Evaluation of the project “Increasing capacities and scale for anticipatory action including through social protection systems”

Project background

Recognizing the importance of Anticipatory Action (AA) and its link to Social Protection (SP), this project is structured into four components:

• Setting up AA Systems and Protocols: Establishing AA systems and strengthening the capacity of national governments, humanitarian partners, and local stakeholders to link Early Warnings to AA.
• Adapting Social Protection Systems: Strengthening SP systems to allow for anticipatory capacity, facilitating the linking of social assistance programmes with humanitarian mechanisms.
• Implementing AAs Ahead of Shocks: Enhancing the FAO and DG ECHO partnership to implement multi-risk AA actions, including expanding or complementing national SP systems to protect lives and livelihoods ahead of shocks.
• Learning and Evidence for Advocacy: Producing learning and advocacy products to improve future programming and promote a system-wide shift towards an anticipatory approach to disasters.

The project focuses on five countries in Asia: Bangladesh, Laos, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Targeting specific provinces and hazards, it aims to tailor the approach to each country’s specific needs and contexts. While AA can be delivered through various modalities, the project particularly focuses on SP systems.

Regional and Global Focus: At regional and global levels, the project focuses on sharing learnings, influencing policy and decision-making, setting minimum standards, and harmonizing approaches based on evidence from countries and context specificities.

Evaluation Purpose and Scope

Aiming at serving the dual purpose of accountability and learning, the objective of the evaluation is to derive specific findings and conclusions related to the main evaluation questions and to provide recommendations that will inform other on-going and future interventions of ECHO and FAO focusing on Anticipatory (AA) and Shock-responsive social protection (SRSP).

The evaluation will cover the entire project implementation period from August 2021 (start date) to July 2024 (expected end date).

The evaluation will assess outputs, results, and the likelihood of outcomes across all four project components, at the global, regional, and national levels to derive lessons, good practices, and insights into challenges.

In-country data collection will be conducted in Bangladesh, Laos and Vietnam and the selection of the level of data collection (community, local, national levels) will be based on the following criteria: (i) country status in SP and AA (beginner, intermediate or advanced), (ii) type of hazards (drought, typhoon, landslides and floods); (iii) coordination lead of the national technical working groups on AA (FAO lead or not).

For the remaining two countries, Philippines and Pakistan, and selected global and regional activities, remote key interviews and documentation review will be relied upon.