CI appears
to have the ability to do this but the evaluation finds that this ability is not being
maximized because of funding constraints, organizational culture that detracts from the
task, and a lack of focus. Only very strong leadership at global, regional, and CO level can
help resolve these long-standing constraints.

Recommendations for CI

1. Recognising that SD1 can only succeed with far more robust leadership, both the
Board and ExCom need to analyse the constraints brought out in this evaluation; re-
state their commitment to implement SD1and ensure that the necessary support is
prioritised for SD1 as it requires, even at the expense of short-term individual agency
objectives.

2. CI should make women the focus of all humanitarian interventions in accordance

with CI’s wider objective on women’s empowerment and in accordance with CARE’s
2020 vision. Re-orientate Food Security, WASH and Shelter responses to ensure
women’s needs are the focus and link this niche to emergency preparedness and
transition planning.

3. CI should give greater authority to the Humanitarian Director and elevate this
position to a seat on the CI Executive Committee (ExCom) to ensure humanitarian
preparedness and response achieves the level of leadership and profile required for
CI to step up to its aspirations to be a leader in response. The kinds of issues which
she/he should be expected to decide should include, when to designate a corporate
emergency (in coordination with ExCom); when to initiate step aside for
management or technical capacity; giving the post authority over immediate
deployment of CARE’s human resources ; the threshold of risk in proportion to the
humanitarian imperative; the balance between country expenditure in a regional
emergency, and the major sectors of expenditure (in close consultation with Lead
Members, COs, and RMUs).

4. Subject to negotiation with individual donors CI should aim to pool all Appeal funds
raised for T2 or T3 emergencies, to enable CI to have a better co-ordinated and more
strategic response: this may also require harmonization of the amount of money
retained by each CIM to cover overheads (Adret).

5. In relation to financing, CI should urgently review the feasibility of funding CEG

through a percentage levy on all CIMs’ Emergency incomes.

6. CI should give priority to implementing the recommendations of the 2010-12

Emergencies Fund Raising Strategy, and this issue should be prioritized by the Board
and ExCom.

7. CI must collectively invest in its capacity to present strong proposals and project
reports at country level., and LMs should agree to make this a priority in appraisals
of Country Directors and other senior staff. Technical support on this would be a
useful role for the Regional Emergency Co-ordinator, supported by other staff from
the proposed Rapid Response Team, between emergencies.
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 40

8. CI should focus on ‘mainstreaming’ humanitarian response throughout its member

organizations and Country Offices. This can be achieved through the development of
a humanitarian human resource strategy that gives incentives to career staff to
participate in humanitarian response; incorporates humanitarian responsibilities
into all job descriptions; and ensures that HR systems incentivize strong
humanitarian performance, making it a prerequisite for career progression within
the organization.

9. CI should develop a CI humanitarian policy for the core sectors - Food Security,
WASH and Shelter - that sets out the parameters within which such interventions
should be delivered. Ensure sufficient advisory and technical leadership capacity on
the ground to deliver programmes to industry standards. Strengthen monitoring and
evaluation of the impact results of these sectors (linked in to current exemplary
process reviews) to build a clearer profile of CI’s distinctive offer in each sector;
contribute to wider communications about success and present a much more
coherent and consistent technical profile that donors will want to fund, building on
some of the successful fundraising initiatives already undertaken (e.g. with CARE UK
in respect of shelter.)

10. CI needs to move away from ‘delegating’ a particular issue to a particular CIM , and,
while normally having one designated lead, it should in addition ask all CIMs to
decide how they can support the agreed core sectors in different ways – for example
by suggesting particular donors, or by seeking funding for experts based in their own
countries. One mechanism for widening this support base will be the proposed Rapid
Response Team discussed above.

11. When a CARE member accepts the leadership role in a focal area, this needs to be for
a fixed time period and to the provision of a standard of support that is adequate for
CARE’s needs: if progress is not seen as adequate during that time, the default
position should be that alternative arrangements are made.

Recommendations for CIMs

12. All CIMs should review the extent to which all parts of their organizations, and all
their business processes, are able to support the strategy, especially in respect of
Finance, Procurement, Human Resources, Fund raising, and Communications with
adjustments made accordingly to enable it to make an organizational commitment to
the strategy: we suggest CI introduces a peer review system by which staff from one
CI member assist another with this process.

13. All CIM’s give even greater priority to improving the quality both of proposals and
reporting to official donors, and this issue is given far greater weight in HR decisions
related to staff appointments and promotions.

14. All CIMs should carry out regular simulation exercises (perhaps on an annual basis)
to see how effectively each part of the organization is able to respond to a notional
mega-Emergency.

15. All CIMs should inform their donors to CI’s long term programmes about CI’s
commitment to respond to emergencies, and they should warn these donors that
INTRAC: CARE Emergency Strategy Evaluation-final report-October 2011 41

should an emergency happen during the implementation of a funded project,

timetables for implementation may have to be re-negotiated.

Recommendations for CARE Lead Members

16. It should become standard practice across CI that in every CO there should be one
ACD post in each CO with specific responsibility for EPP and response: where there
is no ACD post the CO must ensure there is a dedicated and trained Emergency
Response Team in place.

17. Lead members should harmonize their HR systems (including benefits, wellness and
appraisal policies) for emergency responses so that there are broadly common
standards applied across CI for personnel contracted by any LM to any particular
emergency response.

Recommendations for CEG

18. Any future investment in logistics needs to be regional to take account of differences
in regional markets and access. However to save the considerable costs of storing
supplies, both countries and regions should (if this is not already the case) be
required to have standby arrangements in place with key suppliers and pre-qualified
partners as part of their EPPs.

19. Given both the phasing out of CARE USA from the logistics function, the
international nature of logistics, and the current uncertainty in CI, we recommend
that the Humanitarian Director be empowered to lead on this issue, with a view to
establishing without delay what level of logistics capacity CI must retain and where
best this should be located. Lead members should be requested to supply technical
advice and other support where they can: the HD should though also be empowered
to buy in expert advice from outside CI if required.

20. CEG should through the RECs ensure that there are in place more coherent plans for
regional responses to emergencies, especially recurrent food crises and seasonal
floods where the impacts are not limited to a single CO.

21. In support of this objective, CEG should work closely with the RECs to ensure that
there is more training on EPP and ER undertaken at a regional level to ensure wider
participation in this kind of training by senior staff of COs, and that the training
offered can be better tailored to the exact type of emergency a region is most likely to
face.

Annexes to be attached to Final Report:

Annexe 1 -Annotated Bibliography showing documents reviewed
Annexe 2 -Survey findings
Annexe 3-Key financial data
Annexe 4-Case studies