Emergency Response to Earthquake Batagram District, Pakistan Save the Children USA
Stephen John Kirkby (ETC UK Ltd) Assisted by Anita Cole (formerly of SC Pk) Waseem Afzal Jadoon (SC Pk)
August 2007
Contents Page
Contents Page...... i Selected Acronyms ...... iii Executive Summary...... iv 1. Introduction...... 1 2. Context of the Emergency ...... 1 2.1 The Earthquake Event...... 1 2.3 Operational Problems for Save the Children ...... 3 3. Methodological Issues ...... 6 4. Assess the emergency planning process and determine how useful preparedness activities were in the initiation and development of the emergency response. Develop recommendations concerning preparedness planning for the future...... 7 4.1 Emergency Response Manual...... 7 4.2 Emergency Preparedness Plan ...... 8 5. Assess the needs assessment, development and implementation of the programmes and determine whether the choice of programme areas was appropriate in the light of the needs highlighted through the various needs assessments and whether the quality of the program adhered to SPHERE standards...... 11 5.1 Stipulations of the Emergency Response Manual ...... 12 5.2 Needs Assessments ...... 12 5.3 Strategy and Programme Development ...... 17 5.4 Programme Implementation and Quality...... 23 5.5 Adherence to Sphere Standards ...... 26 6. Assess the management of the programmes including management support from the Pakistan country office, the Asia Area Office and CEC. Identify any bottlenecks or stresses in management and support functions...... 28 6.1 Secondment of Save the Children Pk Staff to Emergency Response ...... 28 6.2 Support by TDYs ...... 29 6.3 Recruitment of Staff in Country ...... 30 6.4 Development of the Emergency Response Team ...... 32 7. Assess whether or not there has been adequate participation by beneficiaries, including children, in program planning and implementation...... 35 7.1 Instrumental and Transformational Participation ...... 35 7.2 Participation by Children ...... 38 7.3 Conclusion ...... 39 8. Assess the role of SCF-US as a leader in meeting the needs of children in emergency situations and determine how effective the program teams were in coordinating with other organizations to promote best practices in this area...... 40 8.1 Overall objectives of Save the Children’s Programme for Children in Emergencies and Crises...... 40 8.2 Measures of Leadership ...... 42 9. Taking into account the operating environment the teams were working in, assess how effective Save the Children has been in actualizing its humanitarian principles and working within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Code of Conduct and SPHERE guidelines...... 45 9.1 Operational Environments ...... 45 9.2 Save the Children’s Humanitarian Principles...... 45 9.3 Code of Conduct of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief...... 46 9.4 Sphere Standards / Guidelines ...... 50
i 9.5 Convention on the Rights of the Child ...... 51 Annex 1 - Terms of Reference...... 53 Annex 2 - Consultants’ Programme of work ...... 57 Annex 3 - Field investigation of beneficiary perceptions of Save the Children Activities in Allai...... 60
ii Selected Acronyms
CD County Director CGI corrugated galvanised iron sheets CMO Community Mobilisation Officer ELT Emergency Liaison Team ERT Emergency Response Team HR Human Resource NWFP North West Frontier Province RHC rural health centre SMT Senior Management Team TDY temporary duty staff
iii Executive Summary
Save the Children faced big challenges in the physical, cultural, social and security environments of North West Frontier Province in response to the 8th October 2005 earthquake. The report answers six key questions in the ToR. Main recommendations and lessons are included.
Assess the emergency planning process and determine how useful preparedness activities were in the initiation and development of the emergency response. Develop recommendations concerning preparedness planning for the future.
The Save the Children Pakistan Country Office (PkCO) successfully co-ordinated with Alliance partners (UK, and Sweden). Though there was no PkCO Emergency Preparedness Plan (EPP), or Joint Alliance Preparedness Plan, PkCO had several advantages allowing a quick, effective and efficient response. These significant advantages allowed a quick start up.
Recommendation: that Save the Children seek to maintain their powerful competitive advantage by maintaining an updated list of suppliers,
Recommendation: that, in other countries, as in Pakistan, Save the Children preposition remote communication technology for use in inaccessible areas.
Recommendation: that SC PkCO maintain a live list of suitable staff with emergency skills, for office and field because operational support skills/procedures are transferable between emergencies.
Recommendation: that SC PkCO, with the participation of senior and field staff prepare a generic EPP and contingency plan for Pakistan. Violent conflict and complex emergency scenarios could also be included.
iv Assess the needs assessment, development and implementation of the programmes and determine whether the choice of programme areas was appropriate in the light of the needs highlighted through the various needs assessments and whether the quality of the program adhered to SPHERE standards.
In the early response, SC PkCO followed the SC Emergency Planning Manual. Between days 2 and 9 they made eight separate or joint scoping assessments.
Recommendation: that in initial assessments SC PkCO should, while taking advantage of the fortunate location of staff who happen to be in the disaster area, consider the gender of assessors and follow more closely the Sphere and Manual Guidelines, to provide more detailed and standardized reports.
Specifically qualified staff collected more detailed information for programme development. SC PkCO led a major multi-sectoral; multi-agency needs assessment in the Allai Valley after the winter, when people were still returning from IDP camps. It showed that needs were far from being met and long term intervention was needed.
Recommendation: that in monitoring implementation, SC PkCO include changing, unmet or ineffectively-met needs for ongoing need assessment.
Strategic planning was based on need assessments and the experience of SC PkCO staff in previous emergencies. The Asia Area Director and a TDY used Tsunami experience to advise on strategy. From day 4, food, Knifes and tents were distributed. Health, food and shelter were seen as prime needs. On day 7 the PERT was formed. Within two weeks work started on three field bases (Mansehra, Batagram and Allai).
Lesson learned: This decision to set up three field bases responded to severe need, but led to longer term interventions at Allai and Batagram. It allowed entry to an area of huge development need, but it is not clear that the full implications of long term presence were considered in the planning phase.
v Recommendation: that SC PkCO assess financial and other implications of setting up field bases, while bearing in mind the SC mission and the need to progress towards recovery, rehabilitation and development.
Lesson learned: the 25,000 household target, used for funding proposals, was helpful in planning the resources needed and identifying priorities and processes for institutional development. The lack of such a target in the Tsunami intervention had been problematic.
Recommendation: In future emergency interventions SC should establish a target relating to need, the nature of the emergency and CO capacity.
By day 21, 85 staff had been hired, and implementation started in SC PkCO’s core activities. In Batagram SC PkCO experienced a problem through becoming involved in hospital administration - not a core activity.
Recommendation: that SC avoid being forced by circumstances to undertake activities outside normal core functions, and which reduce capacity to engage in its normal activities. SC should agree an exit strategy with a willing hand-over partner before participating in the non-core activity.
The Six Month strategy (December 2005), prioritized: shelter; Meira IDP Camp; and long-term presence in Allai leading to development. Some 24,000 families would receive NFI, shelter kits and CGI, six months food, safe play spaces, temporary learning spaces and health outreach including PHC and TBAs. A second strategic goal was support for livelihoods for 21 months.
SC PkCO became the lead agency, heavily involved in camp management in Meira IDP Camp. SC PkCO thus gained a good reputation, developed contacts with women and involved them in income generation and other activities.
Recommendation: that, in camp management, as in hospital management, SC PkCO should anticipate the effects of activities outside the normal field.
vi Field staff now implementing activities are familiar with the Sphere minimum standards. Discussions with beneficiaries and staff then working for SC, suggest that Sphere standards were followed in the first nine months.
Assess the management of the programmes including management support from the Pakistan country office, the Asia Area Office and CEC. Identify any bottlenecks or stresses in management and support functions.
Requests were quickly made for specific temporary duty (TDY) help; the Asian Area Director arrived on day 4 to advise on response planning. Initial emergency response was by SC PkCO staff, seconded from other activities.
Lessons learned: Although temporary diversion of staff to emergency response quickly built capacity, it reduced the effectiveness of other programmes. The command and control open-office model used at this time was effective in team building, decision making and information spreading.
In 2005, 30 international staff arrived as TDYs (26), consultants or visitors, Rapid Response (REDI) team (2), and volunteers (2). Stay was one to 52 days; the average was 15. Nine stayed 20 or more. Generally later arrivals stayed longer. Of 30 international arrivals in 2005, eight were from Alliance partners and the SD Alliance Office; nine from SC Westport; five from SC Washington. TDYs supported thirteen different activities in the first month. Three Alliance staff and a few TDYs arrived in 2006. Nine international staff were hired in 2006.
Lessons learned: Relatively few TDYs were needed to build capacity. Some incomers thought they should run the emergency rather than support local staff. Senior visitors gave timely advice, particularly based on Tsunami experience.
Recommendation: that TDYs have contracts of at least three weeks, see their role to be capacity building, have adequate orientation before arrival and ensure that their counterparts are effectively trained with smooth hand-over.
vii Initial recruitment for 158 positions started in October 2005. Recruitment, even in a competitive market was carried out quickly, efficiently and effectively. Initially barely competent people were recruited, even if subsequently some were replaced. By December, 121 were hired. Recruitment stopped on March 12th 2006 after 229 hirings.
Recommendation: that HR be strengthened early in the emergency to facilitate recruitment, that media expertise be strengthened very early to help fund-raising and appropriately trained staff are available early for procurement and logistics.
Four people led PERT; two before the arrival on day 19 of the long-term Team Leader, who, though not previously a member of SC, had extensive emergency experience. Despite internal tensions PERT worked as a team with collective decision making, rather than the tensions of the Tsunami response.
Recommendation: that one person, experienced in emergency response and preferably with SC experience, lead ERT teams in the emergency phase. If without SC experience, a short intensive period of orientation should be carried out, possibly with an experienced adviser. The emergency specialist should be initially appointed for three months. Then a leader experienced in transition activities is needed. Stronger communication between ERT leader and CO.
Lesson learned: The speed and scope of operations exceeded capacity to manage aspects of resources, with the possibility of nepotism and corrupt practices relating to money and material. Early development of supply chain management through a tracking manager secured efficiency and accountability.
Recommendation: that in large emergencies involving considerable resources, SC have tight administrative systems in place by week six. Early appointment of an internal auditor would support this. An online tracking system would aid this.
During six months of 2006 the CD was absent from Pakistan because of visa problems, managing from The Asia Office but with acting CDs from the SMT.
viii Recommendation: that SC ensure that there be no such hiatus in a critical position in any future emergency .
Recommendation: that SC review their policies and processes in relation to the employment of women to strengthen their ability to access children.
Assess whether or not there has been adequate participation by beneficiaries, including children, in program planning and implementation.
Adult beneficiaries participated instrumentally in implementing programmes. The instrumental use of labour could lead to transformational (developmental) benefits through training and income generation. The level of instrumental participation was impressive for men though less so for women. Opportunities for transformational participation were fewer. Working through traditional leadership to identify beneficiaries allowed community participation, but most contact with women and female children is and was indirect. The community also participated in all-male committees for activities like school management. SC attempted to develop women’s groups.
Lesson learned: that in need assessment it is possible to incorporate beneficiary opinion on their needs, providing good data but also empowering respondents. Seeking beneficiary opinions, particularly women’s, enables participation and shows accountability. It produces informs on unfilled needs and the quality of SC activities.
Through providing temporary and transitional schools, and safe play spaces, SC facilitates children’s participation. In some cases children were consulted in the selection of teachers and their opinions sought on the design of transitional school classrooms; they also participated in the design and implementation of opening ceremonies for schools. SC PkCO employed children in discovering, through child- to-child interviews the reasons for their non-attendance of school. On occasions, children verified distribution lists, and identified relocations. Older children are also employed in the supervision of safe play areas for younger children.
ix In future, more developmental interventions in NWFP, SC PkCO, must strengthen the empowerment component of: the great problem is in accessing women and thus children through a political economy that allocates them little power.
Recommendation: that project staff in different sectors exchange experiences of good practice in fostering participation of women and children..This exchange could be carried out in a Lessons learned Review, a Review of adherence to Sphere criteria or, in view of the importance of the topic for SC, it could be carried out as an extra-ordinary event.
Recommendation: that Save the Children explain thoroughly the purpose of all items in the household kits and assess whether other items be provided, and assess their suitability after distributions. Likewise they should reassess, with the participation of children, the contents of kits for use in playspaces. This could be carried out as part of a regular consultative programme with committees and in community meetings.
Assess the role of SCF-US as a leader in meeting the needs of children in emergency situations and determine how effective the program teams were in coordinating with other organizations to promote best practices in this area.
SCPkCO showed leadership through high reputation, speed of response, by example in its achievements, and by working in the Alliance.
Lesson learned: that coordinated rather than unified response was effective and efficient, allowing timely, situation-relevant and appropriate responses: a contrast with the Tsunami where the unified approach caused tensions, inefficiency and low effectiveness.
Recommendation: that whether the emergency be coordinated or unified, ELT create a unit to support it as a single emergency, with a single high profile contact point to present an unified SC, covering advocacy, Alliance partner funding and external relations.
x Taking into account the operating environment the teams were working in, assess how effective Save the Children has been in actualizing its humanitarian principles and working within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Code of Conduct and SPHERE guidelines.
SC performed well in relation to Code commitments, but social, cultural and political environments of NWFP were obstacles, and became more difficult. Field staff interviewed knew about Sphere standards in their own sectors, but not about common standards per se (rather than sectoral standards); but they were sharply aware of aspects included in Sphere standards (like participation, targeting and monitoring) and had routinely used these methods and principles.
Lesson learned: that SC easily actuated its humanitarian principles while working with UN and GoP structures. Working with local power structures was difficult, and some religious leaders and activists were intractable
Recommendation: that SC assess whether sensitization of new staff on humanitarian principles is sufficiently effective, and that SC’s hiring processes screen potential employees for their sympathies related to humanitarian principles, including gender.
xi 1. Introduction
An evaluator from ETC UK visited Pakistan 24th June – 6th July 2007 to assess Save the Children Federation Inc. (Save the Children)’s response to the Pakistan earthquake 8th October 2005 – 30th June 2006. The emphasis of the evaluation (see Terms of Reference (ToR) Annex 1) is analysis of the processes of strategising, planning, programming and implementation rather than of outputs, outcomes and impacts. These latter items were examined only to the extent that they were necessary to an understanding and assessment of the processes. A female former member of the Save the Children staff who had participated in the earthquake response in the country office (CO), and a male current member of Save the Children staff based in Batagram and Allai Field Offices who had also participated in the earthquake response assisted the evaluator, who is, however, responsible for judgements in the evaluation. The Save the Children CO and Batagram field office (FO) supported the evaluation.
The evaluator thanks both assistants for their hard work and helpful advice, and the staffs of CO and the FOs for their openness, willingness to participate in discussions and for their warm and friendly welcome.
2. Context of the Emergency
2.1 The Earthquake Event
At 8.50 am on 8th October 2005 Pakistan experienced an earthquake, with an epicentre near Balakot, recorded as 7.6 on the Richter Scale – much more violent than any in their recent history. In mid November 2005, the GoP estimated that some 3.3 millions had been affected, 73,318 killed and 63,392 injured.1 Most casualties occurred within the first minute2. The timing of the earthquake meant that many children were in school3 and many other people, particularly women, in their houses4.
1 Some higher estimates were quote by other agencies, including 300,000 injuries. 2 Witnesses told the evaluation that the heavy flat roofs of the mainly mud-brick house were thrown upwards and collapsed immediately. 3 Many schools, though built of concrete, collapsed killing children and staff. 4 Many houses were built of mud bricks and collapsed.
1 The large number of severe injuries created trauma for the injured and a still- continuing burden of care on other survivors. Many survivors were traumatised by the event and continued to be by the 600 significant after-shocks that occurred in the first few months. Roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, houses, irrigation systems, water supplies and power facilities were seriously damaged or completely destroyed by the earthquake or by the destabilisation of slopes that followed it. In some villages, up to 95 per cent of houses were destroyed. Many animals were killed, food stocks in houses lost, agricultural terraces destroyed and springs dried up; all of these stresses immediately severely threatened both short-term survival and longer- term livelihood systems.
Within a few days gangrene was developing among the injured and amputations were necessary. Within a month an increased number of diseases commonly seen in emergencies, though probably also normally present, were being reported: watery diarrhoea, measles, meningitis, severe jaundice and scabies. Though immediate life- saving response centred on injury and health, and the need for food was quickly recognised, it quickly became apparent that shelter and warm clothing were prime needs for survivors; it is estimated that some 800,000 spent the first nights sleeping without shelter.
2.2 Early Responses to the Earthquake5
Local people immediately sought, through search-and-rescue activities, to save lives by digging out survivors; other Pakistanis brought in relief supplies by car: like the other road transport-based responses this caused problems by blocking already damaged roads. The Government of Pakistan (GoP) sent in two divisions of troops to provide relief.6 At midnight on the day of the earthquake (day 1) the GoP appealed for international aid and one week later created the Federal Relief Commission, which later became the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) as the GoP agency for co-ordination of reconstruction and rehabilitation. In fact Save the Children had already started response on day 1 through immediate
5 These should be read in relation to SC US responses in Sections 2 and 3. 6 In fact the army had no training in disaster relief but was able to carry out search-and-rescue, provide logistical support and start to repair some roads and bridges.
2 relief activities and initial need assessments. The GoP soon started to use helicopters for access to areas not reachable by road.
Rain had exacerbated the problem for people sleeping without shelter; so the GoP started in the first week to develop Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps or “tent cities,” of which there were eventually 30. These were short-term settlements of officially-supported tented shelters: the largest, Meira Camp, used mainly by people displaced from the high Allai Valley, was to be managed, in conjunction with the army, by Save the Children, with provision of food, food-for-work, communal kitchens, sewing centres, cash-for-work for camp improvements, barns for animals and feeding of animals. Some 600 spontaneous and largely unsupported camps also appeared. Within a month the GoP started to distribute compensation packages of money for those affected by the earthquake, to help them start rebuilding houses.
2.3 Operational Problems for Save the Children
Save the Children faced challenges in the physical, cultural, social, security environments. These challenges varied in significance for different activities and varied through time, with physical environmental problems critical particularly in the early stage but also in winter, and social and cultural ones becoming more significant later. Security problems occurred at various times.
2.3.1 Physical environment
Weather- and climate-related problems related to the winter (cold, snow, mist and cloud), heavy rain and the agricultural cycle.
Winter It soon became clear that without shelter and adequate clothing people, particularly at higher elevations (the snow line is around 5,000 feet) would have difficulty in surviving the first winter. In risk assessments it had to be assumed that the winter might be very severe, with temperatures far below freezing point. In fact the winter was relatively mild, but strategies had to assume the worst. Even though mild, the winter brought heavy snow 1st-8th January and in mid January 2006. This led to the
3 collapse of tents and plastic sheeting structures; the associated poor visibility obstructed helicopter transport; at the same time roads became impassable with ice and slush.
Rain Heavy rain also impaired transport and contributed to landslips. Monsoon conditions led to transport difficulties towards the end of the nine-month period and farmers were not prepared for the planting season in April 2006 because irrigation systems and terraces were still unrepaired; this prolonged the need for food provision and impaired the recovery of livelihoods.
Transport For logisticians the physical difficulty of transport was critical during the early response and in winter. Helicopters gave quick access to very remote and otherwise inaccessible areas but with at most 100 available for all uses, could not handle the full volume of non-food items (NFIs). The steepness of road gradients, their narrowness and propensity to landslips, partly caused by aftershocks and partly by heavy rain were problematic throughout the emergency phase.
2.3.2 Social, political, economic and cultural environments
The Batagram and Mansehra Districts, in which Save the Children chose to work, on account of the level of need, are among the least developed in Pakistan; this reflects the difficult physical environment but also the particular characteristics of the human environment. In level of life indicators Batagram District is in the bottom ten percentile of Pakistan. As an indicator, the average per caput income there is of the order of USD 150 per year. This poverty in itself creates vulnerability, but other factors make it an intransigent environment for intervention. The higher areas such as Allai were until the 1970s ‘tribal areas’ where government control was light and development a secondary consideration in governance. In the Allai valley two khans own much land, the regime is feudal and many farmers are landless.7 Similar land ownership issues are characteristic of much of Batagram.
7 Government rehabilitation payments for reconstruction were in some cases paid to land owners so that occupiers had no resource or incentive to rebuild. Tenant farmers had to get a no-objection certificate from
4
Household sizes in Allai are large, around 10, and, because many men migrate to work in the cities of Pakistan or even abroad, many households are female- or even child-headed8. For Save the Children, though, the biggest social problem is the restrictive environment for women and girls. Purdah is the norm and extreme compared with other areas of Pakistan9. An optimistic perception is that men and women live separate lives for much of the time, but with men being in favoured positions; a more realistic view is that, with a few exceptions such as those who had been for some time out of Alai or have received education, most women have little or no control over their lives, have permanently low status and suffer discrimination in every way.
Because they have low levels of literacy very few women can read information, and because they have limited access to educated women they have few interpreters to gain access to knowledge other than that filtered through men. In the patriarchal society it is virtually impossible to contact women except through seeking permission from men, in this case groups of elders. Because of these restrictions on access to women and girls, Save the Children has had increasing difficulty in undertaking interventions with them.10 Many women lack identity cards, partly because they were not registered at birth: this has made it particularly difficult for them to acquire entitlements to material help. Some vulnerable women like widows have had to try to access help via men, for example for delivery of goods: in some cases it seems that the items were not handed on by the men.
A number of respondents to the evaluation commented that the earthquake had led to a reduction of the spirit of cooperation in adversity, and that selfishness had
landowners to claim the payment for their reconstruction. A further problem is that farmers and landowners are hoping for permission to rebuild with cheaper and locally available kucha materials. 8 Though they have the responsibility for caring for the household, they have little authority within the community. 9 Female SC staff in Allai found that they were living in version of purdah. Female SC staff were regarded by the local community as acceptable because they followed dress norms to a greater extent than other NGOs. (See Annex 3) 10 Paradoxically it was easier to contact women in the earlier stage of the emergency, at a time of severe needs. Subsequently strongly patriarchal relations have returned. Annex 3 shows that under some circumstances it was feasible for men to contact female beneficiaries, and that to varying extents female staff could meet them in beneficiary homes, though on other occasions even entry to the area was impossible. The evaluator’s experience in 2006 in Allai confirms the variability of access even for men.
5 become prevalent. After March 2006 though it was felt that social cohesion was starting to rebuild.
2.3.3 Security environment
The limiting social and cultural environment links to political pressures relating to radical Islam and the geo-political situation of Pakistan. At different times operations have been restricted and interrupted by threats and even actual violence against staff of NGOs. Women in NGOs are targeted for what zealots see as unacceptable behaviour, such as attempts to directly contact the mothers of the children who are Save the Children’s main target beneficiaries. Even NGO women’s clothing can create tensions.
3. Methodological Issues
As stipulated in the ToR, the evaluation followed the standard evaluation methodology including incorporating DAC criteria in presenting findings. Principally this entailed interviews with key informants and field visits to field offices (FOs) and sites where activities had been implemented in the nine-month period at issue. Annex 2 provides details of the activities of the evaluation, including places visited, activities inspected, and people interviewed. Beneficiaries were also interviewed: Annex 3 contains information gathered from observations of sites in Allai visited by the female assistant, and interviews with beneficiaries. Lessons, based on the specific findings from mainly female beneficiary interviews are included in the Annex 3. References are made to them in the main report. Findings from similar interviews with male interviews in the Batagram area are included in the full report.
Two natural events hindered the evaluation: one of the assistants was trapped for four days in Banna by a landslide blocking the road; the time was used to make further visits to beneficiaries, but consequently beneficiaries in Batagram could not be visited, planned discussions could not be undertaken, and other planned work could not be undertaken. Heavy monsoon rain trapped the evaluator in camp for one day when visits had been intended. Not all the intended interviews could take place.
6 One interview was made by telephone on return to the UK, but some other requests for interviews did not receive replies. Some interviews made use of e-mail. By fortunate chance, the evaluator had interviewed two key respondents (in ERRA and in the military) one year previously and, in relation to evaluation of another agency, had been provided with relevant and significant information on Save the Children’s activities and performance.
4. Assess the emergency planning process and determine how useful preparedness activities were in the initiation and development of the emergency response. Develop recommendations concerning preparedness planning for the future.
4.1 Emergency Response Manual
The emergency planning process, as explained in the Save the Children Emergency Planning Manual (updated March 2003) provides consolidated rules for the planning of interventions. The Manual comprises four Sections: Emergency Preparedness Procedure, Programme Set Up, Administration and Programme Response. These rules are extensive; this section of the report considers only those relating to preparedness.
In relation to the Emergency Preparedness Section, the Save the Children Pakistan Country Office (PkCO) had been successful in continuous co-ordination with other in- area Save the Children Alliance partners (UK, and Sweden); there were plans for the development of building staff capacity in emergencies, plans for protection of staff, security plans; capacities for risk assessment; an evacuation policy and strategy; Save the Children was widely known among GoP and other agencies; and had a well-established presence.
7 4.2 Emergency Preparedness Plan
One weakness was the lack of an up-to date Emergency Preparedness Plan, prepared through a participatory process and reviewed by the Emergency Unit and Area Director, with clearly identified staff for rapid deployment. It had been planned to prepare such a plan early in October 2005, but the earthquake occurred and the process was delayed. Nor was there a joint Alliance Preparedness Plan. In May 2005, however, an emergency planning workshop for senior Save the Children staff had been held in Bangkok (the then Country Director (CD), though with no previous emergency experience had participated). This was fortunate and timely in planning the emergency - (They had even examined the scenario of an earthquake in a mountainous area of Asia!)
4.2.3 Save the Children advantages in preparedness
To compensate for the lack of an up to date Emergency Response Plan, the Save the Children PkCO had several significant advantages that allowed a quick, effective and efficient response to the earthquake and would allow similar response to other emergencies:
• First, Save the Children’s long period of operation in Pakistan, including Balochistan and NWFP, facilitated very quick access to markets and suppliers; for instance suppliers for tents11 and other NFIs were well known through the Refugee Programme. • Second, Save the Children PkCO through previous and ongoing work in developmental type activities had live links to relevant agencies like USAID as a key donor also relevant to emergencies, Sungi as an implementing partner, and governmental agencies. • Third, Save the Children PkCO had long experience of emergency interventions within Pakistan for example the Refugee programme. • Fourth, many Save the Children staff, including senior staff had recently worked in sudden onset emergencies, including the 2004 Bamm earthquake
11 Pakistan is the world’s largest producer of tents
8 and the 2004-5 Tsunami. Others had also worked for many years in Afghanistan, an emergency in which the Pashtun were beneficiaries as in the earthquake, so that problems of working with the particular culture were known. Many immediate advantages sprang from this recent experience. Apart from the value of for example staff having experienced the pressures of emergency response, they were familiar with emergency management systems. An example is that they were able to access computer records of the contents of NFI kits used in those emergencies, and quickly adapt them to the specific circumstances of the earthquake. • Fifth, other Save the Children Alliance members in Pakistan were able to advise and coordinate with Save the Children PkCO, notably Save the Children UK, which specialises in emergency interventions. (See Section 8) • Sixth, Save the Children PkCO’s experience in its core activities, such as education, livelihood and health, was directly usable in emergency activities and the planning and implementation of transitional activities. • Seventh, as intended in the Emergency Manual, the Save the Children PkCO could call immediately on the relevant skills and experience within HO and the Asia Office, soon being able to access staff. • Eighth, because Save the Children PkCO had large, directly implemented, programs (such as the refugee program – then in the process of downsizing) meant there were large numbers of Pushto speaking, field level staff available to immediately start interventions. There was, however, a cost to other programmes in the diversion of resources.
These significant advantages in themselves contributed to a considerable level of preparedness. In total they were probably of much greater value than an up-to-date Emergency Response Plan. Some of them gave Save the Children a critical head start over most other agencies in the search for scarce material resources such as tents and NFIs (a bottleneck for others), human resources and an advantage in cutting through bureaucracy (that paralysed other agencies). The lack of the Emergency Response Team’s (ERT) consideration of the nature of opportunities and limitations in emergency response was more significant than in the lack of a paper plan.
9
Recommendation: that Save the Children seek to maintain their powerful competitive advantage by maintaining an updated list of suppliers, (both national and local) and that suppliers for culturally appropriate commodities for different environments in Pakistan be sought in anticipation of their future need. Also, as stipulated in the Manual that Save the Children PkCO maintain emergency-specific dialogue with relevant potential donors for emergencies and potential partner agencies.
Recommendation: that, in other countries, as in Pakistan, Save the Children preposition remote communication technology for use in inaccessible areas as it has proved effective.
Lesson learned: that staff with experience of emergencies have been valuable in rapid response to the emergency. Although different types of emergency demand significantly different skills at field operational level, the general experience of working in emergencies is a vital aid in switching to emergency mode. In contrast, office skills/procedures may be directly transferable between emergencies (as in the flood response where the office set-up is replicable from the earthquake response).
Recommendation: that Save the Children maintain a live list of suitable staff with emergency skills, both for offices and field staff.
Lesson learned: that the Emergency Planning Manual, carefully followed in the planning of the response, while a useful aide mémoire in the organisation of response systems and processes is of limited value in the development of strategy and tactics for a specific intervention and in detailing situation-specific procedures. A generic Emergency Response Plan might help in this respect, though, as the Manual notes, the process of participatorily preparing the plan is particularly valuable in alerting staff to the necessary mind set for emergency decision making.
10 Recommendation: that Save the Children’s PkCO, with the participation of senior staff prepare a generic emergency response plan and contingency plan12 for Pakistan, ensuring that it complies with the specific recommendations on eight core standards relevant to technical responses in Chapter 1 of the Sphere Project Minimum Standards in Disaster Response. Save the Children PkCO should consider the advisability of also including field staff in the workshop to benefit from their real world experiences; Save the Children PkCO should also investigate methods of extending capacity building to field staff through another method.
This workshop should contribute to the preparation of a generic Save the Children PkCO emergency response plan. A comparative analysis of the lessons from both the earthquake and Baluchistan flood (and any other recent emergency interventions by Save the Children PkCO will be a valuable component of the preparation of the plan. A desk study of previous emergencies in Pakistan (other floods, droughts, famines…) could be incorporated in speculations on possible emergency scenarios. Violent conflict and complex emergency could also be included. It would be feasible to make a study of historical emergencies over, say, a century to cover possible events. The involvement of the Regional Office and perhaps HO could be valuable. Wisner et al.’s At Risk would be essential background material to deepen understanding of emergencies and is relevant to Save the Children’s mission.
Unfortunately donors do not willingly support preparedness activities.
5. Assess the needs assessment, development and implementation of the programmes and determine whether the choice of programme areas was appropriate in the light of the needs highlighted through the various needs assessments and whether the quality of the program adhered to SPHERE standards.
12 See Choularton R (2007) Contingency planning and humanitarian action: a review of practice, Humanitarian Practice Network Paper No. 59 for methodologies and assessment of benefits.
11 5.1 Stipulations of the Emergency Response Manual
This section deals successively with the strategic planning, development of specific tactics and implementation of programmes. In the early response, Save the Children PkCO successfully fulfilled the following stipulations of the Emergency Planning Manual:
• If Save the Children is present response is obligatory; started on day 1. • Response should be rapid, and in the case of a sudden onset event should be within 72 hours, even if only to the extent of an initial need assessment; this was achieved, see below. • During this time an emergency response point person should be identified; day1 • Priorities for a Save the Children intervention should include cross-sectoral collaborative activities in health, shelter, education and psycho-social activities; planning started within a few days. • Alliance collaboration; this was achieved in various ways; by day two13 the Alliance partners had agreed geographical areas of operation, on day 5 the Alliance agreed joint procurement for several days there were twice-daily joint Alliance meetings to coordinate and share information and prepare joint proposals, as to the Disasters Emergency Committee. The Alliance has subsequently, through joint workshops, produced an Alliance Plan for Emergency response in Pakistan.
The Halaby Murphy funds were quickly accessed and used for procurement of initial NFIs.
5.2 Needs Assessments
5.2.1 Initial needs assessment
13 In order to indicate the timeliness (or otherwise) of the response the evaluation indicates the day of the emergency – day 1 being the emergency event itself 8th October-.
12 Save the Children PkCO quickly undertook several initial scoping assessments either alone or jointly, as with the Alliance. In many cases assessments were combined with other operations such as distribution of material aid or the provision of health assistance. Initial need assessments also functioned as more general situation assessments, giving information on opportunities and threats for example in relation to logistics. The initial needs assessment were:
• Day 2 (Batagram, identifying shelter, food, children’s clothes as needs); • Day 3 (Balakot); • Day 4 (Shangla / Kohistan) - the sitrep for day 4 identified shelter as a chief priority, with tents as the proposed solution; • Day 5 (Joint assessment with Save the Children UK in Bagh focusing on child protection and health). • The first assessment (by helicopter) of Allai on day 5 identified the blockage of the access road. The next day’s sitrep identified the Allai valley as an area of great need, several patients having gangrenous wounds; • The second Allai assessment on day 6 involved the transport of GoP doctors, other medics and emergency materials (medical supplies, food and safe water) and the evacuation of injured children and adults. This need assessment was written up in some detail, with a review of available medical resources; an assessment of the number of army evacuations and the need for others. The number of destroyed houses was examined in more detail. • Day 8 the third Allai assessment team also brought in medical and other materials, with medical evacuations on the return. • Day 9 Rescuenet partners arrived in Allai for an assessment of the whole valley.
At the same time as beneficiary needs, Save the Children PkCO identified its internal institutional needs so that on Day 2 the sitrep requested a proposal writer and media liaison person.14 In the first week Save the Children PkCO was also identifying a critical need for helicopter transport, particularly for access to Allai.
14 The response to the request for a media person was slow, possibly reducing the opportunity for funding since most media interest is in the first few days
13
These first assessments were timely and combination with other activities was well considered and efficient; the number of assessments was relevant to the need to identify the specific features of different areas. In some cases the main purpose of the visit was humanitarian intervention not assessment, but it was good practice to make the need assessment when staff happened to be there. Continuing quick assessments, even after activities had started was also good practice. Many of the quick assessments did succeed in identifying colossal levels of damage, death and injury, and a wide though not precisely specified or prioritized list of needs. The assessments were at the least sufficient to indicate unequivocally that Save the Children should intervene and gave some quite detailed input to planning decisions.
Reports of these need assessments varied in the information that they contained. Few followed the Sphere or Emergency Response Manual guidelines in detail; this may reflect the amount of information that it was possible to gather quickly, but some like the Allai assessment of day 7 contained good detail and a soundly based assessment with the recommendation that Save the Children PkCO send a medical team to set up a camp with tents.
But the lack of information of the type demanded by the Sphere and the Manual could be problematic as, for example, when The GoP asked Save the Children PkCO (and WFP) to stop distributions in Abbottabad. The fact that the GoP already had a pre-earthquake subsidized wheat distribution programme there should have been identified in initial need assessment according to Sphere guidelines on need assessment.
Men made most of the assessments; this may have reduced the possibility of gaining information on the specific needs of children that depend on discussions with mothers or other female carers.
Recommendation: that Save the Children PkCO should, while taking advantage of the fortunate location of staff that may happen to be in the disaster area, consider the, gender, of assessors in initial assessments in addition to seniority. To the extent feasible, Save the Children PkCO should follow more closely the Sphere and Manual
14 Guidelines, leading to more detailed and standardized reports, concluding with prioritized lists of needs
15 5.2.2 Need assessment after the initial scoping
Need assessments continued to be made after the first week or so but their nature changed; in most cases they were specifically for a single sector. These assessments, which were more focused on specific sectors, carried out by specialists within those sectors, and with less need for speed were able to follow Sphere guidelines. On day 7 for example the need for education was identified in Batagram where 576 pupils were in school compared with the pre-emergency 27,751; this was interpreted as an effect of the destruction of schools but also of the need to respond to mental stress caused by the earthquake causing non-attendance: thus implying the need for and educational and a psychosocial response.
An example of assessments much later was on day 122 (6th February 2006), when Save the Children PkCO identified the need for warm clothing for 4,222 children in Allai, and was also assessing increasing needs for corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheets in Allai, while in Batagram they assessed the need for tool kits.
Programmes had been based loosely on the initial need assessments, but further programme development required much more precise information and these continued to be made by specifically qualified staff. In most cases these were most effectively, efficiently and appropriately achieved through community identification.
5.2.2.1 Allai Valley needs assessment
In March-April 2006 Save the Children PKCO led a major multi-agency needs assessment, supported by the Netherlands Embassy, in the Allai Valley, after the end of the winter, but when rehabilitation had just begun and some people were still returning from IDP camps. This thorough assessment was multi-sectoral, covering education, gender, governance, health and nutrition, livelihoods, protection, shelter and water and sanitation. A large amount of systematically collected data showed that needs for most sectors were far from being met and that a long-term comprehensive intervention was needed15.
15 The Netherlands Embassy has now accepted the resulting proposal.
16
Needs assessments were culturally appropriate and effective in identifying needs and, particularly the Allai 2006 assessment, efficient and relevant as inputs to strategy development; they have created a necessary link between the phases of the emergency and recovery. They were useful both in finding unmet needs and in monitoring the effectiveness of programmes and changes in needs, whether resulting from the success (or failure) of programmes or changing circumstances, such as worsening (or improving) weather. In practice these later need assessments are an important component of monitoring.
Recommendation: that during the monitoring of the implementation of activities, Save the Children PkCO include in the monitoring process evidence on changing, unmet or ineffectively met needs and use this as an ongoing need assessment.
5.3 Strategy and Programme Development
5.3.1 Initial response
Development of the programme strategy started from day one of the emergency with meetings in a command and control operations centre. This was a large meeting room equipped with maps, plans, flip charts and so on, and used for meetings while staff would use their own rooms when planning and exchange of information was not being undertaken.
Subsequently, during the first part of the initial planning process, there were twice daily meetings for planning and information sharing, These were led by the Country Director, a group of four senior staff, with the participation of other CO staff. The Asia Area Director and Tom Taurus, a temporary duty staff member (TDY), gave valuable advice on effective and ineffective strategies, based on their Tsunami experience.
The response can be divided into overlapping stages: the first week was very reactive to information that was coming in or to real-time experience in the field; for example, part of an initial convoy to Batagram with a doctor accompanying it, stopped in Mansehra; the doctor saw there was intense medical need there and
17 stayed to respond: the decision was made in the field by the competent person witnessing the need. This reactive and life saving mode was necessary in humanitarian terms, and was justifiable during the time when the dimensions of the emergency and information on needs were still being clarified. There was, for some, a temptation to continue in this reactive mode, but strategic planning, with the participation of a large group of staff, started immediately in the first week and became the main action thereafter.
5.3.2 Bases of strategy development
Strategic planning was based on background knowledge, information, experience, staff skills, and recognition of the need for coordination and material resource availability:
• Findings from the initial Save the Children PkCO needs assessments. • Increasingly precise and detailed information from a wide variety of other sources, such as the GoP, other agencies and information from field visits that were not specific assessments • The valuable experience of Save the Children PkCO staff in previous emergencies • The specific knowledge of staff relating to their sectoral responsibilities • Understanding, based on first principles, for example knowledge of the range of human need, initially survival needs, (food, health, clothing and shelter) but within a few days considering extended needs such as education, psycho- social and so on. • Experience of sectoral specialists such as logistics, sourcing, and so on • Coordination with District Administrations (day 2 onwards) • The availability of helicopter transport at times of inaccessibility by road • The early availability of physical resources such as tents and other NFIs, for example from USAID and through rapid sourcing. • The timely gift of material such as the hospital tent used in Allai
18 From day 4, food, NFIs and tents were being distributed as they became available. At this stage health, food and shelter were perceived as the prime needs, but delivered to the extent possible wherever access was made, including as part of need assessments. Until helicopter missions for setting up the Allai site stopped, medical help, food, safe water and NFIs were taken and return journeys were used for the medical evacuation of injured children and adults. In this case the intervention was a mixture of immediate humanitarian life-saving response and longer term medical intervention planning. (The Banna Allai assessment initially recommended the medical team stay for “at least ten days”).
5.3.3 Pakistan Emergency Response Team (PERT)
At the end of the first week the 15 members PERT was formed, led by the CD and three senior colleagues in the Senior Management Team (SMT). From this point onwards planning was structured rather than ad hoc. At this stage proposal writing had started. On day 8 the UN cluster had been set up and participation in the UN clusters became an increasingly important (and time-consuming) component of Save the Children PkCO strategy development. Like the frequent Alliance meetings they allowed co-ordination and information sharing.
By day 14 a team was going into Bana Allai to set up a base, initially with a focus on health. (The Mansehra base was started on day 4 and the decision to have a field base in Batagram on day 8). Thus within two weeks the decisions on the three field bases had been made and work started on their development.
Lesson learned: This decision to set up three field bases responded to the demonstrably severe need at the time and was clearly in accord with Save the Children PkCO mission, but, though Mansehra base closed, the initial plan has led to a longer-term intervention at Allai and Batagram. While the intervention in Allai allowed an entry, previously impossible, to an area of huge development need and Batagram Tehsil needs were also great, it is not clear that the full implications of long-term presence were actually considered in the planning phase. The need to halve the staff in Batagram in March 2006 was caused by the extension of the programme beyond what was fundable. The decision on whether to set up FOs with
19 the possibility of long term presence after the emergency tails off, demands a consideration of the appropriate balance between on one hand humanitarian need and Save the Children’s mission and, on the other hand, the possibility of funding reduction after the severe emergency stage. Taking into account the developmental nature of much of Save the Children’s core activities and the impetus to a transition to development, this risk of over-extension and declining funding is likely to recur with new emergencies. Recommendation: that Save the Children PkCO assess the possible longer-term financial implications of setting up emergency field bases, while at the same time bearing in mind the Save the Children mission and the need to secure progress towards recovery, rehabilitation and development.
At the start of week 2 (day 8) a 25,000 household target for provision of food, shelter, NFI and health was set; all are sectors in which Save the Children PkCO had experience. This was a huge increase from an earlier 1000 target. In fact the 25,000 target was reached by mid February 2006. Some staff found the target an excellent motivator, though it did not have implications beyond the satisfaction of basic needs and in itself was insufficient to provide full recovery, for example in education and psycho-social activities.
Lesson learned: The 25,000 target, initially useful in preparing funding proposals, was also very helpful in planning the resources needed to respond to the emergency, and identifying priorities and processes needed for institutional development. It was a necessary preliminary planning tool (even if not necessarily achievable) and was thus more than a psychological incentive. The lack of such a target in the Tsunami intervention had been problematic.
Recommendation: In future emergency interventions Save the Children should establish a target relating to the size and nature of the emergency and the capabilities and capacity of the CO.
By the end of week 3 (day 21) 85 extra staff had been hired, and implementation of programmes had started in Save the Children PkCO’s core activity areas: shelter, food and NFI distributions, education and protection; health activities had already
20 started in Batagram and Allai. Food distributions for WFP rapidly gave Save the Children a wide areal spread of activity and quickly developed links with communities that could be built on in other areas of Save the Children PkCO activity. But there was a danger that commitment to food distribution for WFP would dominate the Save the Children programme.
Save the Children quickly became deeply involved in health activities; its competitive advantage here was being first in the field, though with only 10 doctors, compared with the 1000 Cubans. In fact Save the Children PkCO experienced a problem in Batagram through being there first, in a desperate situation of the complete destruction of the hospital; humanitarian need demanded a major intervention, but Save the Children PkCO found itself administering the whole hospital: this is not an activity for which Save the Children has the resources nor is it a core activity. Save the Children PkCO tried unsuccessfully to persuade MSF to take over this activity but eventually handed over to another NGO.
Recommendation: that Save the Children seek to avoid being forced by circumstances to undertake activities which are not within its normal core functions, for which it lacks the relevant skills and which reduce its capacity to fully engage, according to need and opportunity in its normal activities. Possible scenarios must be assessed when initial participation is being considered. Save the Children should agree an exit strategy with a willing hand-over partner before participating in the unsuitable activity.
5.3.4 Six month strategy
In December 2005 Save the Children PkCO produced a draft Six Month strategy, reviewing unmet needs, summarizing interventions to date, outlining strategy and future targets. The unmet needs emphasized shelter and drew attention to the rapid growth of Meira IDP Camp, then with 14,000 refugees. At this time Mansehra was still the primary hub and location of the PERT team leader. Strategy remained multi- sector but Allai was given increased priority, with the intention to establish a presence, and then proceed through transitional relief to a long-term Save the Children developmental intervention there.
21
In view of the threat from the developing winter, this strategy highlighted a target of 24,000 families for shelter and NFI, CGI and shelter kits were being distributed, masons and carpenters were to be trained and the target was a warm room for each house. In addition to shelter six months food would be distributed. Some 2000 safe play spaces and 100 temporary learning spaces were to be developed. Banna’s 15- bed hospital was still to open but health outreach including PHC and TBAs were being developed.
Meira Camp, which eventually housed over 20,000, was an unanticipated, and for Save the Children considerable involvement, an unintended development. Save the Children PkCO became the lead agency here, with blanket feeding, 40 community kitchens, education, protection, cash for work activities, income generation and provision of protection for animals. Because no other agency was willing, Save the Children PkCO undertook the management and even, because it was essential, the development of watsan activities16. Thus Save the Children PkCO found itself in camp management, another new activity for which it had not planned, though work with Afghan refugees had developed some appropriate skills.
Lesson learned: In the circumscribed social environment of Allai it is very difficult to access women; their being in a camp (Meira), while many men were back on the farms, meant that Save the Children had an unusual – possibly unique - opportunity to develop contacts with women and involve them in income generation and other activities. The fact that so many people were in a small space meant that much time was saved in accessing them for a wide range of activities, compared with traveling village to village.
Recommendation17: that Save the Children PkCO, in camp management, as in the case of hospital management, should carefully anticipate the effects of finding itself undertaking an activity outside its normal field. In the event Save the Children was able to undertake activities with the fixed population, particularly of women, that
16 It was fortunate that the team leader had previous experience of this activity 17 In the event, though camp management demanded large resources, it was widely recognised as a major achievement, there were many important visitors to the site and Save the Children gained considerable reputation.
22 would have been more difficult in home environments. The costs and benefits of undertaking an activity such as camp management should be carefully weighed at the outset: in such decision making Save the Children must balance unmet need and its mission against its existing strengths and core activities, and the opportunity cost of participation.
In the Six Month Strategy the first goal was to provide immediate life-saving relief and protection. This reflected the magnitude of still unmet needs and the anticipated threat of winter to people without adequate protection. It was expected that this immediate relief phase would last for a further three months, until about March. A second strategic goal was support for livelihoods; this was expected to start in December and last for a further 21 months as part of the recovery and reconstruction phase. Thus the relief and recovery / reconstruction phases were planned to overlap for the first three months of 2006.
5.4 Programme Implementation and Quality
After the initial immediate reactive responses through ad hoc distributions in the first week, Save the Children PkCO started to implement planned programmes in sectors in which it had previous experience. Most of the following activities started within the first fortnight, but by early November structured programmes were under way in:
• Curative and Preventive Health system o Primary Health Care (PHC) Banna and Meira Camp; winterized accommodation, watsan facilities, recruit and orientate staff, support logistics, mobilize community support for health activities, organise outreach PHC • Improved psychosocial well being of children affected by earthquake o Identify suitable sites for learning spaces, provide teaching materials, train teachers, establish safe play spaces with suitable materials and recreation kits, train adult and older children facilitators, support facilitators with cash for work, monitor play spaces • Child protection system
23 o Train Save the Children staff in protection and child safety, awareness raising in communities, register separated and unaccompanied children • Three year support for education o Establish temporary learning spaces , identifying / recruiting teachers and /or teaching assistants, provision of tents, mats and schools in boxes, train teachers (including health education) • Shelter and NFIs for vulnerable households o Distribution of tents, shelter kits, household kits and food, training of masons and carpenters in support of shelter, co-ordination of provision with ERRA and shelter cluster. • Food needs for six months (WFP) o Negotiation with community leaders, local authorities and CBOs in assessing beneficiaries, ration card distribution, distribution of food. • Establishment and management of Meira IDP Camp o Establishment of cattle barns, community kitchens, hygiene and health promotion, schools, food for work and cash for work, training of women (See also curative and preventive health section) • Development of economic opportunities- livelihood support and income generation o Cash for work, food for work training in income generation (as of women in Meira Camp), employment in development of Meira Camp, road and track maintenance, infrastructure recovery (water mills, irrigation channels) kitchen gardening, orchards.
This evaluation is not intended to assess results of these activities but to discuss the processes of their implementation and whether they adhered to Sphere standards. The identification of the activities was in most cases very quickly decided, for example in some health activities on day 1. Initial needs assessments were used in prioritizing and planning, but (see above) were supplemented by other information and considerations such as availability of resources and the Save the Children core activities.
24 Specific details of some activities evolved as needs were reinterpreted, specific sectoral need assessments were made, the limitations of previous plans became clear or ERRA policy decisions determined. Shelter exemplifies these programme modifications; initially the drive was for tents, but the limitations of fair weather tents became apparent and winterization became the aim. When the limitations of tents per se became apparent emphasis switched to more substantial temporary structures, with provision of shelter kits. In fact Save the Children PkCO was distributing CGIs at an early stage, as a relatively robust and durable self-build material, and sensibly ceased the purchase of tents that had been sourced.
The planning process was quick in developing an integrated geographical and sectoral strategy yet allowed sectoral specialists considerable freedom within it; the close relation between psychosocial, protective and educational activities is an example of well-considered and effective integration. Flexibility allowed by the non- blueprint planning referred to above is also effective in allowing response to changing needs and opportunities.
Programme efficiency is dealt with in Section 4. Beneficiary identification was initially through community systems: this was culturally appropriate and effective to a considerable extent, though it was necessary that Save the Children PkCO staff verifiy beneficiaries; a problem of verification was that those who had been identified by the community were checked, but that those who had not been would not be checked. Limitations in beneficiary identification through community leadership were the possibility of nepotism and of the limited access to women and thus to children.18
Because the programme areas were in most cases well within Save the Children’s core areas (hospital management and camp management are conspicuous exceptions), the activities were relevant to Save the Children’s mission; they were also relevant to beneficiaries’ needs (though see Section 5).
The possibility of continuing activities in Allai for several years was first considered in October 2005, early in the emergency when the great need in the area was
18 In Annex 3 the suggestion is relayed that SC could make use of the predictable presence of beneficiaries at health centres and schools to access them directly and to inform them of programme activities.
25 recognized. It was endorsed and formalized in the Six Months Strategy, which was developed in the emergency phase but looked forward towards recovery and development; thus connectedness to the post-emergency phase was built into relief activities19. Implementation of activities in all sectors involved community sensitization and some capacity building so that the probability of the sustainability of activities was enhanced. Co-ordination and coherence were achieved through the involvement of partners, particularly in the community, but also CBOs, local NGOs and GoP institutions such as ERRA and Education Offices.
5.5 Adherence to Sphere Standards
It was clear that the field staff now implementing activities are familiar with the Sphere minimum standards in the relevant sectors, and, on the basis of discussions with beneficiaries and staff who were then working for Save the Children, it seems likely that this was so in the first nine months. To the extent that it was possible to judge in the field visits and from scrutiny of records, SC implementation seems to have followed Sphere standards in the different sectors in as far as was possible; records refer to relevant criteria in the health sector reports. Undoubtedly the more remote areas of Allai and Batagram were less well served, though Save the Children made determined efforts to reach them.
Access to children (the first cross-cutting issue in the Sphere Project), to protect and give access to basic services, can only realistically be achieved through contact with their mothers as primary carers. Such access was never easy, though see Annex 3 for examples of differences in the degree of access to women by female (and male) staff. The (possible); resolution of the recent problem of access for female staff in Allai suggests ways in which this might be facilitated: negotiation between community leaders, GoP agencies, including the military, and NGOs to establish a modus operandi that creates ground rules for access. One of the female SC staff in Allai has decided to adopt a severe style of dress acceptable to community norms in order to ease access problems. This seems to be successful (see Annex 3 for community opinion).
19 Although SC introduced recovery activities at an early stage some beneficiaries in Allai (See annex 3) thought that they could have been started even earlier.
26
Other issues of standards common to all sectors (Chapter 1 of the Sphere Standards document) are covered in the appropriate sections of this report.
27 6. Assess the management of the programmes including management support from the Pakistan country office, the Asia Area Office and CEC. Identify any bottlenecks or stresses in management and support functions.
6.1 Secondment of Save the Children Pk Staff to Emergency Response
Until day 7 (14th October) and the formation of the 15 member PERT, management was led by the CD; the Deputy Director Administration and Finance having been appointed Emergency Response Point Person on the day of the earthquake. Assessments were being made and initial distributions and outline planning of the responses. Requests were made for specific temporary duty (TDY) help and the Asian Area Director arrived on day 4 to advise on response planning. At this time the legacy of having worked for many years in Pakistan paid dividends so that Save the Children was able to sort out problems at the airport and with bureaucracies, saving time and giving a head start over other agencies. Save the Children also gained much through developing good relations with the military and, through the CD, with USAID,20 for example access to helicopters.
At this time the emergency response was largely by the Save the Children PkCO staff who were seconded from other programme, regional, or administrative activities or undertook additional work. It was fortunate that the CO contained several people with field experience of different types of emergency and of the administrative systems needed.
Lesson learned: Although the temporary diversion of staff to emergency response was very effective in quickly building capacity, especially if they were emergency- experienced, there is a significant price to pay in the reduced effectiveness of other programmes. Donors may object to this.
20 USAID delivered considerable amount of material at the airport on the first days of the emergency and Save the Children was able to accept this because they had an effective facilitation system in the airport, a well- organised warehouse and transport system. This allowed rapid and early access to materials.
28 Lesson learned: that the command and control open office model used at this time was effective in team building, decision making and information spreading.
6.2 Support by TDYs
Between 11th October and 25th December 2005 some 30 international staff were present for some time as TDYs, volunteers, consultants or visitors to supplement the Save the Children PkCO staff in the response. Most were TDYs, two were from the Rapid Response (REDI) team, and two were volunteers. The length of stay varied between one day and 52 days; the average stay was 15 days. Some senior visitors stayed as few as three days. Nine stayed 20 days or more. Generally the later arrivals stayed longer.
Of these 30 international arrivals in 2005:
• Eight were from Alliance partner countries (Japan, Indonesia, Central Asia, Norway, Netherlands, Philippines) and the SD Alliance Office. Alliance visitors were largely concerned with proposal writing or monitoring of grants. • Nine were from Save the Children Westport. • Five from Save the Children Washington DC.
The sectors/fields/activities TDYs supported21 in the first month were:
• Child protection 1 • Proposal development 3 • Senior management support 3 • Media 2 • Food/nutrition 1 • Shelter 2 • Programme support 3 • Logistics 1 • Human resource 1
21 Some were planned to support more than one activity and some did so after arrival.
29 • Health 3 • Education 1 • Security 1 • Livelihood 1
A few new TDYs arrived in 2006, generally for short visits, Three Alliance staff made brief visits, and nine international staff were hired in 2006. These international staff hirings were for: Management support (2); Shelter (2); logistics; education; nutrition; health; other.
Lessons learned: that because the CO was initially well staffed with emergency- experienced people, relatively few TDYs were needed to build capacity; those that were regionally experienced and had recent mass emergency experience could fit in easily, and were a considerable help. It was important to have sufficient time (two days?) to hand over to CO staff. A minimum of three weeks, rather than the two weeks that was common was valuable if CO staff were to gain fully from the experience. In rare cases incomers thought that it was their function to run the emergency rather than to support local staff in doing so: this was disruptive, created un-needed tensions and did not build capacity. Senior visitors were able to give valuable timely advice, particularly based on Tsunami experience, of what worked and did not. Because they were senior their advice tended to be heard.
Recommendation: that TDYs have contracts of at least three weeks, see their role to be capacity building, have adequate orientation on the situation before arrival and ensure that their counterparts are effectively trained and a smooth hand-over achieved.
6.3 Recruitment of Staff in Country
This was started in October 2005 with an initial recruitment plan for 158 positions. From the start all hirings were competitive, involved at least two Save the Children staff, all staff were given orientation22 and provided with information on child safety.
22 though this was delayed in the field offices
30 The process of recruitment, even in the competitive market of post-earthquake Pakistan was carried out quickly, efficiently and effectively. In the initial stage the tactic was to recruit people of sufficient competence to carry out the job even if subsequently some needed to be replaced.
Twenty-two people were hired by the end of October; by the middle of November a total 97 had been hired; and by the end of November a total 121. Hiring continued through December 2005. Recruitment stopped on March 12th with a total of 229 hirings23 by this time. Of 800 people interviewed in the first eleven days of recruitment, 85 were eventually hired. Recruitment allowed nine functions to be operative by day 21: food distribution for WFP, shelter, food and NFI combined distributions, education and protection, administration, logistics, finance, human resources (HR) and support. In week 4 a further round of advertisements were made, and in week 8 another round.
72 staff were hired for Bana Allai October 8th - March 12 2006 88 staff were hired for Batagram October 18th – March 7th 2006 36 staff were hired for Mansehra October 27th – December 14th 2005.
Recommendation: that HR be strengthened early in the emergency to facilitate recruitment, that media expertise be strengthened very early to help fund-raising and that Save the Children ensure that appropriately trained staff are available early for procurement and logistics.
Many local people in Islamabad wished to contribute to the effort for example by bringing items to the office. This was seen as an inconvenience. Save the Children did, however, accept for distribution some truckloads of goods collected from school students by a local philanthropist.
Recommendation: that it is important to allow local people to participate through Save the Children, even at the cost of some diversion of resource. The high reputation of Save the Children is at some risk if it is seen to ignore local people’s
23 It is not clear how many subsequently resigned or the total number of positions occupied at any time.
31 wish to support them. A comparable and justifiable use of some resource is for support of staff whose families have been seriously affected in emergencies24. This would be a tangible acknowledgement of Save the Children’s recognition of the value contribution of their staff.
6.4 Development of the Emergency Response Team
From day 7 to day 19 a short-term TDY, and then the CD himself led the PERT, awaiting the arrival in Batagram, on day 19 of the long-term Team Leader. Initially the Team Leader’s appointment was for three months, but this extended to six months, until 30th March 2006. Though not previously a member of Save the Children, he had worked closely with them in the Tsunami response, while employed by another NGO. He had extensive experience of emergency work and a very direct approach to decision-making and problem solving: speedy and decisive. This was much appreciated by the team that he led.
Different opinions are expressed on his relations with the CO: whether he was running the emergency response semi-independently and resisting attempts to manage from the CO, or whether he was closely controlled by the CO. His own view was that he saw his job as being to carry out efficiently the plans of the CO team. It was suggested that his not being conversant with Save the Children policies might have led to some problems. At the same time though, it is acknowledged that despite some internal tensions the PERT worked very much as a team with collective decision-making, rather than the unproductive tensions said to have characterized the Tsunami response. It is widely agreed that the PERT responded effectively and appropriately to the emergency. A suitably qualified replacement for the Team Leader declined the position at the last minute so that the Deputy Director Program Development, a Senior Management Team member, had to take over at short notice. He was in charge during a major reduction in the field staff at the end of their six- month contracts. In fact at different times four people had the position of Team Leader. This was too many changes in leadership.
24 The evaluation met one staff member who had lost more than 30 relatives and had the expense of transferring their bodies for burial.
32 Recommendation: that the leadership of the ERT team be carried out during the emergency phase, if at all feasible, by one person, who must be widely experienced in emergency response and should have had Save the Children experience. If without Save the Children experience a short but intensive period of orientation should be carried out, possibly with an experienced adviser for a short initial period. The emergency specialist should be appointed for three months, and if the emergency phase is not complete by this time, the contract should, if possible be extended. It is then necessary to appoint a leader with experience in transitional activities. Communications between the ERT leader and the CO must also be strengthened.
Lesson learned: It was reported to the evaluation that in the early stages of the programme and even later than that, the speed and scope of operations exceeded the capacity to manage various aspects of resources, with the possibility of corrupt practices relating to money, material, and nepotism. The evaluation found no direct evidence of these activities in the past. The opportunity for corruption is greatest when operations demand links to the world outside Save the Children, so that internal systems may not identify corrupt practice. It is understood that there had been an internal audit in 2005 (not seen by the evaluation) and this may have identified evidence of the extent and nature of the problem.
Recommendation: that in large emergencies involving considerable resources, Save the Children have tight administrative systems in place by week six at the latest. The early appointment of an internal auditor in such an emergency response would support this aim. In the earthquake response the early development of supply chain management through a tracking manager was critical for efficiency and accountability; this would be aided by development of an online tracking system.
During the first six months of 2006 the CD was absent from Pakistan because of visa problems. The CD continued to manage from The Asia Office but with acting CDs from the SMT. This absence progressively impaired the response, because Acting CDs, with the continued existence of a remotely located, but still official CD, could
33 not feel free to make major management decisions25 and this at a time of greatly increased staff, activities and resources.
Recommendation: that Save the Children ensure that there be no such hiatus in a critical position in any future emergency.
The evaluation noted that while Save the Children focuses on children and must necessarily approach them through their mothers, it was surprising that there was not a larger female staff. Some women staff regretted that they were not allowed the opportunity to go early to the field26 and that the clothing that identified staff as members of Save the Children did not cater for women’s needs27. In effect they are marginalized in emergency response. There was also a disparity between the single female manager and the several male managers in the Field Office. There had been many more female Save the Children staff in the operational area than there are now, during the first nine months of the emergency, but conservative elements in the population targeted them, making it very difficult for them to work.
Recommendation: that Save the Children review their policies and processes in relation to the employment of women with a view to strengthening their ability to participate actively in accessing children and supporting their needs and rights. This should particularly address ways of responding to the gender problem when working in culturally conservative areas such as parts of Balochistan and North West Frontier Province (NWFP)
The issue is not that decisions were not made, but that decision making in such a ‘leadership vacuum’ could be seriously impaired. 26 Some suggested that this was misplaced gallantry on the part of men who considered that the initial field environment was too harsh for women. On the other hand one respondent complained that the lack of suitable facilities in the field, created problems for some women, particularly local staff 27 The recommendation is not that female (or any other staff) be required to wear a uniform, but that if some garments with identifying symbols were to be provided that female staff were given the opportunity to wear them. The unisex sizing of garments does not favour this. Some agency staff does wish to wear clothing with agency logos; it can be helpful in presenting an image of the organisation in action. In some circumstances female national staff may consider it completely inappropriate: the mission met one female national staff member who had found it helpful to adopt an extremely conservative mode of dress in accord with local cultural values.
34 7. Assess whether or not there has been adequate participation by beneficiaries, including children, in program planning and implementation.
Save the Children uses five programme strategies in emergency response: direct implementation, community mobilization, partnering, institutional development and experience-based advocacy. Community mobilization aims to support active participation by the community as a form of empowerment and to aid sustainability through developing skills and a sense of ownership.
Participation is a significant human right in itself: the right to participate: it is also an element of most other forms of human right. It can be achieved at three levels: the individual; the household and the community and it ranges from limited participation as when beneficiaries are simply informed of the intention to carry out activities on their behalf up to strong participation in which beneficiaries are decision makers controlling all aspects of the process - “We did it ourselves.”
7.1 Instrumental and Transformational Participation
A major distinction is between instrumental participation, in which beneficiaries participate as a means to an end, for example as labour, which may be very short- term, and transformational participation, which is intended as empowerment, and leads to sustainability, good governance and other longer-term developmental goals.
Save the Children made use of instrumental participation in many activities such as the delivery of shelter items or food from extended delivery points to the beneficiary house. In this case there was no payment but a saving to the organization. Labour could, however, be paid either in cash or in food. Examples of this are road and track repair and maintenance, construction of barns and digging latrines in Meira Camp, rebuilding of infrastructure such as irrigation channels and small waterpower installations and payment for help in building houses. In some of these activities training was provided, and the products in different ways aided relief and / or recovery. The training, for example as masons, could give long term income
35 generating benefits. Similarly the training of women in Meira Camp both allowed income generation and provided materials such as quilts that could be used in Save the Children projects.
In these examples the instrumental use of labour could be accompanied by significant transformational benefits to individuals, families and communities.
The basis of the Save the Children shelter activities, the largest component of its entire programme, was participation by the beneficiaries in the delivery of materials to site and in actual construction, though with materials provided by the Save the Children PkCO. Shelter provided the largest single element of participation28. In this case those who were unable to carry out their own building were said to be helped by others in the community.
A different form of instrumental participation that gave empowerment benefits was the seeking of the opinions of beneficiaries in need assessments, monitoring and even in evaluations29. In the Allai Need Assessment of mid 2006 opinions of beneficiaries were sought through interviews, as in the evaluation. Particularly for women, who are largely without power in the restrictive male-dominated environment, to be asked their opinions was not only a novelty but also a source of empowerment. Being asked about programme processes and gender issues was even a cathartic process. Expatriate staff questioned by email and, female staff and Government staff in the Hospital, and direct beneficiaries expressed this view.
Lesson learned: that in various ways the seeking of beneficiary opinion can help to refine programmes. In need assessment it is possible to incorporate a considerable amount of beneficiary opinion on a range of need.30 The 2006 Allai Need Assessment is a good example. Assessment of the value and quality of distributed items can also improve programming; Annex 3 gives several examples of the function of items in household kits not being understood and opportunities missed in the provision of items, Interviews with female beneficiaries in Allai suggested that
28 CGI sheets worth R2,500 each were considered ‘white gold” 29 See Annex 3 for examples. 30 See Annex 3 for detailed information.
36 they considered that the timing of some activities could be brought forward earlier in the emergency phase; examples they cited were education, safe play and women’s livelihood activities, all of which speed recovery Consulting beneficiaries provides good data but also empowers the respondents. Simply seeking the opinions of beneficiaries, particularly women, enables their participation and shows accountability to them. Instrumentally, it can also produce valuable information on unfilled needs and the effectiveness, efficiency, appropriateness and relevance of Save the Children activities and processes.
Recommendation: that Save the Children explain thoroughly the purpose of all items in the household kits and assess whether other items be provided, and assess their suitability after distributions. Likewise they should reassess, with the participation of children, the contents of kits for use in playspaces. This could be carried out as part of a regular consultative programme with committees and in community meetings.
Lesson learned: that women said people used to help each other and be concerned about others’ problems, a form of communal participation, but since the earthquake everybody was busy with their own worries and reconstruction, not thinking about anyone else. Where Save the Children staff might expect people to be helping the weak/poor/disadvantaged, in the mass emergency and its aftermath this did not happen.31 Thus the normal participative help system seems to have broken down. This may make widows/orphans extremely vulnerable if Save the Children relies on the male community and its chivalric / paternalistic tradition of helping the weakest. Support to the recovery of traditional self-help participation systems might help considerably.
In identifying and accessing beneficiaries, Save the Children has worked through the traditional highly structured leadership system, thus allowing community participation in a critical process. Employment of Community Activists and of front-line Save the Children staff from within the local culture has facilitated these links; in field visits in
31 Annex 3 cites a case where a vulnerable woman failed to receive full entitlement through dependence on community benevolence. It also shows that different individuals experienced markedly different senses of empowerment.
37 Batagaram the ease with which Save the Children Pk staff related to community leaders was impressive. In Allai it was clear that continuity in the female staff visiting women in communities helped strengthen SC’ s relationship with them. Community leadership, like the Community Activists and most Field Staff is, however, entirely male, and most contact with women and female children is indirect. It has been very difficult to contact primary targets32 and in this case participation by one group may disadvantage another. A further area of community participation was in the committees that were formed to organize activities such as school management; these committees were all male. Save the Children made some attempts to develop women’s groups.
7.2 Participation by Children
Save the Children’s Manual stipulates that children must be involved in decisions that affect their lives and be supported in interacting positively with other people. Involvement must be in the framework of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Specific concerns are provision of information to children and ensuring that their participation does not entail risk to them.
The most significant participation of children is in education and the associated area of psychosocial intervention through safe play provision. Save the Children provided temporary school spaces for 6031 boys and 5606 girls and 19 transitional schools. Within the schools children were able to participate in class to the extent that they chose. In some cases they33 were consulted in the selection of teachers34 and their opinions sought on the design of transitional school classrooms35; they have also participated in the design and implementation of opening ceremonies for schools. Save the Children PkCO have employed children in discovering, through child-to-
32 This was evident just before the evaluation visit to Allai, when the community leadership had forbidden female agency staff to go into the community. Annex 3 shows that there were different levels of difficulty in access. 33 It is noteworthy that the children were all in primary schools and all those seen were under eleven years; this is very different from situations in Africa where ‘primary’ children may be up to thirty years in age, having been soldiers. Clearly the participation of such older children would be very different from that of the younger age group seen in Pakistan. There were no older children in the schools to facilitate activities by the young pupils. 34 It is not likely that their opinions were a significant influence on appointments since these are largely decided through local power structures. 35 transitional schools are standardised modular structures so that there is little scope for variation in design. Children in one school suggested that the head teacher should not use the second room as an office, but that it be used to relieve crowding of the first classroom.
38 child interviews in systematic surveys of villages, the reasons for their non- attendance of school and encouraging their attendance. Older children are also employed in the supervision of safe play areas for younger children. It was also said that boys were able to attend meetings and thus obtain some information on Save the Children activities.
Children had on occasion verified distribution lists36,in some cases allowing significant reductions in the number of bona fide beneficiaries through identifying children and families who had relocated and sometimes bringing lists down from 450 to 150, a figure close to staffs’ assessments.
7.3 Conclusion
Increased levels of participation give significant improvements in effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, appropriateness and sustainability of programmes both separately and collectively. Community mobilization (participation) is a fundamental component of Save the Children’s strategy in emergency so that adequate participation must be defined as the maximum feasible that does not interfere with other components. Of the four other components in 7.2, Paragraph 1, direct implementation by Save the Children is the only one that could be impaired; but in truth participation is very easily incorporated in direct implementation activities at least instrumentally and many activities such as shelter (because it significantly reduces costs), and identification of beneficiaries (because access to the community is otherwise impossible), cannot be carried out without it. So adequate participation is the maximum achievable. In fact the level of instrumental participation is impressive.
The big challenge in future Save the Children PkCO interventions in NWFP, particularly in a more developmental framework, is to strengthen the empowerment component of participation: here the great problem is that of accessing women (and girls) except through a political economy that allocates them little power.
36 See Annex 3
39 Recommendation: that to increase empowering participation Save the Children consider the use by project staff of the participatory audit section of the Sphere Audit Procedure to allow the participation of beneficiaries in assessment of project compliance with Sphere standards and principles. (Recommendation also for Section 6.)
Recommendation: that project staff in different sectors exchange experiences of good practice in the fostering of participation both for women and children. This could be supported by joint visits to sites.
8. Assess the role of SCF-US as a leader in meeting the needs of children in emergency situations and determine how effective the program teams were in coordinating with other organizations to promote best practices in this area.
8.1 Overall objectives of Save the Children’s Programme for Children in Emergencies and Crises
Save the Children’s role in meeting children’s needs can be assessed against its overall objectives, which are:
• Protection – as a group at risk -, • Care and relief, • Support (for instance psychosocial, educational, nutritional, livelihood support), • Recovery and rehabilitation including youth and families, and advocacy. (Save the Children Emergency Response Manual 2003).
Though Save the Children aims to target children directly in its activities, and this is easily achieved in some cases such as education and psychosocial activities, in others such as health and nutrition it must be achieved less directly, particularly through support to women as mothers and carers. Livelihood support is provided to households, while infrastructure support is to communities.
40
41 8.2 Measures of Leadership
Leadership in an emergency can be measured in different ways.
Leadership through reputation First leadership can be through acclamation: being the best performer in the field. In this respect there is no doubt from the views expressed by other agencies: ERRA, the military, UN partners were all very positive in their general assessment of Save the Children. Similarly the beneficiaries, although perhaps not able to make direct comparisons between agencies had a high opinion of Save the Children in general
Leadership by speed of response Second, leadership can be through being first to start implementing activities. Undoubtedly Save the Children, for reasons already mentioned, was able to start operations on day 1 and more quickly than probably any other agency. Save the Children quickly became involved in specifically child-related activities by day 4.
Leadership by example Third, leadership can be shown through exemplary practice, for instance in the coordinated range of activities focusing on children. The high level of participation by children mentioned above is a clear example of leadership in this sense, as is the very large number of installations such as schools and safe play facilities achieved, as compared with other agencies.
Leadership through the Alliance Fourth, the leadership role that membership of the Save the Children Alliance gave was a major advantage over other single agencies. On day 2 the three local Alliance members made a significant decision to allocate areas of operation geographically; the Emergency Liaison Team (ELT) confirmed this decision and quickly decided that that this would be an Alliance Emergency with Save the Children Federation Inc. as lead agency in Pakistan but with a coordinated mode rather than a unified approach. Save the Children Federation Inc. (USA) was to operate in NWFP, in which it already had some activities and experience; Save the Children Sweden was to work in Mansehra. Save the Children Foundation (UK) was responsible for Azad Jammu and
42 Kashmir. Daily meetings between the three Alliance members started immediately and served for an efficient system of joint decision-making, information exchange, co-ordination of funding and joint activities such as need assessment, reports on details of activities.
It is unfortunate that there had been no joint Alliance Preparedness Planning before the emergency.37
The decision to have a coordinated rather than unified approach was influenced by experiences in the Tsunami where the unified approach had caused tensions inefficiency and reduced effectiveness.
Benefits of a coordinated approach:
• Partners were able to respond quickly to the specific circumstances (needs and opportunities) in their area of operation, based on their own systems and strengths, while keeping partners quickly informed. • The resulting speed of response allowed efficient and effective reactive interventions at times of intense need and a timely move towards well-planned interventions related to individual institutional capacities and capabilities • The distinctive institutional capacities and emphases of the partners did not become obstacles to coordination since each had separate fields of operation.38 • Focus of partners on the specific conditions in their locality allowed effective targeting and programming • The total intervention of the Alliance partners, facilitated by their freedom of action allowed almost certainly the biggest single INGO response to the emergency; for instance reaching almost a quarter of the total number affected and distribution of shelter and household kits to over 50,000 families. Undoubtedly this saved the lives of thousands of children.
37 It is understood that this has subsequently been undertaken. 38 At the time of the earthquake Pakistan and India were effectively on a war footing on the Kashmir border with one million soldiers in defensive positions. Initial governmental responses to the earthquake reflected this. Unified action across this border would have been exceptionally difficult and probably slow.
43 • The local independence of the partners did not interfere with coordination in for example the design of interventions and materials such as transitional schools and shelter kits. • Coordinated intervention allowed other Alliance members efficiently to fund the partners with a total of USD 51 millions in for the Save the Children Pakistan response in the first year. The ELT decided that Save the Children Federation Inc. (USA) should receive 60 per cent of funds from non-operative partners and Save the Children Foundation (UK) 40 per cent.
Limitations of the coordinated approach:
• There were three COs rather than one single Save the Children office so that there was some (though necessary) replication of attendance at cluster meetings and that some external Alliance partners maintained their connections with individual COs with which they had a previous working relation. • A single contact point for non-operative partners would have facilitated communication with them • Some opportunities were lost for sharing operational experiences • While a unified format was used for sitreps agencies continued to use their own institutional categories for describing activities and NFIs • Externally Save the Children tended not to be seen as a single unit, reducing its media profile in the emergency
Lesson learned: that the “coordinated” rather than “unified” response worked very effectively and efficiently, allowing timely, situationally-relevant and appropriate responses to specific local circumstances in the context of this emergency.
Recommendation: that whether the emergency be treated as coordinated or unified, ELT support it as a single emergency in relation to cross-funding and support, with a unit created to respond to needs for support during the emergency.
44 Recommendation: that a single high profile contact point be appointed to present the unified presence of Save the Children. This could cover advocacy, Alliance partner funding and external relations. In the case of this emergency: one representation for three operations.
9. Taking into account the operating environment the teams were working in, assess how effective Save the Children has been in actualizing its humanitarian principles and working within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Code of Conduct and SPHERE guidelines.
9.1 Operational Environments
Section 2 of this report (the context of the intervention) reviews the operating environment. Salient characteristics of the operating environment in which Save the Children works reflect the physical, social, cultural, economic and political regimes of NWFP. These pose different problems for each of the Save the Children activities; for example the physical environment creates particular problems for logistics, whereas the cultural and social environments are more problematic for activities relating to gender and children.
9.2 Save the Children’s Humanitarian Principles
These are expressed in different ways in a number of documents including those on the Web; they are important in advocacy and fund-raising. The Mission Statement of the International Save the Children Alliance, to which all 28 National Save the Children’s subscribe, is:
“Save the Children fights for children’s rights. We deliver immediate and lasting improvements to children’s lives worldwide”.
The ISCA Vision Statement is:
45 “Save the Children works for: A world which respects and values each child A world which listens to children and learns A world where all children have hope and opportunity”
Both statements emphasise that Save the Children’s fundamental concern is the welfare of children: it can be taken that this concern underpins their humanitarian principles. The Mission Statement stresses human rights; the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child39 (1989) is cited in the Manual as a fundamental document for humanitarian action. Because of its significance for Save the Children’s humanitarian principles, additional comments on the Convention are included below.
9.3 Code of Conduct of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief.
Save the Children makes further humanitarian commitments by subscribing to the Code of Conduct of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief. Save the Children was one of the six networks of INGOs that developed and agreed the Code in 1994 in response to the increasing numbers of NGOs involved in disaster response, the huge numbers of people affected by disasters, and the fact that there was no accepted body of standards to guide their work40. The Code is voluntary and self-policing41.
The Code was developed from the humanitarian principles of the Red Cross; of these humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence are widely accepted as the basis of humanitarian action, and in various places Save the Children literature refers to them. Save the Children’s adherence to these broad principles is assessed in more detail below.
39 Though the US Government, normally the principal donor for Save the Children, is not a signatory to the Convention, Save the Children has chosen to follow the principles and articles of the Convention. 40 In some emergencies such as Somalia and Rwanda some NGOs (not Save the Children) had behaved extremely irresponsibly, failing to satisfy human needs or rights and also putting the reputation of the whole humanitarian sector at serious risk. 41 It is sometimes argued that the Code is too liable to loose interpretations, but the peer reputations of signatories will suffer seriously if an organization fails to perform in accord with them. In evaluations donors routinely ask for judgments on compliance with the Code and Sphere standards.
46 Ten commitments form the key elements of the Code: these are listed below. Assessments on Save the Children Federation Inc.’s compliance in the Pakistan Earthquake42 are included:
• The humanitarian imperative comes first. Save the children has based its programmes and their delivery primarily on response to needs, initially in a reactive way and later, through a planned strategy, seeking to satisfy basic needs, and as it became possible, more extended needs. In planning for transition to development, humanitarian needs (such as response to gender inequity and vulnerability reduction) humanitarian needs continue to be prioritised. In relation to the humanitarian imperative, the Code states: “the right to receive humanitarian assistance and to offer it, is a fundamental humanitarian principle”. This is discussed below in Section 9.5.
• Aid is given regardless of the race, creed or nationality of the recipients and without adverse distinction of any kind. Aid priorities are calculated on the basis of need alone. Virtually all Save the Children field staff are Pakistani and the great majority of those in the CO so that racial and national prejudice were insignificant issues in delivery or design of programmes, especially as all were affected indiscriminate of wealth or creed. Save the Children is not a religion-based NGO and much of the staff is of the same religious affiliation as the beneficiaries43. Need (with vulnerability) was the prime factor in targeting.
• We shall endeavour not to act as instruments of government foreign policy Though the largest funding of Save the Children Federation Inc. is from the Government of the USA and its investment may be perceived by some to be for ‘hearts and minds’, there was no evidence that Save the Children was acting as an agent of US Government policy. Because ERRA, which designs
42 These comments do not attempt to deconstruct some of the inconsistencies in the Code or the section would be unending. 43 The Pakistani nation is not culturally homogeneous; there are tensions between the peoples of some of the provinces and some differences in religious beliefs, but the evaluation is aware of no circumstances in which this influenced programming or implementation.
47 and guides reconstruction and rehabilitation policy is an arm of Pakistani Government, it is inevitable that GoP policies will be carried out, though Save the Children is neutral in relation to these policies, which are not foreign policies.
• We shall respect custom and culture The staff is overwhelmingly Pakistani and thus aware of local custom and culture, even if from other parts of Pakistan. Many of the programme delivery staff and partners are from the local culture. In all cases programmes are delivered through negotiation with the local community. The local culture is patriarchal. One female staff in Bana has decided to make herself more acceptable by wearing traditional black clothing: this appears to be very successful; but raises the question of the extent to which an agency should go to make itself acceptable. Clever use of puppets with children has, however, allowed culturally acceptable transfer of messages about relations between people.
• We shall attempt to build disaster response on local capacities Save the Children has designed programmes to use local capacities and capabilities in different ways (see Section 7)
• Ways shall be found to involve programme beneficiaries in the management of relief aid See Section 8 for examples. It is notable that women and children and vulnerable people generally44 have few if any management opportunities in NWFP culture. Save the Children has attempted, to some extent45, to respond to gender inequity and has prioritized children and vulnerable groups in targeting.
• Relief aid must strive to reduce future vulnerabilities to disaster as well as meeting basic needs
44 Considerably more than half of the population. 45 The evaluation was told that SC has a female gender specialist in Batagram but that she was on leave.
48 An important example is the shelter programme, which switched early away from tents towards more resilient protection for the upcoming winter. The various capacity building activities, such as training of carpenters and masons further helped in this respect (more durable houses could be built). Transition to developmental activities will strengthen abilities to respond to disasters46, whether large or small. (See Section 1 for proposals on smaller scale emergencies)
• We hold ourselves accountable to both those we seek to assist and those from whom we accept resources. In accepting the necessity for rights based interventions (see Section 9.5), Save the Children prioritises the households with the most limited capacity to satisfy their own needs. In this they have to contend with power relationships that perpetuate inequality. Targeting is one of the mechanisms they use, but necessarily they must work through the existing system of power and attempt verification. The quality of services and products is sought through adherence to codes and standards (see also 9.4). Communities are involved in planning and implementation (See Section 7) but this, like the diffusion of information on rights and standards, is filtered through the prevailing power system; access to the primary carers of children has been limited by the increasing difficulty of female staff working in the environment, and other factors such as the limited literacy levels of women in particular. Opportunities for complaints are effectively limited in the same ways (power, access and literacy).
Accountability to donors is built into the reporting system. Accountability to target communities is built into the process of negotiation with leaders, but with the limits already mentioned. Accountability to beneficiaries is also implicit in monitoring activities, since an effective, efficient and sustainable system is in their interest. The considerate way in which staff were seen to interact with beneficiaries indicates a different form of accountability: that of respect for their dignity as people.
46 It can be argued that the main function of development is to strengthen the capacity of individuals, households and communities to respond to shocks of whatever sort.
49 • In our information, publicity and advertising activities, we shall recognize disaster victims as dignified human beings, not hopeless objects. The publicity and advertising material relating to the emergency seen by the evaluation emphasized human beings as such; though stressing their needs it has not presented them as hopeless.
Save the Children has performed well in relation to these commitments, but in several has encountered a severe obstacle in the social, cultural and political environment of NWFP. There is no easy solution to this problem, which is becoming more difficult in the present geo political context of Pakistan. Resolution of recent difficulties of access for female agency staff in Allai, suggests that involvement of other governmental stakeholders and a united group of aid agencies in negotiations with community leaders may allow the development of a modus vivendi that gives Save the Children a better chance to carry out its activities in a way it finds acceptable.
9.4 Sphere Standards / Guidelines
Compliance with the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response (2004), “The Sphere Standards/Guidelines”, is a second way by which Save the Children assesses its humanitarian performance. Children are specified in the Sphere document as a vulnerable group and a cross-cutting issue in relation to the technical standards for specific sectors: shelter, settlement and NFIs; health services; food security; nutrition and food aid; and water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion. It is notable that education is not yet a subject of Sphere standards, though these are now under discussion for inclusion47.
In the 2004 edition common standards for the emergency intervention process are added to the technical standards. Common standards apply to: participation; initial assessment; response; targeting; monitoring; aid worker competencies; responsible supervision management and support of personnel. Most of these common standards have been discussed in detail above in this report.
47 Comparable standards already exist outside Sphere.
50
Field staff with whom the matter was discussed already knew of the existence of Sphere and its purpose. They were very knowledgeable about the sections of the sectoral standards relating to their field of activity. Knowledge of the existence of common standards per se was very limited; but field staff were sharply aware of the importance of aspects like participation, targeting and monitoring that are included in Sphere emergency intervention standards, and were routinely making use of these methods and principles.
9.5 Convention on the Rights of the Child
Save the Children literature argues that the Convention underpins all Save the Children work: “Our work is driven by a commitment to making a reality of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child’. In its actions Save the Children Federation Inc. subscribed to the four broad principles of: non-discrimination; the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child: many examples of each can be cited; it must be noted that working with these principles has not always been easy where direct access to children and their principal carers (women) is made difficult by the cultural system.
Of the 54 Articles of the Convention Save the Children has responded particularly to 24, health care; 26, social security; 27, standard of living; 28/29, education; and 31 Leisure and recreation.
Lesson learned: that Save the Children has managed to actuate its humanitarian principles by working through the traditional power structures in communities and with UN and GoP structures. Common sense is needed in working with GoP structures but it is possible to achieve a modus vivendi allowing adherence to Save the Children principles, even though there are cultural differences. Working with local power structures can be much more difficult, and careful negotiation, using appropriate local staff or partners is needed if implementation is to be reasonably in accord with key principles. Some compromise may be needed; some religious
51 leaders and other activists, however, are intractable48. Some aspects of the cultural operating environment create complex problems in relation to Save the Children’s humanitarian and other ethical principles; an example is the problems relating to the sex of medical personnel vis à vis patients – see Sitrep 15, 26th October 2005. Such impasses require pragmatic compromises if necessary interventions are to be carried out; in practice full compliance with humanitarian principles must be a target to be incrementally achieved.
Recommendation: that project staff assess their compliance with Sphere standards and principles by the use of Guidelines: Implementing a participatory Sphere audit, which covers procedures for auditing project compliance to the Sphere Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response, and the Sphere Audit Procedure.
Recommendation: that Save the Children assess whether their processes for the sensitization / indoctrination of new staff on their humanitarian principles are sufficiently robust / effective, and that Save the Children’s hiring processes screen potential employees for their sympathies related to humanitarian principles, including gender related sympathies/beliefs.
48 While the evaluation was in the field a stand-off between NGOs and fundamentalist pressure groups threatened the continuance of the whole programme in Allai. The issue was over the activities of some female agency staff (not SC US or any other INGO) who had attempted to access women directly and other than through the existing male-dominated power system. Negotiation involving GoP agencies allowed a (possibly temporary) settlement of the problem. Similar pressures on female NGO staff had occurred in the later stages of the emergency phase. During, and following, the final stage of the evaluation, and in relation to the attack on the Lal Majid in Islamabad, attacks on several INGOs led to the withdrawal of Save the Children from earthquake-related activities in parts of NWFP.
52 Annex 1 - Terms of Reference
Final Evaluation: Emergency Response to Earthquake Batagram District, Pakistan Save the Children USA
1. Introduction
The 8 October 2005 earthquake that hit Pakistan and parts of India, is perhaps the single most devastating natural catastrophe in Pakistan’s recent history. Its epicentre was 100 km North of Islamabad between Mansehra and Muzaffarabad, on the boundary between Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The earthquake resulted in the death of 73,000 people and making 400,000 people homeless. Immense damage and destruction has been noted to the public, private infrastructure, communication systems, roads, schools, buildings and hospitals, both in urban and rural areas. Amongst the areas most severely affected was Batagram district.
To respond to this emergency, Save the Children developed a multi-faceted project which had the following components:
Provision of emergency shelter and non-food items Provision of education and protection services Provision of health services Provision of emergency livelihoods Emergency food distribution
2. Objectives of the external evaluation
The evaluation will focus on the approach that was taken in responding to the emergency, including the processes and procedures followed. It is thus a ‘process’ evaluation, not an ‘impact’ evaluation. The key questions that Save the Children wishes to answer are:
(a) ‘did we follow the most effective and efficient procedures in identifying needs, targeting beneficiaries, delivering programs of support and monitoring and evaluating the impact of those programs’ (b) ‘in the event of any future emergency, what modifications should we make to the approach, process and procedures which we followed in the Pakistan earthquake response, whether at Alliance, HO or Pakistan country office level, in order to more effectively and efficiently meet the needs of beneficiaries’
The evaluation will cover the period from October 8 2005 to 30 June 2006
In answering the two key questions set out above, the consultant will need to carry out the following activities:
1) Assess the emergency planning process and determine how useful preparedness activities were in the initiation and development of the emergency response. Develop recommendations concerning preparedness planning for the future.
53 2) Assess the needs assessment, development and implementation of the programs and determine whether the choice of program areas was appropriate in the light of the needs highlighted through the various needs assessments and whether the quality of the program adhered to SPHERE standards
3) Assess the management of the programs including management support from the Pakistan country office, the Asia Area Office and CEC. Identify any bottlenecks or stresses in management and support functions.
4) Assess whether or not there has been adequate participation by beneficiaries, including children, in program planning and implementation.
5) Assess the role of SCF-US as a leader in meeting the needs of children in emergency situations and determine how effective the program teams were in coordinating with other organizations to promote best practices in this area.
6) Taking into account the operating environment the teams were working in, assess how effective SC has been in actualizing its humanitarian principles and working within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Code of Conduct and SPHERE guidelines.
The results will be used by the Pakistan country office and program management to improve implementation of the ongoing rehabilitation and development programs in Batagram District, as well as by country and HO management to inform preparedness activities for future emergencies. The CO will monitor and document actions taken in response to the evaluation and communicate them to CEC so as to also inform agency-wide preparedness activities.
3. Methodology
As the evaluation is essentially a process rather than an impact evaluation, the primary emphasis will be on reviewing documentation and meeting staff and other key informants. Meetings with project beneficiaries will be limited to those required to assess the impact and appropriateness of procedures and processes followed by Save the Children in the response, including identification of needs, planning, beneficiary identification and program implementation.
The External Evaluation will follow the standard methodology and conduct meetings with the Country Director, SMT and key staff of the Pakistan Country Office and Batagram District Office. The most important staff to meet will include Adan Adar (Director Batagram Programs and former Deputy Team Leader PERT), Nayyar Iqbal (Deputy Director Refugees), Dr Amanullah (Deputy Director for Health) and Helen Kirby (now Deputy Director for Education but during the earthquake, the Asia Area Education Adviser).
It will also be important to meet key government representatives, including the Provincial Minister for Health and representatives of ERRA, as well as soliciting information from key staff who had participated in the early phase of the response but are no longer with Save the Children US’ Pakistan Country Office. These would include Rod Snider (Team Leader PERT November 2005 to March 2006, now with SC DC office), Raheel Chaudhary (Team Leader PERT March 2006 to May 2006, now with SC Africa Area in Ethiopia), Bruce Rasmussen (Country Director October 2005 to July 2006, now with IRC Islamabad), Colin Rasmussen
54 (IDP camp manager now with USAID Pakistan) and Mubashir Nabi (Manager Livelihoods Program to November 2006, now with SC UK Pakistan). It may also be valuable to speak with David Claussenius (Asia Area Director) and Tom Tauras (Central Asia Area Director), both of whom participated as advisors to the Pakistan emergency response team over the period Oct – Dec 2005.
The consultant will also solicit information from representatives of our Alliance partners Save the Children UK (which has its head office in Islamabad and operational offices in Muzzafarabad and Bagh in Azad Kashmir) and Save the Children Sweden (which has its head office in Peshawar and operational offices in Mansehra and Batagram).
Field work will be carried out in both Batagram and Bana Allai, and will include meetings with the Executive District Officers (Health) and (Education), representatives of the Pakistan Military Forces, WFP, UNHCR and UNICEF and representatives of district and tehsil administrations, partner organizations and community leaders.
The consultant will examine and incorporate the results of all existing evaluations of earthquake response including the summary of lessons learned which was developed at the workshop in Islamabad on 31 March 2006 and the review of Alliance coordination in the earthquake response.
In addition, the consultant will review and take into account the following documentation:
1. The comprehensive, multi-sectoral needs assessment carried out in Allai Tehsil (sub- district) in the March and April of 2006. 2. Emergency project documents and monthly, quarterly and nine months program reports. 3. Battagram profile and Government of Pakistan’s official assessment of the earthquake damages
4. Duration and Logistics
It is anticipated that the project duration will be approximately 15 working days, or three weeks. It is estimated that the consultant will need to spend approximately 7 days in Islamabad and (if required) Mansehra, and 8 days in Batagram District.
In Pakistan, the consultant will report to an evaluation steering committee comprised of representatives from the CO and district offices The Pakistan country office will provide logistical support to the Consultant, including transport and two staff members.
The contact person for all matters relating to this contract is Mr Daryl Martyris in Save the Children’s CEC Division in Washington DC.
5. Deliverables
The consultant will prepare a draft summary of observations, findings and recommendations in bullet point format, and present this at a workshop with Pakistan Country Office SMT and senior staff of the Batagram program prior to departure from Pakistan. A draft evaluation report in the format recommended by ALNAP (using the OECD-DAC criteria) shall be
55 submitted within 7 days of departure from Pakistan. Following receipt of comments from Save the Children, a revised and final report shall be submitted.
Evaluator will meet with steering committee prior to starting the evaluation to better understand the key users of evaluation. The evaluator will also “test” his recommendations with intended users for feasibility and relevance, prior to the writing of the report.
6. Proposed Timeframe
Activity Dates No of Person(s) responsible days Desk review June 22-23 2 Team leader w/support from other team members
Field Visit to SC/US Pakistan June 24 – 14 All team members including: July 7 - Staff meetings in Islamabad - Visits to project sites - Interviews with stakeholders - Follow-up interviews - Travel days
Circulation of Draft Report July 8-9 2 Team Leader
Final Report (after incorporating July 28-30 3 Team Leader w/ SC/US feedback on draft) staff
Total 21
56 Annex 2 - Consultants’ Programme of work
23 June JK Travel to Islamabad 24 June JK Arrival Islamabad JK Orientation: Michael Mc Grath Country Director Adan Adar Programme Manager Battagram Nayyar Iqbal Deputy Director Refugees JK Travel to Battagram JK Interview: Adan Adar Programme Manager Battagram Waseem Afzal Jadoon Assistant Manager Communications 25 June JK, AC Analysis ToR for report and investigation design Review of Sphere and documents. Preparation. 26 June JK, AC Development of beneficiary questionnaire and interview methodology. Interviews: Rhuksana Livelihoods Shaista Jabeen Nutrition AC Planning field visit to Bana Allai JK Document review SC Emergency Manual, Sphere 27 June JK Travel to Bana Allai JK Group interview: Abdur Rehman Education officer Jalal Afsar Babar Senior Officer Operations Nadeem Ahmad Livelihoods Officer And two other unidentified staff
Individual interviews: Aamir Mirza Manager Education Nadeem Ahmad Livelihoods Officer Jalal Afsar Babar Senior Officer Operations Abdur Rehman Education officer
Interviews (Batagram): Adan Adar Programme Director Waseem Afzal Jadoon Assistant Manager Communications AC Travel to Bana Allai AC Field Visits in Allai UCs to speak with women and children Beneficiary visits with Shaista- 1 Government school teacher Rukani Bundi Livelihoods beneficiary identified was not Save the Children beneficiary during evaluation timeframe Planning for visits to female beneficiaries- consulting male staff for arrangement of male community permission 28 June JK Desk work Meeting with community representatives Batagram Shah Khalia (also interpreter) Chanjal Village, Thakot Union Council Gul Maizar Colony Village, Thakot Union Council Dost Muhammad Village Bajargram, Thakot Union Council Naimat Zar Village Bajargram, Thakot Union Council Bakht Zameen Village Kasmir China, Thakot Union Council Bakht Manir Village Dhairi, Thakot Union Council
Interviews: Aamir Kaleem Senior Manager Operations M. Saleem Khan Senior Community Mobilisation Officer Mohammed Sajid Awan Assistant Manager Logistics
57 AC Field Visits in Allai UCs to speak with women and children Beneficiary visits with Shaista and Abdul Rahman Nogram GPS- interviews one safe play supervisor and four school boys. Security alert- another SC vehicle approached by youths in same area and questioned regarding intention to take female staff to the field- return to base. Interview 3 female beneficiaries in their homes near the office- Waiting while male staff organized with male community Interviews and writing up 29 June JK No field visits possible (monsoon) Desk work: report preparation JK Interviews: Aftab Khalique Security Manager Ali Ihsan Manager Administration Syed Adeel Abbas Manager HR Mohammed Sajid Awan Assistant manager logistics AC Rain and landsliding prevent departure from Allai Interviews: Three long term staff of government Rural Health Centre – Female Medical Technician (FMT), Lady Health Visitor (LHV) Lady Health Worker (LHW) Attempted to walk across landslip on road, but landslides continuous Writing up report 30 June JK Interview: Bakkt Zada Khan District Education Officer, Battagram JK Visit School: Augazband GPS, UC Peshara JK Interview: Sher Ali Headteacher Three staff JK Visit: Bajargam village; (shelter, food and NFIs) JK Interview: Gil Rashid Village elder Dost Ahmed Village elder Payab Khan Village elder Paj Muhd Village elder Latfaraz Village elder Faiz Mudh Village elder Several community members JK Interview: Dr Mahoob, Medical Superintendent Battagram District Hospital AC Travel Allai to Batagram to Islamabad 1 July JK Interview: Aftab Khalique Security Manager Ali Ihsan Manager Administration JK Travel to Islamabad JK Interview: Adan Adar Manager Battagram Norman Stewart Regional Security Advisor JK, AC Discussions and report preparation 2 July JK Interview: Riaz Ahmed Manager Operations Merilee Kane USAID Yaseer HR Manager during emergency JK, AC Report preparation 3 July JK Interview: Salman Hassan Procurement Helen Kirby Regional Education Advisor JK, AC Report preparation
58 4 July JK Interview: Nayyar Iqbal Deputy Director Refugee Programme JK, AC Report preparation 5 July JK Interview: Bruce Rasmussen IRC (Formerly CD) JK, AC Debriefing 6 July JK Interview: Mandy Wright CD SC-UK JK, AC Report preparation 7 July JK, AC Return to UK and Karakoram 11 July JK Telephone interview: Rod Snider Formerly Team Leader of PERT
Interviewees in the evaluation of beneficiary perceptions in Banna Allai (Annex 3) are included at the end of Annex 3
59 Annex 3 - Field investigation of beneficiary perceptions of Save the Children Activities in Allai
Archaeology of an Emergency Beneficiary perceptions of the Assistance Processes
Methodology
Rather than a random sample, beneficiaries were chosen for interview based on their accessibility and the fact that they had received assistance from Save the Children during the period Oct 8 2005 and June 2006. A fuller interview was possible where beneficiaries had directly encountered female or male Save the Children staff at some stage during the assistance process. Due to cultural norms, it was not usual for male staff to interact often with female beneficiaries. During the evaluation visits, female staff could only meet with individual or groups of village women when their visit had been sanctioned by a male member of the community. Their travel was also hampered by rain and a recently lifted community ban on female NGO staff travelling to the Allai communities to meet with women.
On the 26th of June 2007 Save the Children staff based in Batagram district numbered 93 men and 9 women.
A female expatriate consultant with some Urdu language skills and familiarity with Pakistan mountain cultures, accompanied by a national female Save the Children Staff member (fluent in Pushto and English) carried out the interviews. A national male Save the Children staff member supported interviews of men and boys. During the evaluation period it was thought security concerns would prevent female staff from travelling to the field in the Allai subdistrict. However four visits were made to Rhaka Bundi, Nogrum, houses on the outskirts of Banna and at the Banna rural health centre (RHC) in the Bateela and Banna union councils of Allai. The visits took place between the 27th and 29th of June 2007. One teacher, one playgroup supervisor, four male school students (grades one and three) the RHC female medical technician and lady health visitor, a widow and two other female beneficiaries provided input into this report. These people reported having received assistance in the forms of temporary schools with latrines and water supplies, food, blankets, CGI, tool kits, and winterization household kits Plans to meet with more female beneficiaries were hampered when a group of youths stopped another Save the Children vehicle insisting that the community was not allowing any female NGO staff to travel to the field at this time. Rain hampered travel to the Batagram Tehsil for arranging alternative interviews.
Interview time varied between 45 minutes and two hours depending on how much interaction there had been between Save the Children staff and the beneficiary, during the emergency assistance period. In some cases discussions were held with large audiences, of up to 20 who sometimes joined in. On one occasion the interview with three female beneficiaries was attended by approximately 15 women and children (not present during the distributions but returned from Lahore) and a male staff/community member. The school boys were interviewed in a small group and the safe play supervisor on his own. Interviews with males were attended by both a male and female translators. On some occasions, the female staff member providing translation took the time to conduct brief refresher health and nutrition training and do preliminary assessments on malnourished children present. This added some
60 value to the visit and linked the evaluation of past assistance with Save the Children’s current interventions.
As the number of interviews was limited the suggestions are not necessarily representative. They do however offer insight as to how some beneficiaries interpreted the assistance processes. They also suggested ways in which the processes could be improved.
Discussions were based on the Sphere minimum standards common to all intervention sectors and grouped under the themes of
• Participation and Assessment • Response • Targeting • Monitoring and Evaluation • Aid worker competencies and Standards • Supervision and Management and Support of Personnel
The interviewers had some guiding questions regarding beneficiary perceptions of the assistance process. These are included at the end of the Annex. The interview process was organic in nature and not limited or even led by the guiding questions.
Findings
Participation and Assessment
The beneficiaries’ perceptions varied widely, from feelings of being highly empowered to inform assistance design or effect changes to assistance, to feeling unheeded when communicating needs, to having no communication channel to express needs/desires.
For some of the young boys interviewed the idea of being allowed to comment seemed quite novel.
If I get the opportunity to (have a say in my school) I would share that everyone should tidy up and put the rubbish in the rubbish pit I would ask for better quality and more reading and writing. . For one group of women they were not allowed to meet female NGO workers nor were they consulted by their husband/male relatives regarding their needs.
No one talked to us about what we needed. The male community members refused to gather women for meeting female NGO workers. We have 25 households but are not strictly a village and so maybe that is why no one came to see us or maybe because of religious extremists. If our husband/men brought things we were happy, if they didn’t what can we do?
I have no power.
One women indicated that she and her community made multiple and repeated demands for improvement of the education program and that these were often met. They reported meeting repeatedly with the same female community mobilization officers (CMOs). They considered
61 that they had a good relationship with these Save the Children staff and felt comfortable freely discussing any issue and making demands. They appreciated an orientation and training on team building, materials use and parent teacher relations as a good start.
Our suggestions are always written down and then they (Save the Children CMOs) bring the things the next time. One man came yesterday and was too happy that women NGO workers would no longer be coming unless they were appropriately dressed. We were worried but are too happy to see you today.
A beneficiary receiving stipend to support children’s activities reportedly repeating the children’s demands to Save the Children staff with no effect.
The girls gave me an ultimatum to bring more toys suitable for them or they would stop coming. I made this known but was told the activity was ceasing soon. Only five – six girls regularly attended after that. Boys recovered quickly from their tensions as they were busy playing.
Many times I told the staff. I even told the US ambassador and his wife that we needed to rent a large space for all to be able to play. Now all the fields are filled with crops and I have had to stop running the sessions.
The government schools and hospitals were hugely affected by the earthquake. Government staff gained strength from the activities.
After the earthquake I thought there would be no more education. The first visit by Save the Children gave us hope. - Teacher
A directive by the district’s EDO Health allowed a unique and direct link between RHC staff in Banna and Save the Children. Normally NGOs are linked through the EDO health and interaction between facility staff and NGOs is through the EDO Health’s office. The direct link facilitated good relations as needs could be met and problems resolved speedily. The senior health staff related that they had good channels for making demands from Save the Children.
Lessons learned
• Some items in distributed kits were unknown in the area and needed an orientation leaflet or session or their inclusion needed to be rethought • The most vulnerable (including children) are the least empowered. Exceptional efforts need to be made to consult them. Orientation materials could contain information about the distributed items design and testing phase. Even the most isolated women and children understand Save the Children’s consultation process. Channels for communicating ideas and problems could be detailed on orientation leaflets so women know someone is interested in their needs and ideas. • Even with empowered and accessible beneficiaries, there is an appreciable difference between being empowered enough to make demands and having channels for making them and being regularly consulted. Program plans have to have regular representative consultation procedures at each stage of the program implementation. • Utilizing existing capacity and taking a rights based approach to support the government’s response to health and education needs was well supported and
62 accepted. It increased the longevity of Save the Children’s interventions in an impoverished region in need of long-term development programs.
Recommendation
• Listening raises expectations, where responses are limited by the project cycle and budgets- community solutions should be encouraged/supported through committee/community meetings.
Response
The two houses I visited were impossible to heat (roof not connected to walls, gaps, no insulation/impossible heating).
In interviews beneficiaries commented on the effect of, timeliness and appropriateness of assistance, misappropriation and on the coordination process. They also mentioned ways that some items were used aside from their original purpose.
Children commented that the household kits had exactly the right things, even in the right colours.
If the shoes didn’t fit we searched the other houses until we found someone we could swap with.
One women mentioned that the kit had met men’s needs, children’s needs and kitchen needs but not women’s needs. She suggested in future kits small towels be included for sanitary purposes.
When Save the Children does a distribution there needs to be some orientation to the materials. Some women had mistakenly and unsuccessfully used the toothpaste as hair remover and in some cases children were wearing the women’s underwear.
Another women commented that the distributed items were exactly what they needed to survive but that their whole houses were destroyed. She said that reconstruction of their homes was a part of their daily lives and that they were depending on NGOs for so many things.
In one community drinking and washing water were still a priority. The teacher reported the latrines and water tank at the school (provided by Save the Children) are being used by the landowner as his personal facilities. He yells at the children if they use them. The community water tank provided by another NGO is yet to work.
Two people commented on the safe play activities, both separately saying that they could have started very shortly after the earthquake. People were ready and needed the activity well before December and January. They both thought these activities should start very soon after the disaster in future responses. The teacher thought formal education activities should start early as well.
Time was wasted and now the school schedule is all delayed.
63 An earlier start for education and safe play was recommended to shorten the communities’ shock/ depression period.
Safe play was what joined our community, made us busy and started our recovery.
Before safe play children were roaming. When the safe play box came they were running across the field shouting happily “we have a play box”
Children had tensions and fears. They waited for their play sessions and were happy and participating. They would come for all sessions and sit watching and waiting for their turn.
Free, quality education items satisfied our community. We had to pay for them before. No one has criticized them, they are happy for the free items and enrolment is increasing.
Some current beneficiaries involved in livelihood activities thought these also could have started earlier for women. They mentioned kitchen gardens, basket making49, poultry, embroidery, jewellery making, sewing and cutting, making chittai ( woven mats) as skills they had or could learn for contributing to their household economies. They suggested they could only do livelihood work at home but then differentiated that women with skills could leave the home to work i.e. teacher.
Some distributed items we might commonly think of as waste were being recycled. Food bags were woven to make floor mats and bread baskets and used as fencing.
One person interviewed expressed dissatisfaction at being locked into a particular NGO providing assistance, through the coordination process.
The Army assigned our village to an NGO and they are ignoring us. We don’t know where to go to complain, our community is too disjointed to act jointly.
While largely satisfied with the health support received at the RHC, staff are still requesting separate and shielded toilet for women admitted in hospital and in labour. This was in the original hospital design but failed to be implemented. This is an important gender issue, which affects hospital utilization and health outcomes for women and newborn children.
Lessons learned
• Some items in distributed kits were unknown in the area and needed an orientation leaflet or session or their (toothpaste/ladies underwear) inclusion needed to be rethought • Despite an apparent lack of consultation in the local area, the distributed items met immediate survival needs and were of an acceptable quality. • Education and Safe Play an important role in normalizing community life, link the communities and start the recovery process. Beneficiaries suggest these • Distribution of quality items gain acceptance by the community and have an impact on long-term development goals in poor rural areas.
49 Wheat stalks are no longer available due to use of threshers, but they still have the skill.
64 • Communities are ready for women’s livelihoods activities in the emergency response phase • Careful attention needs to be paid when landowners donate space. Landowners need to be orientated on the process and their rights and responsibilities. Misappropriated items constructed on their land need NGO and community support to ensure their re- appropriation and intended users access. Portable facilities could be removed if access is denied. Their placement should be such that they do not become absorbed by businesses and residences. • Beneficiaries make innovative use of materials that might normally be discarded. Such use should be encouraged and disseminated for others to copy. • Gender needs to be considered in all aspects of program design and implementation. When a intervention/ change supports gender issues this should be highlighted and prioritized for immediate action. • Coordination for an area needs to include identifying gaps in implementation and correcting them through capacity building, secondment of staff, subgranting or replacement of implementing NGO.
Recommendations: • Playkits needed more girls’ toys and boys wanted cricket uniforms. • Small towels/material should be included, in household kits, for female hygiene use. • SC should start education and play space activities as soon as possible after other, life saving interventions, . • SC needs to orientate landowners on their rights and responsibilities in relation to material provided by SC.
Targeting
Accessing women was nearly always through male community members. In the initial stages younger male employees were able to meet and talk with burqa clad women outside their homes, assisted/guided by local boys.
Despite the difficulties with accessing women directly, and even in cases where the first contact between NGO and female recipient was through this evaluation, these beneficiary interviews revealed no cases or rumours of misappropriated materials from the beneficiaries interviewed. Due to the time and security constraints it could not be ascertained directly if this was the case for female headed households with only young children.50
Everybody in the community received the same things evenly. No one household got more than any other.
Some children mentioned adults fighting in their village. The fighting was because the village elder who had identified the households had not mentioned some. The children were not sure if he had forgotten them or had only included his own relatives’ names.51
50 These families were reliant on neighbours and community for collecting items like CGI. 51 A male staff member present as translator explained the problem was that people had relocated to Meira Camp and when they heard a distribution would take place in their home village a male member would return to try and collect distributed items. He explained that he had once received a list of 400 children but when he verified it with children present there were only 120 who remained. “children don’t tell lies”
65 Blanket support of households in Allai seems to have reached all with tents and non food items. Corrugated Iron which costs around Rs 2500 per sheet was described as “white gold” by a staff member. They questioned whether extremely vulnerable households, headed by widows with young children or orphans all received these items, which were collected by men using their identity card.
A staff member related the story of a health and nutrition program staff member, who gave her Shanakti card to men to collect CGI for her on a number of occasions (not clear if it was from Save the Children). She apparently never received the CGI. When she started the health and nutrition work for Save the Children, village men asked her to stop and assaulted her. She refused to stop and related that they (the men) never helped her in the emergency phase so why should she listen to them now.
A staff member reported turning away an elderly women, without a shanakti cards, claiming the risk of duplicate/triplicate issuing of items if shanakti cards were not required.
According to staff tenant farmers and their families are still in tents. They have not received CGI and landowners have received cheques for reconstruction from the government but are apparently not rebuilding or delaying rebuilding until local materials (mud/stone) are allowed for reconstruction.
Female teachers often lived with families as females cannot live alone in Allai. After the earthquake many teachers did not return as they didn’t want to live in already crowded family tents.
Some of the beneficiaries also involved in the response ( health education staff) mentioned that no-one made any special efforts related to supporting them, or even inquired about their personal needs. These beneficiaries were busy in the emergency response and unable to attend to their own crisis for periods as long as twenty-five days after the earthquake. If we have the facilities and some comforts then we can continue to do a good job.
Lessons learned
• In conservative areas younger men may be able to directly access some women (widows) for assessment, monitoring and evaluation purposes. Younger men should be considered for employment to capitalize on this access opportunity • Not all women in Pakistan have identity cards or are even registered at birth. Reliance on them for distribution may mean some women are missed. • Tenant farmers and their families are an extremely vulnerable population segment who as yet have not found a durable solution to their housing needs • Teacher tents and reconstruction assistance could have been given to families previously hosting teachers, to encourage their return at the start of education activities.
Recommendations: • Village elders should be asked to identify all households and then mark which are vulnerable and cases where families have migrated. Comprehensive lists can then be checked when villagers return. This could reduce fighting. Staff report verifying lists with children as an effective measure.
66 • Beneficiaries and staff involved in the emergency response should have their personal needs met with direct distributions if in our geographic area of operations or through linkages with NGOs operating near their homes. • Concerted efforts should be made to employ female staff for assessment, evaluation and implementation across all sectors ( especially NFI and shelter) and in admin, HR and management roles
Monitoring and Evaluation
Beneficiaries mentioned multiple visits, complaining when things were not working and making demands. On a few occasions the outstanding issues were mentioned as unresolved (school latrine and water supply, separate shielded ladies toilet at the RHC). Beneficiaries mentioned having other demands met.
The teachers mentioned being informed of the results of the health and nutrition program prior to the school l health interventions being introduced.
Government health staff thought that Save the Children had not capitalized on natural gatherings at health centres and schools to inform beneficiaries about programs and evaluations.
Male staff related that evaluation of structures for CGI sheet distribution was done with men by male staff. It is not clear if vulnerable women constructed houses and received CGI. This evaluation only interviewed two widows, both of whom had older sons to build and collect materials.
Gap identified • This report has not evaluated if distributing to extremely vulnerable women, through men worked. This should be done and a program for directly assisting any missed women ( possibly facing a third winter in tents) developed
Recommendations: • Plan for impromptu program information sessions at natural crowd gathering venues such as schools and health facilities • Encourage community solutions to unresolved problems i.e. donation of food bags for making screen for ladies toilet at RHC and rationalization of existing toilets in hospital grounds to allow for a ladies toilet. • Senior program team should regularly meet at field level to identify gaps, discuss access issues, targeting etc cross sectorally. The discussion and action points should be shared to Islamabad to aid their comprehension of programs and program needs at the field level.
Aid worker competencies and standards
The volunteers and support staff who came in the first stages were technically competent and experienced. Language was not an issue as they had local interpreters.
Children mentioned that speaking local languages was important but diplomatically added that they could learn from non Pushto speakers. They mentioned that aid workers should
67 speak frankly with children and other beneficiaries and appreciated that about one staff member present. They also mentioned the staff should be educated.
Conservative dress and behaviour has been lacking in some other NGOs which seems to be contributing to the bout of non acceptance. Save the Children female staff have apparently been held up by the community as the standard that others should reach.
Lessons learned: • Having the same women return again and again to a community has built good relations and trust. Education staff in the government reported positively on Save the Children’s approach started with training and leading into capacity building related to team building, teacher training and materials use. • Conditions for female personnel working in Allai have come to resemble the strict purdah endured by the Allai female residents. The extent to which this is necessary for local acceptance or desired by the female staff is not clear and may result more from locally employed male staff imposing their beliefs and attitudes to women on the organization and its personnel.
Recommendation
• When hiring male personnel to work in conservative areas, women should be on the interview panel and questions developed to elicit an understanding of candidate’s attitudes towards women and women’s concerns. Male staff members found to be unsupportive of women’s programs and women’s rights should have their continued employment reviewed.
68 Guiding questions/points based on Chapter 1 (Minimum Standards Common to All Sectors) of the Sphere Project. These were used to assist discussions regarding beneficiary perceptions of the assistance process.52
Stakeholders have Rights including the right to participation, information and non discrimination.
Humanitarian agencies are accountable to those they seek to assist
Beneficiaries name: ______
Age: ______
Sex: ______
Location: ______
Received Save the Children’s assistance between Oct 8 2005 and June 2006 Yes No
Can you tell me about the assistance received from Save the Children – (when, what, appropriate, how etc)
Participation After the earthquake did anyone ask you or anyone you know you what assistance was needed? (on behalf of Save the Children) Yes see Questions below No Next question box
Can you tell me about that? (Who- male/female, community member, Save the Children staff Where and when- comfort level / understanding why /free to discuss difficult issue/ coping mechanisms)
Do you think your answer affected what you received/how you were assisted? Yes How So ?
No What makes you say that?
They were also used in discussions with staff
69 Assessment Was the assistance you received what you needed at the time? Yes How So ? No What makes you say that? In what way?
What things have you and your community been doing to recover from the effects of the earthquake?
Were these efforts supported by Save the Children/another actor?
Do you have skills that could help people recover from the effects of the earthquake? How are using them?
Can you tell me about any information (if any) you heard about Save the Children’s assistance programs. (reports/plans/recommendations)
Do you know anybody who was promised assistance but never received it?
Response Can you tell me about the appropriateness of the assistance you got? (appropriate- why/why not earthquake effects, pre-earthquake problems.
Did you have a way to talk to the Save the Children staff about your needs problems? (throughout the emergency) Explain how it worked.
Targeting Can you explain how or why Save the Children selected you for assistance, when others may not have been selected?
Do you know of cases where women/children who received assistance were exposed to risk?
Do you know of any cases of people who needed assistance but didn’t receive it.
Do you know of any cases of people receiving assistance who could have coped without it.
How did you receive assistance/access services?
Were the criteria/mechanisms for selecting people to receive assistance effective? Did the people who needed the most help, get it?
Monitoring and Evaluation Do you know of anyone who has been asked how SC assistance has helped (Who-when-how-how many times-manner) did peoples answers effect future assistance
70
Have you heard information about Save the Children’s assistance programs – in what ways
Aside from me has anyone else, not from SC asked about the effectiveness of SC programs
Aid Worker Competency and Standards Were the people who worked with SC • Fluent in your language • Culturally respectful • Aware of local tensions/conflicts vulnerabilities • Respectable/respectful • Technically competent
How were these attributes demonstrated
Management and support of personnel Because of SCs work are there things you can do now that you couldn’t do before?
List of interviews, sex and approximate age
Shanaz Government school teacher ≈35 years female Rhakat Bundu Dilda Government school student class 1 7 years male Nogrum Abdul Hafiz Government school student class 1 8 years male Nogrum Noor Rehman Government school student class 3 11 years male Nogrum Ikram Ullaah Government school student class 1 11 years male Nogrum Attiq-ur-rehman Safe play space supervisor 21 years male Nogrum Guldara female beneficiary 50years female near office Guldara’s Babhi earthquake widow 60 years female near office Bus Begum female beneficiary 28 years female near office Dr Fozia w/o Dr Surbiland FMT RHC Banna female RHC Banna Rabia LHV RHC Banna female RHC Banna Shaista HNP Manager
Male staff members from Allai Abdul Rehman Education Officer Maqsood Alam Admin Assistant
71