Executive Summary
In August 2014, torrential rains caused heavy floods and landslides in 23 districts throughout Nepal. A total of 202 people were reported dead, and 36,949 families (184,745 people) were affected. 10,193 families (50,965 people) were displaced as their houses were destroyed and 26,756 houses were partially destroyed. Four of the 23 districts: Banke, Bardiya, Dang and Surkhet were the worst affected and became the focus of the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) response. The operation, with a total budget of CHF 1.55 million, sought to provide immediate assistance to meet the humanitarian and recovery needs of a total of 8,000 families displaced by floods and landslides through the provision of emergency shelter assistance, water, sanitation and hygiene promotion, non‐food relief items and early recovery assistance. The American, Austrian, British (UK Gov), Canadian (Can Gov), China (Hong Kong Branch), Finnish, Japanese, Norwegian, Macao and Swedish Red Cross Societies as well as VERF/WHO voluntary emergency relief gave cash contributions. Swiss Red Cross, Belgian Red Cross/Flanders, USAID, UNICEF and WFP also supported the operation in kind. This is the evaluation of that response. It is based on document reviews, key informant interviews at national and local level and field data collection in one of the four most affected districts. It was commissioned by the Nepal Red Cross Society and IFRC Country Office and implemented in December of 2015.
Overall, the evaluation concludes that affected people were better off, in some cases significantly better off, than they would have been without the NRCS interventions.
Assessments and beneficiary selection were found to be well conducted but the volunteer based implementation led to significant variations in quality. Activities were well coordinated with relevant government authorities. Beneficiary involvement in assessment and implementation was extensive. There was no beneficiary involvement in programme design.
Support given combined non‐food relief items, food, shelter materials, hygiene and disaster risk messaging with a pilot project testing cash based progressive shelter programming. All components of the support given were found to be relevant and appropriate. Standard kits distributed were contextualised, of reasonable quality and addressed a range of needs (cooking, shelter, hygiene). Materials were provided from NRCS own preparedness stocks in regional and national warehouses as well as from UNICEF and WFP thanks to existing national partnership agreements. Relief support was assessed to be timely, given the context. Recovery activities were delayed, at times seriously so, due to a combination of external and internal factors.
Beneficiary selection criteria considered vulnerabilities but standard operating procedures did not allow for adaptation to differing needs (same number of goods irrespective of household size for example).
NRCS Surkhet district chapter coordinated well with the government represented by the District Disaster Relief Committee (DDRC), of which the organisation is ex officio member. The organisation also coordinated overall distribution activities based on its role as chair of the distributions’ sub‐ committee of the DDRC.
Distributions were well organised and programme outputs well documented.
There was no systematic monitoring or follow‐up at the outcome level, although HQ programme staff made several field visits.
The cash based progressive shelter programme was considered a success although the amounts available per household were repeatedly cited as insufficient – more generous seed money than full subsidy.
Section 3.2.1 provides statistics on programme achievements. Results vary significantly between programme components with some being completely cancelled and others delivering several times more than originally planned. It is noted that the original disaster relief emergency fund budget was multiplied by a factor of ten in the emergency appeal that followed, which in turn was reduced by 40% in the revised appeal budget in reaction to limited funding.
Policies and guidelines were in place but application was not consistent to the extent that the NRCS brand may have been placed at risk. Meanwhile, financial procedures were in line with NRCS systems, which in turn fulfilled international standards.
There was no formal complaints response mechanism and no documentation of complaints received. Systematic management follow‐up and organisational learning based on beneficiary feedback was therefore not possible.
Integration between sectors was achieved through standard kit composition, by combining distributions with advisory messaging and by coordination through the DDRC. Nevertheless, the evaluation team concludes that there is scope for more cross‐sectoral synergy, especially through systematic reflection on how data collected can be shared, internally and externally.
Quality was inconsistent, in part due to dependence on volunteer implementers and high turnover among those trained. In part the varying quality was due to insufficient governance and management follow‐up that the policies, guidelines and SOPs should be applied.
Documentation was good at the local level but aggregated data was non‐existent, not consistent or difficult to access.
Chapter 5 presents a series of recommendations. NRCS is recommended:
‐ 5.1.1 To strengthen its capacity to rapidly reinforce quality management in operational district chapters
‐ 5.1.2 To maintain and develop its National level partnerships with e.g. WFP and UNICEF
‐ 5.1.3 To pay more attention to organisational visibility
‐ 5.1.4 To study how ”flexible standard” kits could be designed
‐ 5.1.5 To support district chapters with a checklist on data sharing
‐ 5.1.6 To develop a contextually appropriate Complaints Response Mechanism (CRM)
‐ 5.1.7 To establish a human resource development strategy
‐ 5.1.8 To expand the use of Cash Based Progressive Shelter Programming after relevant study and adaptation
The recommendations for NRCS are complemented with recommendations for IFRC and PNSs. These are focused on supporting NRCS in addressing the recommendations above.