Contribution to Change: An approach to evaluating the role of intervention in disaster recovery

As the number of people affected by disasters has risen, so have the expectations placed on humanitarian agencies by donors, the public and the affected populations themselves. Agencies must now provide evidence of impact of their interventions. But applying conventional evaluation methods can pose problems. How can we assess the difference that intervention makes? Is it ethical to consign some disaster-affected communities to control groups? How feasible is it to collect baseline data among people who have just been traumatized? This guide provides a reliable and practical method for identifying the contribution an agency makes to changes to people’s lives in the recovery period following disasters. It outlines 11 steps that take evaluators through designing quantitative and qualitative methods through to collecting field data and developing a narrative of evidence and change.

Roger Few is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, UK, an Affiliated Researcher of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and an ESRC Research Fellow on climatic hazards, health risk and response in developing countries.

Vivian Walden is Health Advisor, Oxfam Great Britain.