Authors:
Esrael Woldeeyesus, Dr. Yitbarek Woldetensay, Yomif Worku, Alison Harrell, Chelsie Kuhn, Rebecca Askin, and Rebecca Herrington
Description:
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Ethiopia’s Strategic Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) Activity, established in 2020, is working to build evidence on mitigating disasters while continuing to implement development efforts. The SAGE team participated in a Developmental Evaluation (DE), conducted by Headlight Consulting Services with USAID/Ethiopia’s Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and Effective Emergency Response (EER) Projects from December 2020 – July 2023. In one of the first evaluations under that DE, Headlight collected and analyzed evidence from the instances where crisis modifiers (CMs) were applied, explored if implementation had resulted in any substantiated outcomes, and identified how the Mission could adapt this approach as they continue to strengthen the Mission’s work at the nexus of development and humanitarian efforts. This evaluation was conducted from February to May 2022, and it included 167 key informant interviews with 111 unique interviewees, and 57 secondary documents.
To meet the objectives and purpose stated above, the evaluation team conducted the evaluation using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Outcome Harvesting. The evaluation team integrated these two methods to minimize the data collection burden on stakeholders and best leverage the available data sources in answering the evaluation questions. The evaluation team and the SAGE Coordinator at the time selected a subset of CMs to include, prioritizing differences among types of shock that fall within the greater than or equal to $100k category, and also maintaining a diversity of implementing partners (IPs). This option was chosen with the knowledge that the value being requested for CMs has gone up over time. Across the 13 selected CMs, interviewees were selected based on the need to speak with those reviewing, applying for, managing, implementing, or receiving services from these crisis modifiers in USAID/Ethiopia activities.
This evaluation offers a look into USAID’s flexible funding mechanisms at the nexus of humanitarian and development efforts to try to mitigate shocks and gather learning and adaptations from partners working in that area. As a result, the USAID Effective Emergency Response team has been able to modify its emergency funding consideration process and solicit additional ideas from development implementing partners about how to close the emergency response gap.
View resource: SAGE/Crisis Modifiers Evaluation Final Report June 2022
