The Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation of the Drought Response in Ethiopia

In October 2018, the Emergency Relief Coordinator launched an Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation in Ethiopia. The ERC announced this in an email to the Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on 18 October 2018, The evaluation, to be carried out by the IAHE Steering Group, will focus on the collective humanitarian response of the IASC Humanitarian Country Team to the recurring droughts in Ethiopia, including the El Niño-induced drought in 2015/2016, the response to the Indian Ocean Dipole-induced drought in 2017, and the response to continuing food insecurity-related humanitarian needs in the country since then. This will be the first IAHE of a slow-onset natural disaster, which will provide an opportunity to assess whether resilience has been built, progress in bridging the humanitarian-development divide, and cooperation between the international humanitarian system and the host government. Based on this assessment, the evaluation will identify lessons learned, best practices and generate new ideas to respond to the recurrent droughts in Ethiopia. The evaluation should also inform and improve humanitarian action in response to future climatic natural disasters, which will become more likely due to global climate change.