Pakistan RTE Report Final 20 JAN 2011.Docx

Home , 2010 Pakistan floods

REAL TIME EVALUATION OF IFRC RESPONSE

TO 2010 PAKISTAN FLOODS

20 January 2011

Author: Cynthia Burton

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACRONYMS/ABBREVIATIONS iii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY iv

EVALUATION OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY

Evaluation Purpose And Objectives 1 Background 1 Scope of Work 2 Team Composition 2 Limitations of Methodology 3

MAIN FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 4

1. MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS 4

Operational Structure 5 Equitable and Proportional Delivery 7 Financial Management and Resource Mobilisation 11 Expenditure Approvals 12 Financial Management 14 Resource Mobilisation 15 Human Resources 16 Surge Capacity 17 Regular Delegate Recruitment 25 Other Human Resource Considerations 26 Security and Conflict Sensitivity 28 Logistics and Relief Distribution 30 Resource Mobilisation 31 Relief and Logistics Planning 31 Needs Assessment and Reporting 32 Modes of Delivery 33 Operation-Wide Needs Assessment, Appeals, Planning, Reporting and Communications 30 Appeals and Needs Assessments 35 Plan of Action 38 Management Reporting 38 Reporting and Communications Functions 39

2. STAKEHOLDER COORDINATION AND COMMUNICATIONS 40

Movement-wide 42 Internal (Secretariat) 43 Pakistan Red Crescent Society 43 Partner National Societies 44 Pakistan Government/United Nations 44

Page

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS 45

Pakistan Flood Operation/Regular Programming 45 IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses) 46 Priorities 48

ANNEXES

A Terms of Reference 50 B Evaluators Biodata 55 C Documents Reviewed 56 D Field Visits/Interviews 58 E Online Survey Questionnaire 62 F Asia Pacific Zone Office Chronology of Flood Response 68 G Sample Internal Management Reporting Form 70

FIGURES

1 Online Survey Participants 3 2 Interviews 3 3 Opinion of IFRC Support to Operation 4 4 Timeliness of IFRC Response 4 5 Number of People Reached 8 6 Meeting Needs of Affected People 9 7 Personal Satisfaction 16 8 Quality of HR Support 17 9 Logistics Support 30 10 The relationship between the Emergency Appeal, Plan of Action, 36 Recovery Framework within the overall flood response 11 Reporting Support 40 12 Communications Support 40 13 Effectiveness of Coordination 41

TABLES

1 Disaster Impacts 8 2 Chronology of Flood Impacts and Resource Mobilisation 12

ACRONYMS/ABBREVIATIONS

Acronyms

AJ&K Pakistan-Administered Kashmir ALNAP Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance DMIS Disaster Management Information System DREF Disaster Relief Emergency Fund ERU Emergency Response Unit FACT Field Assessment and Coordination Team GB Gilgit Baltistan GoP Government of Pakistan ICT Information and Communications Technology IDP Internally Displaced Persons IFRC International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies KPK Khyber Pakhtunkhwa MSM Mass Sanitation Module NDMA National Disaster Management Authority NFI Non-Food Item NGO Non-Governmental Organisation PEAR Project Expenditure Approval Request PoA Plan of Action RDRT Regional Disaster Response Team RTE Real Time Evaluation SoP Standard Operating Procedure ToR Terms of Reference TPAT Transitional Planning and Assessment Team UN-IASC United Nations Inter-Agency Steering Committee UN-OCHA United Nations Organisation for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance

Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement Abbreviations (as used in the RTE report)

DMU Disaster Management Unit, Asia Pacific Zone Office Country Delegation IFRC secretariat country level office Geneva office IFRC Geneva office HNS Host National Society ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross IFRC Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS), other Red Cross/Crescent National Societies participating within the secretariat systems and processes, and the secretariat at all levels (country, regional, zone, and Geneva) Movement Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRC and IFRC) PNS Partner National Society PRCS Pakistan Red Crescent Society secretariat IFRC secretariat including country, regional, zone and Geneva levels Zone Office IFRC secretariat zone office SARD South Asia Regional Delegation

iii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Background

Torrential monsoon rains in late July 2010 triggered the worst floods to hit Pakistan since 1929. The floodwaters initially hit the northern provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan-administered Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB), spread to parts of Balochistan, and eventually reached the Punjab and Sindh provinces in the south. By the end of October, the waters had receded in most affected areas. However, many areas in Sindh remained inundated, with over 3,000 facilities housing over a million displaced people. There have been 1,984 deaths and 2,946 people injured by the floods. It is estimated that more than 20 million people out of Pakistan’s population of 170 million have been affected, and the damage to livelihoods and infrastructure is severe. Almost two million hectares of agricultural land were destroyed in the floods, threatening severe food shortages in the coming months.

The Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS), together with other Red Cross Red Crescent Movement partners, responded to the crisis with immediate relief distribution (food and non-food items), provision of emergency shelter, health and care, emergency water and sanitation services planned over an 18 month period. These plans were further developed to include activities to assist households in recovery and restarting livelihoods and the timeframe was extended to 24 months.

A real time evaluation (RTE) was commissioned by the IFRC secretariat1 from late October to mid- November 2010, with the purpose of assessing the ongoing IFRC response to the Pakistan floods, specifically the efficiency and effectiveness of management (internal processes, systems and mechanisms) and coordination. This information will be used to inform the ongoing flood response, as well as future emergency response operations.

Findings and Conclusions

The Movement-wide flood response has been broad and impressive, covering all affected provinces. Approximately nine percent of the total affected population had been reached with some form of food and/or non-food item (NFI) support by mid-November 2010. The coverage has been wide, but not always proportional to need. As a proportion of the affected population, coverage in KPK has been over-represented, while assistance to Sindh and Punjab has been under-represented; this partly reflects the situation that the main flood event first heavily impacted in this province, that its downstream impacts were not predicted at the time, and that some donor preferences or focus in the original appeals was on KPK. At the same time, the IFRC has established a presence in some remote and under-served areas (eg moving into Gilgit Baltistan and Dadu in Sindh), and the PRCS has encouraged the redirection of some resources to Punjab and Sindh, where possible.

Like most humanitarian agencies and the Pakistan government, the IFRC secretariat underestimated the growing magnitude of the disaster, so its initial response to the disaster was slow. Key human and financial resources were mobilised late for an emergency response, but the rate of response has progressively improved over time. The IFRC-supported PRCS flood response operation has systematically tackled, and is progressively overcoming, the formidable challenges to scaling up operations in such a large, geographically diverse and complex disaster. This can be seen in the continuous improvement over time in the number of affected people being reached.

1 Note: the term ‘secretariat’ refers to the Geneva, regional, zone and country offices of the IFRC secretariat iv

affected country taking the operational lead role for a major disaster response. This contributed to protracted negotiations over the deployment and/or functions of various secretariat global tools by field- or zone-based secretariat personnel with the PRCS. Valuable time was lost in upscaling the early relief response while all of these issues were resolved.

A key aspect of the new business model that needs to be addressed is the introduction of rigorous and systematic assessment of a National Society’s capacity and capacity gaps to efficiently fulfil its operational lead role, when the magnitude and/or complexity goes beyond the absorptive capacity of its human resources and institutional systems, along with identification of the specific support required from the secretariat and other Movement partners to fill these gaps. As sufficient assessment was not undertaken in the Pakistan flood response, the PRCS and the secretariat has struggled to increase the capacity of key support systems, such as relief needs assessment and reporting, to cope with a vastly expanded workload and range of IFRC/donor requirements. Ultimately, such assessments are best done as part of disaster preparedness and organisational development programs in countries more vulnerable to disaster impacts, then translated into operational protocols in the event of a major disaster event

The Standard Operating Procedures for Disaster Response and Early Recovery in Asia Pacific developed in early 2010 in order to define roles and responsibilities in the region, have provided improved clarity from the country to the zone level, but not from the zone to Geneva office level in the event of a large-scale emergency. In a similar vein, the standard operating procedures for global tools need to be updated to better reflect a decentralised operational context, for example, the counterpart arrangements to be put in place and reporting lines to be followed when a National Society is the operational lead. It is also important that the secretariat and Asia Pacific National Societies agree on clear and objective criteria or triggers for activating various levels and scales of external support through the zone or Geneva offices, rather than rely solely on personal judgements, as these are subject to wide differences of opinion.

The lack of clarity regarding leadership roles appears to have affected strategic decision-making processes in the operation, with a large majority of the IFRC and PNS personnel interviewed stating that they could not get a sense of the ‘bigger picture’ for this operation. The Plan of Action, while a useful strategic tool, needs to be further broken down into specific operational level work plans.

Financial expenditure approval requests were considered to be inadequate or slow for the magnitude of the disaster, with only CHF 250,000 allocated from the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF), and a CHF 35 million Project Expenditure Approval Request (PEAR) not activated until four weeks after the disaster began. This, combined with a slow response to the Preliminary Emergency Appeal, led to reluctance among budget managers to commit substantial funds for relief requisitions without firm pledges in place. The procurement process was substantially slowed down as a result, contributing to the flood operation’s low rate of delivery during the critical early weeks of response.

There were considerable differences of opinion within the IFRC regarding the most appropriate ways to quickly obtain funds and expenditure approvals for an emergency response, with various proposals to increase the DREF financial ceiling, simplify the PEAR process or create new mechanisms. The RTE team found that the main underlying issue was less one of whether the existing facilities could respond rapidly enough and more related to the secretariat striking an appropriate balance between financial risk management and meeting the relief needs of affected populations in a timely manner. The PEAR guidelines and procedures do not specify the risk assessment and management processes that will guide and inform these decisions. New emergency funding instruments are not required, but it would be beneficial to consider ways to further streamline the PEAR mechanism. Field-level financial management systems have been cumbersome and hampered by bottlenecks.

The surge resources provided by the Geneva and zone offices were greatly appreciated by most stakeholders. The PRCS-Emergency Response Unit (ERU) technical assistance partnership in water and sanitation offers a noteworthy good practice model for future disaster responses. Like most large-scale disaster response operations, human resources have been a challenge; some specific issues of

timeliness, strategic planning or administrative arrangements were experienced in relation to the request for and deployment of most secretariat surge tools by the operation’s key stakeholders. In spite of these difficulties, the actual deployment of several reasonably experienced regular delegates and global/regional surge tools has gone reasonably smoothly, an achievement of the secretariat at all levels.

New and different ways of recruiting human resources for an emergency context were cited by many as a need. This disaster response, as with others before it, has seen several key posts remain unfilled for long periods and high turnovers in critical positions, such as the head of operations. This puts a strain on operations and contributes to disjointedness. There are a number of examples of creative approaches to filling skills gaps within the Movement; the reasons for the gaps need to be systematically analysed and creative solutions found, drawing from this existing (sometimes newly emerging) experience. This disaster has also clearly illustrated the need to have staff backstopping arrangements in place for smaller country offices in disaster-prone countries during peak holiday periods; several managers and staff in key posts at all secretariat levels were absent on leave during the critical period over July- August 2010, contributing to the slow start-up and relationship definition challenges.

The Filed Assessment and Coordination Team (FACT) was recognised as a valuable global surge tool. However, in this disaster response, the FACT struggled to fulfil its mandate. This was due to a combination of factors including: the small size of the team in relation to the huge scale, geographic spread and complexity of the disaster, a lack of clarity of roles and relationships with the PRCS in a context where the Host National Society was the operational lead agency, and some team leadership challenges related to this context. The quality and timeliness of the operation’s relief needs assessment and planning processes, as well as the strategic planning of ERU deployments, were adversely affected by these constraints. Insufficient consultation by the FACT and PRCS at the provincial level also contributed to the latter situation. The FACT also did not engage adequately with the PNS, many of whom felt ill informed and not sufficiently consulted about its work. The early ERU deployments also suffered from issues related to the inexperience of some team leaders and members operating in a complex security environment and an overstretched PRCS unable to provide interpretation and other forms of start-up support. Most of these issues have been largely resolved over time, though further work could be done to tighten up the support system provided for future Regional Disaster Response Team (RDRT) deployments.

The communications and reporting functions were widely seen as a strength of the operation and the inclusion of reporting and communications delegate in the FACT as playing a key role in the production of timely public relations material. The incorporation of an early recovery specialist into the FACT and the fielding of the Transitional Planning and Assessment Team (TPAT) were also seen as important and progressive steps by the secretariat, with the caveat that the TPAT needed to involve the zone office and PRCS more in its planning and the team needed to link more closely with the provincial/district levels of the PRCS (though there were attempts to do so).

The performance of the secretariat’s Islamabad and zone office security sections has been reasonable overall, considering the small number of staff working in this area in the country delegation and the overwhelming situation they faced at the start of the operation. Systematic efforts have been made at both levels to identify appropriate responses and solutions to emerging problems. At the same time, this area was under-resourced during the early stages of the relief operation, given the need to regularly monitor and update security information across such a large, complex and geographically diverse operational area. This appears to have affected the quality of the security assessments at some field sites and of the security briefings provided to delegates. The staffing level for security has since been increased, and the introduction of 24-hour radio rooms in PRCS branches to track personnel movements was especially appreciated by operational staff and PNS.

The provision of efficient and effective logistics support and relief distribution services to the Pakistan flood operation has been challenging. Overall, after a slow start, the logistics and relief distribution systems have gradually improved and the coverage has substantially increased. The sheer scale and complexity of the flood operation has tested the relief/logistics needs assessment, planning,

procurement, distribution and reporting capacities of all partners. The logistics support to relief distributions has also been affected (at different levels) by: the late processing of requisition orders due to delays in processing financial approvals; having to process unsolicited in-kind donations from some PNS; ERU mobilisation problems, including poor sequencing of the arrival of logistics and relief ERUs and limited coordination of these functions; delays in the production of a consolidated relief distribution plan related to limitations in the relief reporting capacity of the PRCS; and human resources gaps/limitations, such as experienced logisticians familiar with secretariat systems.

Several stakeholders considered the IFRC secretariat’s logistics systems and procedures, at the global and regional levels, to be too slow and cumbersome for emergency situations and not sufficiently facilitating local purchase or the use of cash-based approaches. The operation has used a mix of these mechanisms, but the secretariat, in partnership with the PRCS, needs to further investigate methods to responsibly expand its local-to-global procurement chain in Pakistan in future in order to increase the speed and flexibility of relief responses; this could serve a pilot for other countries in future, in line with the spirit of Strategy 2020. The secretariat also needs to further develop and/or clarify its rules, protocols and institutional decision-making roles for the appropriate, timely and cost-effective use of local quality standards over international standards.

The production of a plan of action (PoA), using a recently developed template, has been a useful process for consolidating information and identifying ways to facilitate more meaningful cross-sectoral program integration in the flood response. However, the processes followed for the production of preliminary needs assessments, appeal documents and hence, the PoA itself, had several limitations. The FACT had difficulty carrying out an adequate needs assessment, due to capacity and access issues. The PRCS also has faced serious capacity constraints to carry out comprehensive needs assessments, vulnerability targeting and relief reporting in so many locations, on such a big scale, and to meet the requirements of a large, multi-donor response; this includes a lack of basic equipment at the field level. The TPAT were able to fill some, but not all, of these gaps as they also faced some access limitations. Additionally, the procedures for stakeholder engagement had not yet been fully developed or formalised in the new PoA preparation process, an important gap in guidance for both the FACT and TPAT.

As a consequence, these key documents were produced late and/or ‘out of sync’ with each other, contributing to shortcomings in the quality of analysis and targeting information, as well as in ongoing operational strategic planning and adjustment. The quality of management reporting has been reasonable, most notably the IFRC Operations Updates and Movement Factsheets, but has been affected by the availability and quality of planning and reporting information.

The IFRC support operation and PRCS had recognised these reporting limitations and the American Red Cross Relief Cell ERU and RDRT had initiated capacity-building support. The Relief Cell ERU, which has played a very useful and important role in the operation, was scheduled to demobilize in late November, and it was unclear to the RTE team whether follow-up deployments of regular delegates would be sufficient to continue this work.

Despite the limitations of information and planning documentation, the Operational Updates have included some robust reporting on the key issues and challenges faced by the IFRC secretariat and the PRCS in the response. The further development of internal management reporting tools, focused on strengthening formal problem-solving approaches and accountability for follow up would also be beneficial to this and future operations.

The PRCS/secretariat have stated their commitment to providing services to the disaster-affected population based on needs, to target the most vulnerable families, and to ensure community participation, all good practices. Due to the limitations of the secretariat support/PRCS capacity, reporting systems have not systematically captured information to determine if this is, in fact, happening. The operation’s beneficiary communication strategy, including pilot activities to reach women, was gearing up at the time of the RTE; this excellent initiative, if well implemented, should

vii

contribute to improvements in monitoring and reporting. It would have been useful to have in place from the outset. Likewise, a planned beneficiary feedback survey should be done as soon as possible. There are several examples of good practice in strategic coordination among the Movement partners in the Pakistan flood response, such as: putting in place a Movement coordination framework; the Joint Statement on the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement in response to the flood crisis in Pakistan; the donors’ conference in Doha in October, and PRCS - hosted daily operational update meetings. Despite these impressive achievements, the relationships between the IFRC and the ICRC have been strained at times, with differences of policy and opinion on appropriate roles and practices in the flood operation.

In terms of adopting a cohesive approach to the representation of the Movement under one banner, there appears to be less cohesiveness and not all PNS have adhered to the agreements they have signed or had different interpretations of the application of these agreements. These are difficult and sensitive issues for all of the partners, and efforts have been made at the global, regional and in-country level to dialogue on these differences of approach and try to reach a greater level of shared understanding and approach. The Pakistan flood response shows that this dialogue will need to be continued, using positive approaches to relationship building, both inside and outside of the flood operation.

There has been reasonably good collaboration between the country delegation and the zone office over the course of the operation, including the highly valued surge capacity provided to the delegation. At the same time, the country delegation felt bypassed to a certain extent by the FACT and some of the early operational heads while some others felt the delegation did not engage pro-actively enough in operational planning. The lack of clarity of roles, responsibilities and procedures under decentralisation has contributed to a tense decision-making environment and a breakdown of trust between the Geneva and zone office staff which needs to be addressed by the secretariat management as a high priority.

In-country, a broad approach by some of the operation’s key stakeholders of planning with limited consultation with PRCS provincial branches led to some costly communication errors, such as the deployment of some ERUs to locations without identified need or without advance notice to the provincial branches to organise the necessary support required for them. The placement of IFRC liaison delegates in provincial branches has significantly improved this situation.

The biggest risk facing the operation at the time of the RTE – in the view of the team - has been that the transition of roles and responsibilities for the ongoing relief and early recovery service delivery from the ERUs to PRCS branches/districts and IFRC flood operation delegates would not occur smoothly. The capacity of some parts of the PRCS to take on some of these roles unsupported appeared to be not yet strong enough, combined with the sheer scale of the need, eg. a protracted emergency in Sindh simultaneous with recovery operations in other provinces. The delegate and PRCS staff recruitment processes appeared to be going too slowly to ensure there would not be gaps in coverage, particularly with large numbers of staff scheduled to take compulsory recreational leave and then having to be issued with new visas to return. The lack of a status agreement for the IFRC secretariat in Pakistan has meant that there are legal risks to the secretariat to fill some of these gaps with local employment contracts, so this has not been a viable option.

Most personnel across the Movement are aware of these, and the other remaining issues and challenges for the operation and gradually identifying solutions to overcome them. They are showing considerable responsiveness and adaptability, a strength that should benefit the next stages of the relief and recovery operation. The team also encountered a strong desire within the IFRC secretariat to continue to strengthen its capacities in large-scale emergency response. The report contains 11 recommendations for the ongoing flood operation/country programming and 30 recommendations for the IFRC as a whole to progress this work.

viii

EVALUATION OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY

Purpose and Objectives

This real time evaluation (RTE) took place from late October to mid-November 2010, with the purpose:

‘To assess the ongoing IFRC response to the Pakistan floods to inform continued response in Pakistan, as well as future global emergency relief operations. Particular emphasis will be placed on the overall management and assessing related internal process and systems and how effective they are in delivering services.’

For the purposes of the RTE, the Terms of Reference defined ‘IFRC’ as: the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS), other Red Cross and Crescent National Societies participating within the secretariat systems and processes, and the secretariat at all levels (country, regional, zone, and Geneva). The term ‘Movement’ refers to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

The specific objectives focused on:

1. Management Efficiency & Effectiveness: To what extent have internal processes, systems, and mechanisms affected quality management and timely and cost-effective service delivery? 2. Coordination: To what extent the IFRC response was managed in a cohesive and effective manner, including communication, collaboration, and coordination among key stakeholders:

The definitions of efficiency, effectiveness and coordination used for this evaluation are those contained in the IFRC’s draft evaluation policy. The detailed guiding questions for each objective can be found in the Terms of Reference at Annex A.

Background

Torrential monsoon rains commenced in late July 2010, triggering the worst floods to hit Pakistan since 1929. The initial deluge of floodwaters hit the northern provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan-administered Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB), isolating towns and villages as raging waters tore through roads and bridges. By mid-August, the Punjab and Sindh provinces in the south were bearing the brunt of the floods as swollen tributaries converged in the Indus River. The period up to mid-September saw the mass exodus of populations from cities under threat. By the end of October, the waters had receded in most affected areas. However, many areas in Sindh remained inundated, with over 3,000 facilities continuing to house more than a million displaced people. 2

The Pakistan government’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) reported 1,984 deaths and 2,946 people injured by the floods. It is estimated that more than 20 million people out of Pakistan’s population of 170 million have been affected, and the damage to livelihoods and infrastructure is severe. Out of the country’s estimated 22.2 million hectares of agricultural land, almost two million were destroyed, threatening severe food shortages in the coming months.3

In response to the urgent humanitarian situation and recognizing the growing needs of the affected population, the PRCS, in partnership with other Movement partners, responded with immediate relief distribution (food and non-food items), provision of emergency shelter, health and care, emergency water and sanitation services planned over an 18 month period. These plans were further developed to include activities to assist households in recovery and restarting livelihoods and the timeframe was extended to 24 months in November 2010.

2 NDMA, 10 November 2010 as reported in IFRC Operations Update: 3 Months Consolidated Report, 10 November 201, p 2. 3 Ibid, p 2. 1

Scope of Work

The RTE focused primarily on the support provided by the IFRC secretariat (all levels) to the PRCS-led flood response to achieve timely and good quality service delivery for the affected population. This included consideration of the effects of the roles of, and relationships with, other key internal and external stakeholders involved in the operation. The RTE covered the period from the recorded onset of the floods (21 July 2010) to the completion of RTE data collection in the field (17 November 2010).

Geographically, the RTE encompassed all flood-affected areas in Pakistan served by the PRCS with IFRC secretariat support. It did not include those areas served by the PRCS with the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The RTE also did not include an analysis of:

· The performance of the bilateral operations of the PNS or of the ICRC support to the PRCS; · Adherence of the operation to the values and standards of the IFRC (ie SPHERE, Fundamental Principles, and Code of Conduct for the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement and NGOs); or · The relevance and impact of the flood response.

Team Composition

The RTE team was comprised of four members (Annex B: biodata):

· Ms Cynthia Burton, an independent consultant (Team Leader); · Mr Yasir Manzoor, Disaster Management Manager, PRCS AJ&K Branch on secondment to the flood operation at the national office (PRCS representative); · Mr Glenn Rose, Manager International Programmes, New Zealand Red Cross (PNS representative); · Mr Raj Zafar, Cooperation Officer for the Pakistan Delegation (IFRC secretariat representative).

Due to logistical constraints, Mr Manzoor and Mr Zafar participated only in the fieldwork in Pakistan. Mr Rose was unable to participate in the interviews conducted at the secretariat’s Geneva office but joined the team leader for the interviews conducted at the secretariat’s Asia Pacific zone office in Kuala Lumpur and for the fieldwork in Pakistan.

Methodology

The main frame of reference for the evaluation was the objectives, outputs/outcomes and performance indicators identified in the 2 August 2010 emergency appeal and the subsequent revised emergency appeal of 19 August 2010.

A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods was used to gather information and to triangulate and validate the findings. These included:

· Review of key documents/data including: IFRC/PRCS/Movement policies, guidelines and standard operating procedures related to emergency response and recovery; flood operation appeals, assessments, plans and progress reporting; completion reports/evaluations of disaster responses by the IFRC and other agencies in Pakistan; relevant completion/evaluation reports from prior disaster response operations in Pakistan and the IFRC response in Haiti (Annex C: documents reviewed); · A total of 100 (78 M/22 F) key informant interviews and focus group discussions (FGD) with a representative cross-section of: IFRC secretariat staff involved in the operation (in Geneva, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi and Pakistan); PRCS national, provincial and branch level staff; and other key stakeholders (ICRC, PNS, GoP, UN agencies and international non-government organizations or NGOs); the locations visited within Pakistan included: Mardan and Minggora (KPK); Lahore and Multan (Punjab); Karachi, Larkana and Sukkur (Sindh); refer to Annex D for details.

· A (pre-tested) online questionnaire survey to which a total of 104 (56 M/48 F) Movement personnel responded (Annex E: questionnaire).

Figure 1 Online Survey Participants Figure 2 Interviews IFRC IFRC PRCS 22 PRCS 28 3 3 9 Field 1 Field Units Units 7 ICRC 9 ICRC 2 48 PNS 44 PNS 14 GoP

14 UN

NGO Note: Field Unit = FACT; ERU; RDRT; BCHU

Debriefs of the preliminary findings were conducted by the full RTE team in Islamabad and the PNS representative at the Asia Pacific zone office in Kuala Lumpur (hereinafter referred to as ‘the zone office’); a telephone debrief was carried out by the team leader and PNS representative with secretariat Geneva office staff (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Geneva office’).

Limitations of Methodology

There were a number of limitations to the methodology:

· The affected population/beneficiaries are the principal ‘clients’ of the IFRC operation and, as such, their feedback is a key element of an analysis of the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery, ie to triangulate institutional views with those of the affected population. Due to time and operational constraints, it was not possible to interview beneficiaries; as a proxy, questions were asked to operational personnel about responsiveness to beneficiary needs and social inclusiveness; this limits the scope of the evaluation; · The delays experienced by the IFRC secretariat in identifying a secretariat or PNS team member meant that the RTE methodology for the evaluation was developed without the full input of all team members and all team members did not participate throughout the entire RTE; · There was insufficient time to calibrate the online survey questionnaire for various forms of bias, and the findings – while valid and useful data for triangulation and validation of findings from key informant interviews and document reviews – cannot be considered as statistically reliable; · Data was not available for making reliable cost-efficiency or cost–effectiveness comparisons between operations in the timeframe of the RTE (eg 2005 earthquake; 2007 floods, etc). · The death of the Director of the zone office and a close relation of the RTE team leader disrupted the schedule of key informant interviews and a validation workshop planned for the final week of the field mission in Kuala Lumpur. The latter also delayed production of the RTE report, as the team leader was responsible for all drafting work.

MAIN FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

1. MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS

1 (a) Was the Federation’s operational structure well geared to deliver timely, efficient and effective disaster response? Have IFRC internal systems and processes affected whether services have been delivered in an equitable manner, proportionate to need?

Like the Pakistan government and most of the international humanitarian community, the IFRC secretariat’s initial response to the disaster was slow, with late mobilization of key human and financial resources for an emergency response (Annex F: Asia Pacific zone office chronology of flood response). The operational structures of the secretariat and the PRCS contributed to this situation, as described below. All parties were caught off guard by the development of what was initially a major rapid-onset flash flood in the north of the country into a slow-onset flood of massive proportions throughout the south of the country; this was apparently counter to the June predictions by the government’s meteorology services of normal monsoon rains with a possibility of rains of ten percent above normal levels (email correspondence, Siddiqui, 16 January 2011). No stakeholder interviewed could explain why this had occurred, despite several interviewees noting that floods were not new to Pakistan and that the gradual movement south of the flooding was predictable – though not on the scale experienced.

A number of interviewees further observed that the Pakistan government and other organisations, such as the IFRC/PRCS, should have been monitoring the situation more closely and in a higher state of preparedness by the end of the first week of August 2010 when the magnitude of the impact of the spreading floodwaters had become apparent. Although beyond the scope of the RTE, the team would observe that this indicates shortcomings in both national and community level Early Warning Systems and perhaps an overly relaxed attitude to generally more low profile flood disasters than to events such as a rapid onset earthquake – an opinion expressed by several interviewees. This is potentially of higher concern to the IFRC more broadly, as the majority of disasters to which it responds globally are flood-related4 and more frequent and severe flood events are predicted as a result of climate change.

Comparisons have been made between the initially significantly faster rate of relief delivery of the ICRC-supported operation and that of the IFRC-supported operation. This reflects the prior presence of a substantial number of ICRC delegates and local staff and a greater physical and financial resource base, more than the shortcomings of the IFRC support systems. It is to the credit of the IFRC-supported operation that it has systematically tackled and is progressively overcoming the formidable challenges to scaling up operations in the largest disaster experienced by the world to date. The evidence of this is the continuous improvement over time in the number of affected people being reached.

Figure 3 Opinion of IFRC Support Figure 4 Timeliness of IFRC to Operation Response

Very good Very good Good Good Average Average Poor Poor Very poor Very poor

0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50 Percent (88 Respondents) Percent (88 Respondents)

4 According to interviews with Geneva secretariat personnel 4

The Movement personnel who responded to the online survey gave the IFRC support an average rating of 3.3 out of 5 and its timeliness an average of 2.88 out of 5 (see figures 3 and 4 for full responses).

Operational Structure

The IFRC secretariat’s operational structure was not well geared to deliver timely, efficient and effective response for a disaster of this scale. The operation was adversely impacted by the lack of clarity of roles, responsibilities and reporting relationships between the different levels of the secretariat’s decentralised decision-making structure, between the secretariat and the PRCS and between the ICRC and the secretariat. A number of days were lost at key decision-making points during the critical early weeks of the flood response while roles, responsibilities and the deployment of global tools were negotiated among these Movement partners (for instance, two-three days spent deciding the geographic coverage and other operational considerations between the IFRC and ICRC support; discussions about Emergency Response Unit/Regional Disaster Response Team deployments, etc). In some cases, formal reporting relationships had been defined but were not followed.

Many secretariat personnel and other Movement partners, both in the online survey and the interviews, described the decision-making and reporting lines as confusing and characterised by multiple and unclear lines of communication between the different levels; a number of interviewees said that different individuals and offices gave contradictory advice and instructions to those contained in formal terms of reference. Some examples given were:

· Field Assessment and Coordination (FACT) team leader taking on roles normally associated with the head of country delegation, and liaising directly with Geneva and Asia Pacific zone offices, despite TOR which defined the head of the country delegation as the main reporting line; · Head of country delegation reporting to Disaster Management Unit (DMU)/Asia Pacific zone office when official reporting line is to South Asia Regional Delegation (SARD): how should these two reporting lines function during an emergency response for maximum efficiency and effectiveness? · Emergency Response Units (ERUs) responding to direct requests variously from FACT team leader, head of operations, Geneva and zone offices, and National Society head offices despite TOR which defined the FACT team leader – and later the Operations Manager as the main reporting line; · Confusion over reporting relationship of FACT to PRCS as the operational lead of the response; · Divergent views over degree of influence/control that different IFRC stakeholders should have in drafting of Emergency Appeals and human resourcing decisions (both global tools and key operational roles).

The lack of clarity regarding leadership roles appears to have affected strategic decision-making processes in the operation. A large majority of the IFRC and PNS personnel interviewed said they could not get a sense of the ‘bigger picture’ for this operation. In-country, the IFRC support mirrored the limited PRCS consultation with provincial branches. This led to a number of costly communication errors, the most prominent being the deployment of ERUs to locations without giving advance notice to and checking on need with the provincial branches to organise the necessary support required for them.

A lack of clarity in roles and relationships was described by many interviewees as a pre-existing problem, and one also found in other zones. The issue becomes more visible in large-scale disasters requiring the activation of global emergency response tools and support. Similar issues were reported in the RTE of the 2010 Haiti earthquake (Fisher M, Bhattacharjee A et al, June 2010, p 4).

The Standard Operating Procedures for Disaster Response and Early Recovery in Asia Pacific, released in early April 2010, were developed in order to define roles and responsibilities in the Asia- Pacific region. The Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) are a useful first step and provide reasonable clarity from the country to the zone level, but they do not provide clear and sufficient guidance on the activation and mobilisation of global tools and support from the Geneva level in the event of a large- scale emergency. Additionally, very few people met by the RTE team, who were working on the Pakistan flood response, were aware of them – in spite of circulation to PNS prior to the Pakistan

floods. The SoPs were developed through an extensive consultative process between the zone office and National Societies in the region but did not include the Geneva office.

In a similar vein, there are well-developed SoP for mobilisation of the global tools, such as FACT and ERU, but these need to be updated to better reflect a changed operational context, for example, the counterpart staff arrangements and reporting lines to be followed when a Host National Society (HNS) is the operational lead for the response.

This lack of clarity contributed to delays in activating the global tools and to misunderstandings and protracted negotiations between the partners regarding the scope of their decision-making authority. In particular, while the covering note of the Asia Pacific SoP states that the country and zone levels of the secretariat are responsible for decision-making regarding the establishment of operational needs and strategies, the actual wording of the SoP is less clear on this point. The HNS of a disaster-affected country is described as the operational lead ’responsible for managing the implementation of the response to a disaster situation’ and the DMU as the international lead, ’tasked with the coordination and facilitation of international assistance in support of the National Society, providing oversight, coherence, flow of information, linkage to global processes and quality control of the Federation services provided to a National Society.’ Coordination and facilitation do not have the same meaning as decision-making and the current descriptions are easily open to different interpretations.

A National Society may request international assistance through the country team (National Society and IFRC representatives). The criteria for assessment of the need to mobilise additional support and scale up by the HNS, country team and/or zone office are not defined, only stated as taking place ’where necessary’ in the covering note. The processes and mechanisms by which the zone office DMU ‘will coordinate and facilitate’ is not described, nor the specific parameters of the role of the Geneva Disaster Response and Early Recovery Division to ’support the Asia Pacific Zone in terms of facilitating deployment of FACT/ERU tools, approval of DREF requests and Preliminary/Emergency Appeals.’ The SoP do not describe the standard roles and responsibilities of the Geneva office, as is the case for other levels of the secretariat, and the Geneva office was not consulted in their development. For example, what are the different and complementary facilitation roles to be played by the two offices? As the Geneva office is also tasked at the global level with quality assurance, what aspects of quality assurance are the responsibility of the zone office vis the Geneva office and how are these roles coordinated to ensure complementarity and avoid duplication?

As described by several interviewees and online survey respondents: “nobody wants to admit that they can’t cope, as they are afraid they will somehow look as though they are not competent enough.” It is important that the secretariat and National Societies agree on clear and objective criteria or triggers for activating various levels and scales of external support through the zone or Geneva offices, as this scenario is likely to recur in the highly disaster-prone Asia Pacific region. Several other organisations use such criteria (eg UN-OCHA, Oxfam), for instance, basing their decisions on number of deaths, amount of damage, complexity of context, degree of public interest, etc. while retaining flexibility in their application to different contexts.

Having the National Society of the disaster-affected country lead implementation is entirely appropriate and in keeping with the spirit of various agreements within the Movement. At the same time, the Pakistan flood operation raised questions about the kinds of assessment required to determine if a National Society may have capacity gaps to efficiently fulfil its operational lead role when the magnitude and/or complexity goes beyond the absorptive capacity of its human resources and institutional systems. As one survey respondent put it: “We have under-utilised the strengths of the PRCS and over-relied on them in areas where they are not strong.” This issue has been increasingly recognised by all stakeholders as the operation has progressed. For example, Operations Update No 8 (24 September, 2010, p 6) reported that: ’Many of PRCS’s branches have limited capacity in terms of human resources, equipment and technology to support large-scale distributions. ‘The need to update the IFRC’s systems, procedures and mechanisms to facilitate this new emergency response business model are further discussed under ‘Coordination and Communication.’

Recommendations

IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses)

1. Review and update the Asia Pacific Zone SoP to include clear guidance on the roles, responsibilities and reporting lines of all levels of the secretariat in the event of a large-scale emergency response in full consultation with all stakeholders 2. Develop a set of criteria for decision-making on the mobilization of regional and global support and tools, drawing from good practice among other humanitarian actors. 3. Make a pre-agreement between the Asia Pacific zone office and National Societies which identifies their capacity gaps in the event of a large-scale and/or complex disaster and the types of external support likely to be required; this should be updated regularly, possibly in conjunction with Well Prepared National Society assessments. 4. Incorporate education on the content and application of the SoP into FACT, ERU and other relevant disaster management training for secretariat and National Society personnel with disaster response roles and responsibilities in this region.

Equitable and Proportional Delivery

The Movement-wide coverage is broad and impressive; it includes all affected provinces and aims to cover 10 percent of a huge affected population: a total of around 300,000 families. The 26 November Movement Factsheet (No 10) shows that approximately nine percent have been reached with some form of food and/or non-food item (NFI) support to date.

The division of the support role to the PRCS relief efforts in different parts of the country between the IFRC and ICRC was appropriate, given the stronger in-country institutional capacity of the ICRC, the conflict context, and the very high coverage commitments made; such operational divisions also have been made in the past, eg 2005 earthquake. The selection criteria used by the operation to choose locations to provide assistance were also sound in terms of basing geographic coverage on capacity to deliver, most affected, and lack of other organisations (under-served). However, it is unclear how consistently they were actually applied to decisions regarding where to work. Sufficient data also was unavailable to take this analysis to the depth of distinguishing severity of the impacts of the disaster within different provinces and districts. It should be noted that this also can have a bearing on analysis of proportionality and equity in aid delivery.

According to UN-OCHA/NDMA data, around 75 percent of the population affected by the floods are located in Punjab and Sindh. Proportionally, the Movement’s coverage of people in Sindh (550,000+ out of 7 million) and Punjab (500,000+ out of 8.2 million) has been far lower than that of Balochistan (350,000+ out of 1.37 million) and KPK (600,000+ out of 3.8 million), particularly considering that KPK has been extensively supported by multiple organisations while Sindh has remained under-served with considerable ongoing relief needs; Table 1 and Figure 5 provide further details.5 Further to this, the UN agencies and NGOs in KPK expressed concern that the IFRC focus in upper Swat duplicated the work of other organisations while some other locations in KPK were not being adequately served. At the same time, the Mardan-based relief ERU and the shelter team reported gaining access to remote areas of FATA unreached by other agencies shortly before the commencement of the RTE. The team could not confirm whether duplication had actually occurred, and the shelter team questioned the reliability of the UN shelter cluster information, but these organisations and a number of others met in other provinces expressed difficulty in coordinating programming with the IFRC/PRCS.

The breakdown of the Movement’s geographic coverage was explained by various secretariat/PRCS operational personnel as partly reflecting the pre-existing operational strengths of the PRCS in KPK and of the ICRC in various locations,6 partly the security issues which restricted access to the affected areas

5 Note: RTE team did not have access to data on provincial breakdowns and had to estimate based on graph provided in Movement Factsheet No 10 of 26 November 2010, p 1. 6 In the latter case, this was linked also to the commitments of the ICRC to conflict-affected areas of Pakistan 7

of Punjab and partly the easier access to KPK. A few said some strong leaders in government and the interests of bilateral donors had also influenced certain coverage decisions.

At the same time, it must be noted that the impacts of the main disaster event (28 July) first manifested themselves in KPK, and commitments were made to meet the urgent needs here, before the Movement or the rest of the international community were aware of how extensive the downstream impacts would become. In a related vein, some PNS have directed their contributions to KPK only, as their original funding appeals had only focused on this province (ie a concern about honouring donor intent). The PRCS has worked with its Movement partners to redirect some assistance to Punjab and Sindh, where feasible.

Table 1 Disaster Impacts

Punjab Sindh KPK# Balochistan AJ&K Gilgit- TOTAL Baltistan

Deaths 110 410 1,156 54 71 183 1,984

People 262 1235 1,198 104 87 60 2,946 injured Houses 497,700 876,249 284,990 75,596 7,106 2,830 1,744,471 damaged People 8,200,000 7,000,000 3,800,000 1,370,000 200,000 100,000 20,670,000 affected* # Includes Federally Administered Tribal Areas

Source: NDMA, 5 November and UN, 20 September*

Figure 5 Number of People Reached

Food Non food items

The PRCS and the secretariat have stated their commitment to providing services to the disaster- affected population based on needs, to target the most vulnerable families, and to ensure community participation in beneficiary selection and in identifying their own needs and options to meet these, all good humanitarian practices in keeping with the Fundamental Principles of the Movement:

’Guided by the IFRCs Gender Policy and pledge on Non-discrimination and respect for diversity, the operation’s beneficiary selection process will be sensitive to socially- or economically-disadvantaged and excluded groups and will consider the issues of disability, gender, age, and minority.’7

Vulnerability selection criteria in the Emergency Appeal of 19 August 2010 (p 9) identified the following groups as priority for assistance, with beneficiary registration to be undertaken by trained and experienced PRCS volunteers:

· Families headed by women, i.e. widows, divorced or separated women without income; · Families headed by children; · Families which have not been beneficiaries or recipients of any substantial assistance from the · government and other organizations; · Families with person(s) with disabilities and other socially excluded groups; · Families from ethnic minorities, vulnerable occupational groups and marginalized populations.

However, due to limitations of the FACT/PRCS needs assessment and PRCS reporting systems to operate in such a large and widespread area (discussed under Logistics and Relief Distribution section), data had not been collected to verify if these criteria or the commitments to gender sensitive programming were being met; the reporting was broken down only by number of distributions to affected people, though efforts were being made to revise the reporting system to include more breakdown by vulnerability categories at the time of the RTE. The IFRC-supported response also did not have the benefit of the computerised beneficiary registration and tracking system of the ICRC.8 Several ERU/Basic Health Care Unit (BCHU) interviewees felt that there was only very limited to no specific assessments or targeting of vulnerability or attention to gender considerations in the relief and health work in which they were involved.

Figure 6 Meeting Needs of Affected People 50 45 P 40 e 35 r 30 c 25 e 20 n 15 t 10 5 0 Very poor Poor Average Good Very Good Don't know

During implementation, the flood operation trialled a system of indirect relief distributions through community leaders in some more sensitive or hard-to-reach locations; this was based on ICRC’s

7 Emergency Appeal, 19 August 2010, p 8. 8 Evaluations of past large-scale PNS relief and recovery programs from the 2004 Asian tsunami have found a tendency to under-estimate the importance of investing in these systems until much later in an operation, by which time beneficiary verification and inclusion/exclusion errors are more difficult to rectify. These systems also greatly assist in improving the ease and quality of reporting. 9

experience and suggested approaches. Unfortunately, the use of this system led to some inequities in the distribution of relief within communities and was stopped. Further research or capacity building may be required within the Movement to identify or create the conditions under which indirect distribution can be done successfully by all partners in Pakistan.

Overall, out of 88 respondents to questions regarding equitable delivery of assistance:

· 34/88 (39%) felt that relief assessments had been poor to very poor in identifying the needs of the affected population, with 31(35%) rating them as average. Only 17 (19%) felt they were good to very good and 6 (7%) didn’t know. · 39/88 (44%) thought that the IFRC’s response had done an average job of meeting the needs of the affected people, with opinions split among the remaining 56%. · 51/82(62%) thought the IFRC had done an average job of taking the self-expressed needs and opinions of the affected population into consideration (average = 2.94) and 45/77 (58%) thought the different needs and opinions of women and girls had been adequately taken into account; 18 (23%) thought this was done poorly to very poorly while 18% (14) thought this had been done well to very well. (average = 2.95). · 29/77(38%) felt that the participation of the affected population in decisions about the operation’s strategies and priorities had been poor to very poor, while 27 (35%) felt it had been average; only 8(10%) felt it had been good to very good and 13 (17%) didn’t know for a very low overall rating average of 2.09. · Access to information got an even lower average rating of 2.00 with 47% of respondents rating this as poor to very poor. The possibility to share a complaint was 2.08, with 35/ 77 (46% rating this as poor to very poor and only 8 (7%) considering this as good to very good.

The survey results indicate that the responsiveness of the relief operation to the needs of the affected population may have been less than optimal. This was also reported by the Transitional Planning and Assessment Team (TPAT) which encountered many frustrated community members during their fieldwork. Those who physically and socially cannot reach designated food/NFI distribution points were anecdotally reported to being helped sometimes by other family/community members but it was unknown what happened to others. Anecdotal examples were given by ERU/PRCS field staff of beneficiaries selling food to buy schooling, medicine and housing items in some more northern affected areas and of relatives taking a widow’s assistance. At the same time, the fact that households did not need to produce a national identity card to access assistance may be a strength in terms of reaching widows and some other groups who have difficulty accessing these cards.

Past United Nations (UN) RTEs of the 2007 floods and 2009-10 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) crisis have demonstrated that specific measures need to be put in place to ensure the assistance reaches the most vulnerable/needy. There is a related risk of stereotyping vulnerability if it has not been well assessed. For example, in the official response to the 2007 floods, widows and orphans were automatically categorised as the most vulnerable, when it turned out that the landless and those of lower ‘castes’ comprised a greater proportion of those experiencing problems of access to relief supplies.9

The operation’s beneficiary communication strategy, including pilot activities to reach women, was just getting underway at the time of the RTE; this excellent initiative, if well implemented, should contribute to improvements in monitoring achievements and gaps in beneficiary coverage. A number of personnel commented: “It would have been good to have this in place from the outset.”

Although the RTE was advised that a beneficiary feedback survey was planned, the timing and area responsible for this work could not be identified (presumably this task would fall to the beneficiary communications team). This survey should take place as soon as possible as it has its greatest use value during distributions and forward planning, rather than after they have been completed.

9 Young Sir N, Khattak Dr SG et al,. IASC’s Inter-Agency Real Time Evaluation of the Pakistan Floods/Cyclone Yemyin. Geneva: UN-OCHA, 31 October 2007, p 7. 10

Recommendations:

IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses)

5. Make it an IFRC policy to incorporate beneficiary communication activities and resources into appeals, needs assessments and planning from the outset of an emergency response. 6. Ensure that relief distribution needs assessment and reporting systems and forms can adequately assess progress towards meeting equity and vulnerability criteria from the outset of the response; allocate technical support and capacity-building resources to this function, and to the development of specific outreach strategies, as a priority when needed. 7. Field ICT specialists to put in a place a computerized beneficiary registration and tracking system from the outset of future major disaster responses. 8. Make it a requirement for emergency operations to document the process by which areas are selected/rejected for inclusion in relief/recovery programming against the identified selection criteria (ie to go beyond simply identifying the criteria in appeal/planning documents) in order to demonstrate transparency and accountability in this area.

Resources Mobilisation 1.b How effective and efficient were the systems to mobilize resources – financial (including DREF and PEAR mechanisms), human resources (including surge capacity and regular delegate recruitment), logistics etc.?

The performance of the secretariat’s operational support systems and procedures has been mixed to date and influenced, to some extent, by related strengths and limitations of the PRCS’ own systems and procedures. The survey findings generally indicated that the majority of Movement personnel rated this as an average operation in terms of the quality of the support services, as can be seen by the overall average ratings for each area (on a scale of 1-5):

o Reporting 3.45 o Communications/media 3.34 o Finance/administration 3.28 o Logistics 3.24 o Security 3.18 o Human resources 2.81

There are two notable exceptions. Human resources was given a comparatively lower score and, although security received an overall average score, the rankings ranged widely across the scale, with 42(47.8%) of respondents rating security as good to very good (the highest score across all categories) but 24 (27.2%) considering it as poor to very poor (the second highest score in this range across all categories). The relative ratings across the categories are broadly consistent with the qualitative feedback received from the interviews and focus group discussions.

Financial Management and Resource Mobilisation

Resource mobilisation was slow and initially insufficient to the scale of needs for the flood response, in turn contributing to delays in the provision of relief assistance. In-country financial resource management systems also have been cumbersome and hampered by bottlenecks. Various operational staff have undertaken actions to overcome the inefficiencies of the system in supporting the timely delivery of aid. This demonstrates the strong commitment of both the IFRC and PRCS to meeting the needs of the affected population but is open to accountability risks.

Expenditure Approvals

The main expenditure approval mechanisms put into place by the IFRC secretariat to support the PRCS’s response to the flood emergency were:

· Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF): CHF 250,000 (US dollars 239,406; euros 183,589) was allocated on 30 July 2010 to support the national society’s response to the emergency. · Project Expenditure Approval Request (PEAR): CHF 35 million (around 34.1 million US dollars; 26.8 million euro) 10 was requested on 25 August and approved on 27 August.

The amount of DREF requested was considered to be inadequate for the known scale of the disaster at that time by nearly all internal stakeholders; in early August, 32 districts were already affected by flash floods in three provinces (Balochistan, KPK, Punjab). The growing impacts of the progressing floods on millions of people across the country had become clear by the second week of August, but a PEAR request was not activated until four weeks after the main disaster began and over three weeks after the launch of the preliminary emergency appeal on 2 August. By this time, the floods were assessed as affecting 65 districts and 15.4 million people (refer to Table 2 and Annex F on flood chronology.

The very small amount of DREF funding, combined with a slow response to the Preliminary Emergency Appeal, led to reluctance among zone budgetary managers to commit substantial funds for relief requisitions without firm pledges in place to cover them; this was reported to be the case by several interviewees, despite informal directions that were apparently provided by the zone office to the in-country operation throughout the early weeks of August to increase their expenditure limits above the amount of confirmed available funds available (see Annex F) . This, in turn, slowed down the procurement process and contributed to the flood operation’s low rate of delivery during the critical early weeks of response. Conversely, the ICRC was reported to have a substantial pre-existing funding base from which to draw and to have committed CHF 50 million (approximately 46.7 million US dollars; 38.3 million euro) to the flood response – assisting them to mount a more rapid response – but the team could not verify this.

Table 2 Chronology of Flood Impact and Formal Financial Approvals

Date (2010) Flood Impact Appeals/Approvals/Events Hard/Soft Pledges Received (CHF) 21 July First report of floods in Balochistan 28 July Floods spread: Balochistan, KPK, Punjab Entered into DMIS 30 July 32 districts affected DREF requested and approved for $250,000 02 August Preliminary Emergency Appeal 03 August 33 districts affected 114,1143 04 August 300,000 06 August 44 districts & 4 million people affected 07 August 901,427 10 August 54 districts & 14 million affected 12 August IFRC Sec-General visit 3,649,525 19 August Emergency Appeal 8,350,855+ 24 August 65 districts & 15.4 million affected 10,848,633 25 August PEAR request 14,874,000 27 August PEAR approved for CHF 35 15,481,368 million 13 82 districts & 20.6 million affected 34,391,433+ September Source: Asia Pacific Zone Office Flood Operation Chronology NOTE: CHF = Swiss francs

10 Currency conversion for PEAR and ICRC figures are approximate using OANDA rates from 27 August 2010 12

Only CHF 250,000 in DREF funds was requested by the PRCS, through its supporting IFRC partners, when up to CHF one million can be approved as a DREF loan; it would have been a low risk to eventually recover at least this amount of funding through the Emergency Appeal.

As the magnitude of the flooding impacts grew to unprecedented proportions, this previously largely neglected disaster attracted the attention of the international media, leading to greater interest and response by donors and the Pakistan government itself. This was reported to have been further stimulated by the visit of the UN Secretary General to Pakistan on 15 August. At the time that the PEAR was finally put in place, there was a total of CHF 14.874 million in hard pledges and in-kind donations through the mobilisation table; the funding gap or level of financial risk exposure was in the amount of CHF 20.4 million in soft pledges.11

Regarding the PEAR, some interviewees said that the country delegation and PRCS were unaware of, or did not understand, how to activate/use the PEAR option as a follow up to the DREF; this could not be verified by the RTE team, but the PRCS did indicate a lack of clarity about the rationale for and efficacy of various aspects of these expenditure approval processes. The more common interpretation of the main cause of the delay in requesting a PEAR was a perception by the budget holders and appeal managers that a large request was unlikely to be approved by the secretariat’s Geneva management when the donor response to the appeals had not been high and the memory was still fresh of the IFRC secretariat getting caught out with high expenditure commitments and soft pledges that did not materialise in the 2004 Asian tsunami response. Only just over CHF 10 million in hard and soft pledges had been received by 13 August and less than CHF 10 million in hard pledges had been received up to 23 August. On the face of it, following the initial flash floods, the Pakistan floods appeared to be shaping into another one of the many slow onset flood disasters that remain under-funded. This was not an unreasonable assumption under the circumstances at that time.

There were considerable differences of opinion among different secretariat levels and PNS, as well as a certain amount of misinterpretation, of the guidelines and procedures for use of the DREF and PEAR facilities. Some felt the maximum amount of funds allowed under DREF should be increased to CHF two-three million; others were concerned that this would deplete the funds available to support smaller, under-funded emergencies. Yet others expressed the view that a PEAR could and should be processed immediately for larger disaster responses instead of utilising the DREF, while a small number described the PEAR process as too slow to use in the early stages of a disaster response as it requires a ‘project’ plan and budget analysis. Two interviewees suggested that an entirely new mechanism should be created to facilitate emergency expenditure approvals.

The RTE team found that the main underlying issue was less one of whether the existing facilities could respond rapidly enough and more related to the IFRC striking an appropriate balance between financial risk management and meeting the relief needs of affected populations in a timely manner. Both the DREF and PEAR guidelines and procedures clearly specify their eligibility to support emergency operations to obtain ‘start up’ capital or enter into expenditure commitments. A DREF funding approval is treated as a loan which will eventually be repaid through hard pledges to the emergency appeal; approval of a DREF allocation also ‘acts as an automatic approval of a PEAR.’12 The PEAR provides institutional protection to budget holders against the ‘funding gap’ in an operation, ie the risk that soft pledges may not turn into firm commitments and the IFRC secretariat has to carry the cost. However, the PEAR guidelines and procedures do not specify the risk assessment and management processes that will guide and inform these decisions.

It does not appear that new emergency funding instruments are required. Instead, it would be beneficial to review and update the DREF and PEAR mechanisms to increase their accessibility and flexibility, as well as to educate likely/possible users on the existing features of their application that can be applied more flexibly. Some specific measures which could be considered:

11 PEAR approval document, 27 August 2010. 12 DREF Procedures and Guidelines, v 2, 17 September 2008, p 7. 13

· Develop guidance on financial risk assessment and risk management for the PEAR process, in consultation with the finance, audit and other appropriate areas of the IFRC secretariat and incorporate these into the current guidelines and procedures. This guidance should identify and specify the acceptable institutional parameters for taking financial risk during an emergency operation (eg perhaps defining eligible funding levels as a percentage of firm/soft pledges already received, etc) and the contingencies for managing bad or worst case scenarios (ie commitment is made but hard pledges are only partially/not realised). The idea is to reduce both the reality and the perception of high individual exposure to the consequences of taking risks related to expenditure commitments and to base such decisions on established criteria rather than relying solely on individual judgment. · Review the PEAR approval procedures to identify any areas in which the process may be further streamlined for emergency operations (eg increasing the funding gap approval levels of different managers if good risk management procedures are in place, etc.) · Provide refresher information sessions for key managers in National Societies and at all levels of the IFRC secretariat to raise awareness of the DREF/PEAR guidelines and procedures and to assist staff to interpret how to apply them to their likely emergency scenarios.

One secretariat stakeholder group has further suggested the possibility of broadening the streamlining process for emergency operations to include administrative, logistics, human resources, administration and other operational procedures, possibly leading to the development of one exclusive global procedure for emergency operations (email correspondence, , 3 January 2011). This is an interesting suggestion and consistent with the feedback received from some interviewees about needs to ‘tweak’ the emergency response system to make it work more smoothly in large-scale disasters.

Financial Management

The in-country financial management system put in place for the flood operation has been described by several IFRC and PRCS personnel, including financial managers, as inefficient and open to accountability problems. In some cases, this had affected the timely delivery of key assistance to the affected population, for instance, the shutdown of the water and sanitation facilities in some Sindh IDP camps (Larkana District) for up to two weeks, due to a lack of available funds at the local level.

The IFRC secretariat channels programming funds to the PRCS national office, which in turn releases them to its provincial branches and district operational staff. The process is intended to ensure fiscal control and accountability, a very responsible objective, but has been found by ERUs and PRCS field staff to be slow and cumbersome. Many IFRC secretariat/partners and some PRCS operational personnel considered it to be more suited to a regular programming context than to an emergency response situation; one stakeholder further observed that it is important for financial personnel to be exposed to actual field conditions to assist them to work out realistic procedures for a given context.

The Pakistan-based secretariat delegates and PRCS have made commendable efforts to circumvent these delays and blockages to the release of funds but this has led to risky practices that are open to abuse and expose individuals to personal liability issues. For example, the operation’s financial area reported receiving invoices for ‘immediate’ payment from the PRCS without clear documentation of the procurement process, eg for key transport services. Individual delegates in the water and sanitation ERUs also have taken personal responsibility for the release of blocks of funds allocated for service delivery. The finance area of the operation anticipated a general growth in problems reconciling financial acquittals as the PRCS, especially at the field site levels, did not have systems in place that would meet secretariat requirements; the departure of one ERU team leader had already been delayed by such issues. This situation is of concern, given the small size of the operation’s finance team (one

delegate, one local staff and one PRCS volunteer), a few anecdotal reports from the field of abuses of the system, and the history of fiscal integrity issues in the Pakistan country delegation.13

More broadly, strategic level budgetary planning systems (eg production of spreadsheets and regular budget meetings by section heads) had not been put in place to monitor expenditure. This need was identified a short time prior to the arrival of the RTE team and measures were being put into place to strengthen budgetary management. It would appear that, for such a widely spread out operation and in a context of limited PRCS capacity to meet the financial management requirements of the IFRC system, that more finance personnel – delegates and/or locally recruited – should have been placed in each of the three main operational hubs, rather than only a small team functioning primarily in Islamabad. In the early planning for the creation of the three operational hubs, it was apparently intended that local financial staff would be recruited for each hub; however, national staff recruitment issues had delayed this taking place (emailed comments, 9 January 2011). The internal audit sections of Geneva and Kuala Lumpur have regularly scheduled monitoring visits to Pakistan and may already have identified these issues and any required follow-up.

Resource Mobilisation

As previously indicated, initially it was difficult for the resource mobilisation areas to attract much interest in supporting the Pakistan flood operation from donors; the reasons for this relate to the previously described under-estimation of the magnitude of the flood impacts by the international community and the Pakistan government. The inclusion of communications and reporting delegates on the FACT, and in zone office surge capacity provided to the operation, was considered by most stakeholders to have made a very positive contribution to public and PNS fund-raising. Their presence, combined with back office support from the zone and Geneva offices, led to the production of quality information materials and sharing of these with Movement partners that allowed those responsible for resource mobilisation to capitalise on the increased media attention that occurred later in August and early September.

By 15 October, the Emergency Appeal of nearly CHF 75.9 million (72.5 million US dollars; 56.3 million euro) had achieved almost 78 percent coverage (Movement Factsheet No 7) and, as at 9 December 2010, approximately CHF 65.04 million had been pledged to the IFRC Pakistan flood response, including contributions currently in the pipeline (Disaster Management Information System or DMIS budget report). A complete list of the appeals/revisions can be found on page 35.

A considerable proportion of the contributions were made through in-kind donations by PNS – estimated at 30-40 percent of total contributions by the zone office (communication, 7 January 2011). As discussed under the ‘Logistics and Relief Distribution’ section, while all contributions to the identified needs of a response are welcome, this mode of resourcing offers less flexibility in decision- making than cash contributions.

The resource mobilisation areas of the Geneva and zone offices experienced some issues in terms of clarifying their respective roles and responsibilities for liaison with different potential donors at different levels (eg Geneva missions, capitals, field missions or embassies), like other areas of the operation. Some suggestions made on resource mobilisation for future large-scale operations at the zone office level included: giving consideration to mobilising in-country surge capacity in this area to engage in early and intensive liaison with key donors and building stronger relationships and negotiation skills with major bilateral donors at all levels (for instance, the European Union’s emergency area – ECHO).

13Secretariat internal reviews and audits have identified issues, related to procurement, that have been further investigated through a forensic audit. An initial internal audit vist was carried out in October 2010 to assess risks and help to prevent similar issues in future. 15

Recommendations

Pakistan Flood Operation

IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses)

10. Develop guidance on financial risk assessment and risk management for the PEAR process, in consultation with the finance, audit and other appropriate areas of the IFRC secretariat and its PNS advisory groups as appropriate; incorporate this guidance into the current guidelines and procedures. Review the PEAR approval procedures to identify any areas in which the process may be further streamlined for emergency operations (eg increasing the funding gap approval levels of different managers if good risk management procedures are in place, etc. 11. Provide refresher information sessions for key managers in National Societies and at all levels of the IFRC secretariat to raise awareness of the DREF/PEAR guidelines and procedures and to assist staff to interpret how to apply them to their likely emergency scenarios.

Human Resources

There have been a number of positive features of the human resources support provided to the operation. A substantial number of international personnel have been fielded for the flood operation from early August up to mid-November 2010. According to a country delegation flood support list (received from zone office Human Resources area on 28 December 2010), a total of 256 international personnel have worked on the operation or were under recruitment; this included: 35 regular delegates; 172 Emergency Response Unit/Basic Health Care Unit (ERU/BHCU) staff; 13 Regional Disaster Response Team (RDRT) members; 15 Field Assessment and Coordination Team (FACT) members (including rotations of original team members and one RDRT member); 10 zone surge support and six Transitional Planning and Assessment Team (TPAT) members. National staff numbers working on the operation were reported to total 61, though it was unclear how many of these were new recruits for Figure 7 Personal Satisfaction the flood operation or existing country delegation staff. These figures differ from others provided by Very Good different sources for some categories, but this was the only consolidated list available so is being Good used for the purpose of the RTE report. Average

Poor The overall experience levels of all IFRC staff surveyed in the operation have been good. Nearly Very Poor half of the 104 survey respondents had participated in five or more prior larger-scale 0 10 20 30 40 50 operations (51 or 49%) and only 11 (11%) on their Percent (88 Respondents) first. Another 42 (40%) had participated in two- four prior operations. The one category of personnel for which these figures were somewhat different was the ERUs/BHCUs; these had a higher proportion of individuals on their first large-scale operation (around 18%) and a lower proportion with experience in five or more larger-scale operations (around 38%). The personal satisfaction level of the 88 survey respondents to this question also was reasonable: 38% (33) rated their personal satisfaction levels as good to very good and nearly 41% (36) as average (see Figure 7).

At the same time, the overall quality of the human Figure 8 Quality of HR Support resources support provided by the Federation secretariat to the operation was rated lower by Very Good respondents to the online survey (see Figure 8) than Good other areas such as logistics, finance/administration and reporting. The reasons for this, according to the Average comments received and the interviews conducted Poor relate to: the initial delays in mobilising surge resources, inadequate skills and experience of some Very Poor of the individuals deployed, systemic constraints in 0 10 20 30 40 Pakistan to regular deployments, and a regular delegate recruitment system that has been described Percent (86 Respondents) as unsuitable to an emergency context by several interviewees.

Surge Capacity

The mobilisation of surge capacity was considered to have taken place later than was desirable in the operation – in relation to the onset of the main disaster event on 28 July - by most stakeholders interviewed and a number of survey respondents, be it secretariat personnel, the FACT, the RDRT or ERUs. While the PRCS initially requested a FACT deployment during the first in-country coordination meeting of 29 July and the deployment of RDRT members was discussed,14 the initial FACT request did not go out until 2 August 2010. This was due to a need to receive clarification from the field on FACT team responsibilities and the visa process, as well as to reach agreement with the ICRC on the geographic division of operational areas of support.

The first ERU deployments were not requested until 8 August and, apart from the early mobilisation of one RDRT member on the FACT a final agreement on the main RDRT deployment was not reached until around 16 September when an RDRT alert was issued (see Annex F Chronology of flood response for full details of deployments).

There were a number of contributing factors to this situation, as described in the survey responses, interviews, and end of mission reports of various personnel. These included:

· Initial under-estimation of the magnitude of the disaster and the scale of the response required by the secretariat and the PRCS; · The absence of key country delegation managers to support these assessments during the early days of the response, with the first zone surge support not arriving until 4 August; · The need to reach agreement on geographical areas of responsibility for IFRC secretariat vis-à-vis ICRC support to the PRCS, as well as Movement wide operational protocols; · Obtaining entry visas for team members (which later eased somewhat when the GoP put in place measures to facilitate the short-term entry of international flood relief personnel); · Differing views about the role of the ERU deployments in relation to the PRCS operational lead role; about an appropriate and manageable number of foreign delegates/staff; and the costs and benefits of RDRT deployments.

The FACT and early ERU deployments also suffered from issues related to the delineation of management roles and responsibilities between the different secretariat levels in a decentralised operational context, as discussed below. Once some of these issues were eventually resolved, most stakeholders acknowledged the important need for these global tools and, in particular, the key roles being played by the ERUs/BHCUs and the RDRT in the flood response.

Secretariat Support

14 Email correspondence of 31 July 2010 17

Several interviewees questioned why surge capacity had not been immediately mobilised in late July from the zone office, SARD or Geneva offices, given the unusual staffing circumstances in the Pakistan country delegation at the time of the disaster. The small country delegation had an existing practice of ensuring that either the head or deputy head of the delegation were in-country when the other was absent in the event of a disaster occurring. However, while the head of delegation was on leave, the deputy head had to travel to his home country due to a death in his family; the security delegate also was away on annual leave. An organisational development (OD) delegate with no prior emergency response experience was the acting head of the delegation at the time. The country delegation had also lost 12-13 experienced local staff earlier in the year and was rebuilding up to its full, normal capacity.

The OD delegate functioned largely on his own for a number of days; support was provided primarily through telephone and email contact. Those PNS with an existing in-country presence, and the ICRC country office, supported the OD delegate during this period, with a cooperative spirit described by those involved as effective and amicable. It was not clear why one-two experienced disaster management people were not sent from one of the other secretariat offices to provide temporary assistance, apart from a context of low numbers of key staff in these offices on summer leave and the under-estimation of the disaster’s scale at all levels during its early stages. The acting head of the South Asia Regional delegation had offered to deploy immediately but faced constraints in visa processing, and this may also have been a determining factor. The OD delegate was described by many interviewees as having performed very well under the circumstances.

The zone office began to deploy support personnel from its own staff and the wider region, commencing with the arrival of a shelter delegate on 4 August. The zone office further undertook backfilling on two occasions of a key vacant post: the head of operations (discussed further under ‘Regular Delegate Recruitment’). Between the month of August and the time of the RTE, a number of staff from different areas had been sent to Pakistan on short term rotations including: reporting, shelter, logistics, human resources, etc. The feedback from most in-country delegation and operational staff was that these individuals have played important roles in assisting them to cope with a demanding disaster response; many of these individuals and their supervisors described how they had, in turn, benefited professionally from the field experienced gained.

The human resource (HR) section of the zone office, though not requested, provided highly valued administrative support to the country delegation. The importance of these roles in processing support needs for large disaster responses, such as visa applications and accommodation, is often underestimated. For the Haiti earthquake operation, the Geneva HR Coordinator, Field Support had to temporarily relocate to the Americas zone office in Panama. A few interviewees suggested that the immediate deployment of administrative support for larger disasters should be a standard practice, as should be the assignment of a dedicated HR position within zone offices to coordinate recruitment. One further suggested the deployment of a team comprised of HR, financial and administrative personnel that could be managed as an Emergency Response Unit.

The surge support provided by the zone office occurred largely on an ad hoc and responsive basis, with individual areas working out the support needs of their colleagues/counterparts in Pakistan. This has placed its own strains on a busy office with many other needs to fulfil, and some interviewees felt that the office itself was reluctant to admit that it might need some outside support too. It would be preferable to have contingency plans in place for key surge needs in the event of larger-scale disasters. One person suggested developing a Rapid Deployment Unit model similar to that of the ICRC, whereby ICRC deploys experienced staff from its office for the first three-four months of an emergency operation to ensure experience and continuity. Such a Unit could also potentially include personnel from Asia Pacific country offices and Geneva.

Field Assessment and Coordination Team (FACT)

The FACT was widely seen as an important global tool in disaster response. However, in this particular disaster response, the FACT struggled to fulfil its mandate – a gap felt by many interviewees, survey respondents and some of the team members themselves (according to end of mission reports reviewed). This was due to a combination of factors including: the small size of the team in relation to the huge scale, geographic spread and complexity of the disaster; a lack of clarity of roles and relationships with the PRCS in a context where the Host National Society was the operational lead agency; and some team leadership challenges related to this context.

The FACT assembled in Islamabad between 7-11 August. The initial nine member team, expanded to 10 in mid-August, struggled to fulfil its multiple roles of operational start-up, coordination and needs assessment up until it demobilised on 8 September. There were many reasons for this situation.

Firstly, the team had difficulties establishing a functional working relationship with the PRCS. Some team members did not have PRCS counterparts, as the PRCS did not have designated departments or function lines in their respective technical areas (eg shelter, reporting, early recovery). Several team members described difficulties accessing PRCS personnel and information to effectively carry out their roles. There were a few notable exceptions, primarily in sectors where the PRCS had well established programs run by skilled professionals, usually also with prior experience of working with international counterparts. Some FACT team members (in their end of mission reports) and survey respondents indicated a need to identify where gaps in Host National Society counterpart arrangements may occur in future disaster responses (ie where the role/function is not part of their existing institutional structure) and to make suitable alternative arrangements in advance of mobilisation.

The FACT team leader focused a considerable amount of his time and effort on resolving issues related to establishing a mutual understanding and acceptable working relationship between the FACT and the PRCS, as well as resolving similar issues with the PRCS related to the deployment of other global tools. A decision reached to co-locate the FACT with the PRCS flood response team in the same building was considered one of the positive steps towards building effective relationships, including trust and good cross-cultural communications.

Secondly, the team was largely restricted to Islamabad. There were some locations they could not access, due to ongoing heavy flooding, as well as an approach of primarily using needs assessment data gathered by the PRCS and from other secondary sources, rather than conducting needs assessments themselves; this information proved challenging to access and contained many gaps that rendered analysis and reporting difficult. It is the assumption of the RTE team that an agreement was reached between the FACT team leader and the PRCS to adopt this approach, with the intention of achieving greater operational efficiency and avoiding duplication of efforts.

The immensity of the unfolding disaster also meant that the size of the team was too small to spread itself effectively over such a large and diverse geographic area of operations. The size of the team again reflected the broader under-estimation of the scale of the disaster and concerns among some in-country stakeholders about managing a larger team. When team members did eventually reach the field, some experienced problems obtaining adequate interpretation support and access to affected communities.

On a more positive note, the inclusion of communications, reporting and early recovery positions on the FACT were considered by several secretariat and PNS interviewees and survey respondents to have made a timely and valuable contribution to ensuring a good flow of communications materials for current and prospective donors to the flood response and to working towards a smoother transition between relief and recovery programming, respectively.

Additionally, the FACT experienced internal coordination problems and communication gaps with some other IFRC partners. The team did not have regular internal coordination meetings, and a number of the members found themselves having to function largely independently of guidance from the Team Leader. Some coped reasonably well with this independence, others did not. This situation was

reported to have significantly improved with the arrival of a deputy team leader on 18 August to share the workload with the team leader.

According to many of the PNS there was very little engagement with their country offices, including those with a well established presence and field experience in Pakistan prior to the floods, and very limited coordination with the (acting) head of delegation, despite this being the official reporting line of the team leader stated in the FACT terms of reference (ToR). Interviewees from all partners described the confusion that this created for them on the ground, especially for some (but not all) of the ERUs whose main reporting line was meant to be through the FACT team leader. Some ERU team leaders reported effective support and problem-solving from the FACT, while others said they felt isolated from the rest of the flood operation. This was compounded by disagreements over the technical reporting lines of team members to the zone and Geneva offices, despite these also being specifically stated in the FACT ToR. There was also some initial confusion on how the FACT and zone office surge capacity performing similar roles (eg reporting) should integrate their tasks; these issues were resolved over time by the individuals involved.

Various interviewees and survey respondents in operational roles also commented on the disruptions caused by dealing with multiple rotations of some FACT members over a short period of time (eg water and sanitation role). Some felt that the FACT had evolved from a body comprised of PNS personnel with sound knowledge and commitment to the Movement to one with a large component of consultants engaged by the PNS – ie many were not regular PNS staff and, hence, may or may not have this context or a vested interest in the ongoing performance of the operation. The reality is likely not a simple as this interpretation: for example, the ability of the contributing PNS to release personnel for an extended period of time in a situation of multiple emergency responses may be limited. From the perspective of the RTE team, there will always be difficulties fielding emergency personnel for more extended periods of times, and the secretariat can only continue to stress the importance of an appropriate minimal time commitment to the FACT.

Overall, the quality and timeliness of the operation’s relief needs assessment and strategic planning processes were the most adversely affected by these constraints (discussed under section on ‘Needs Assessments, Appeals, Planning, Reporting and Communications’), as was the planning and coordination of ERU deployments.

As mentioned, the value of the FACT tool itself was not questioned - indeed, many stakeholders commented on the important role it plays. They pointed out that some of the issues faced by the team were specific to this operation. At the same time, there was a widely held view that some of the issues reflected a need to update or refine some features of this global tool. For example, many interviewees and survey respondents commented that the FACT had too many tasks to perform; those with more extensive operational experience expressed the view that this was a wider problem with very large-scale disaster response operations. A number suggested the creation of a standby roster of secretariat operations managers (heads) recruited from within the IFRC - given the importance of this key post - as a complement to the FACT, and as the focal point for stability and continuity during the critical first few months of an operation; this was described in a similar vein to the suggestion regarding the creation of a Rapid Deployment Unit. There has been great difficulty filling and retaining suitable people in this position in the Pakistan flood operation, with several rotations to date.

Another commonly made overall observation about FACT deployment, both for this operation and more broadly, is reflected in the following comment from one interviewee:

“The FACT can no longer act as a stand-alone team with one reporting line; it needs to be integrated with the Host National Society and its role recast to be more of an adviser than a doer. The Federation (sic) needs to think about the most sensible way to do this, given the different abilities and approaches – even the different attitudes - of different HNS.”

Some suggestions made in this vein included:

· To identify specific Host National Society roles/positions on FACT, considering that most will be undertaking operational lead responsibilities in major disaster responses in the Asia Pacific region; · To develop pre-agreements with Host National Societies on the rapid activation of FACT, accounting for their lead operational role; and · To update FACT training to reflect a changed working environment with Host National Societies, such as roles and procedures for supporting an HNS that is in an operational lead role.

Considerable further discussion will be needed within the IFRC to work out the most efficient and effective ways to retain the well-established positive characteristics of the FACT as a global surge tool, while adjusting to these more recent changes in the operational context.

Emergency Response Units (ERUs)/ Basic Health Care Units (BHCUs)

The valuable contribution being made by the ERUs/BHCUs to the PRCS’ flood relief efforts was widely recognised among RTE interviewees. At the same time, a number of difficulties were experienced, especially in the initial deployments; these contributed to a mixed success rate of these deployments. Most of the issues are being gradually resolved as the operation progresses.

The ERU presence in the Pakistan flood response has been large, particularly in relation to the historic use level of ERUs in the Asia-Pacific region. A total of 10 ERUs have deployed, with the first arriving on 8 August. These have included: two logistics ERUs (Finnish / Danish and British); three relief (one French/Benelux, one Benelux/Danish and an American Red Cross Relief Cell ERU), two basic health care units (Norwegian/Canadian and French/Japanese/Australian), two water and sanitation HR teams to assist and complement PRCS staff re-using ERU equipment deployed in 2007 (Spanish RC and Swedish/Austrian) and two water and sanitation ERUs, one a German/Austrian M15 ERU and the other a British Mass Sanitation Module (MSM); the latter also provided HR support to the PRCS using equipment handed over in 2007. By mid-November, a total of 167 international personnel from donor National Societies had participated in ERU deployments, according to the Geneva surge desk (note; this number differs slightly from that in the country office flood support list).

While the actual support to the mobilisation process by the Geneva surge desk was considered efficient, as was that provided for the FACT, the timeliness of deployment and the quality of ERU contributions were affected by many of the same factors described in the preceding sub-sections on human resources. The ERU deployments have faced some additional challenges, among these:

The initial decisions on ERU placements did not appear to be based on an objective and strategic needs assessment by the FACT, nor in adequate consultation with the PRCS provincial branches (eg one ERU deployed without a FACT recommendation having been made). This led to some deployments occurring without adequate notification to the branches to provide enabling staff support and to a disagreement about one deployment that led to a relocation of the ERU, with the attendant cost, loss of response time and stress to the personal involved; the efficiency of the location of some ERU deployments, and operational hubs, are still questioned by in some provinces. In one case, a relief ERU was requested before a logistics ERUs; this contributed to pipeline problems, with some ERUs having no goods to distribute at various times. In another case, a logistics ERU had to split itself to try to cover a broad territory when there was arguably a case to field a second team.

Several non-PNS, and some PNS, interviewees and survey respondents said that many PNS struggled to find quality ERU team members, as the Haiti earthquake operation had depleted the pool over 2010. This could not be confirmed by the RTE team but seems a reasonable conclusion given the even bigger scale of ERU use in the Haiti operation. The Benelux ERUs apparently were advised against deploying female team members to their proposed areas of operation, which effectively halved their pool of ERU candidates (email communication, 29 December 2010). The rationale for this advice is not known to the RTE team, but it is a concern if options for the safe deployment of female team members were not considered, given the difficulties of access by males to affected females and the past experiences of

some organisations in successfully working through such issues in many (but not all) areas of the country.

The result was that some ERU team leaders and members were on their first deployment, with a few turning out to lack the ability to understand and adapt to a complex internal and external security and work environment; this situation became compounded by the emerging issues regarding working in Punjab Province with armed escorts.15 The frustration at the impact of this context on the ERU’s operational capacities sometimes led to behaviour that contributed to security incidents and the early departure of some (refer to sub-section on ‘Security’ for further details). The overstretched country delegation security team also lacked the capacity to adequately brief and reassure them of the outcomes of pre-deployment security assessments of living and working quarters – though the extent and quality of these pre-deployment assessments was questioned by some (the RTE team was not in a position to assess this specific topic).

According to the ERU standard operating procedures, ERUs are meant to be self-sufficient for one month. However, the absence of a status agreement in Pakistan contributed to a slow import process for vehicles procured by the secretariat’s regional logistics unit for the use of the ERUs. The rental vehicles available to the ERUs were often in poor condition and/or the drivers could not communicate in either the English or local language where they were deployed – similar issues were reported with the country delegation’s rental car arrangements by some.

This situation added to the workload pressures and demands on the PRCS and the secretariat country delegation and flood operation staff at all levels. For example, the PRCS Sindh branch advised that, already stretched in the response, they simply did not have enough staff with the skills and knowledge of how to interact with and support such international teams, as well as to speak English. Once the ERUs were established, and working relationships put in place with PRCS staff, the situation improved over subsequent personnel rotations.

A notable success story comes from the water and sanitation sector. The PRCS-led water and sanitation team, trained and equipped through a previous ERU deployment to another disaster response, was reported to have performed very well. The PRCS units only required technical assistance, under a more recently introduced ‘technical assistance’ only ERU model, to train up enough new volunteers and staff to successfully run water treatment plans in multiple locations. At the same time, the funding issues described under ‘Financial Resources’ have hampered some ERU efforts in the sanitation sector.

Other challenges have remained for the ERUs, as recognised in the Operations Update reporting:

‘Building strong working relationships between ERU and PRCS counterparts are affected by short rotation periods and needs to be rebuilt whenever team members are changed ... Language differences also prove challenging at times.’16

Many ERU team leaders lacked understanding of what having the PRCS as the lead agency actually meant in operational terms, noting that their training did not cover this context. Many ERU delegates also were not familiar with key Movement or IFRC policy frameworks eg Oslo Guidelines, Principles and Rules for Red Cross and Red Crescent Disaster Relief, online security learning platform, Seville Agreement, etc. Either their National Societies had not adequately covered these key topics in their preparation or they did not know how to apply them in actual field conditions. There were also some misunderstandings, in one instance, about the protocols surrounding the donation of equipment and other forms of material support to the PRCS upon departure (the ERU had organised to provide these forms of support to a local government agency).

15 Note: Early in the response, the Punjab government made a policy to provide armed escorts to external aid agencies to protect their workers from security threats. 16 IFRC Operations Update No 8, 24 September, pp 6-7.

A lack of clear reporting lines for the ERUs has been another constraint. Despite having TOR that specified they would report to the FACT team leader or secretariat operational manager, several described being informally asked to report to, and consult with, people in various secretariat roles. The TOR also do not provide clear guidance on how the technical reporting lines to both zone and Geneva office are meant to work in practice (eg who to consult first and what to do in the event of a difference of opinion between the offices?).17

A number of ERU personnel interviewed advised that they have had little coordination with UN or other agencies and that even coordination among ERUs has been limited. Personnel from two different BHC ERU teams cited difficulties encountered when they arrived to provide support to communities that had not yet received basic relief supplies (food and water). Some team leaders were trying to attend cluster meetings but found it difficult to do so regularly and manage their own operational roles, especially where sub-cluster working groups met in localities different to where they were based.

At the time of the RTE, exit strategies were being developed for the withdrawal of the ERUs. This did not seem to be happening in a cohesive or strategic way across ERUs, a concern expressed by some ERU personnel themselves. Some operational personnel expressed concern regarding the ability of the PRCS district offices to manage without external support in Sindh, including the ability to retain recently recruited volunteers.

The biggest risk facing the operation at the time of the RTE – in the view of the team - has been that the transition of roles and responsibilities for the ongoing relief and early recovery service delivery from the ERUs to PRCS branches/districts and IFRC flood operation delegates would not occur smoothly. The capacity of some parts of the PRCS to take on some of these roles unsupported appeared to be not yet strong enough combined with the sheer scale of the need. The situation in Sindh had turned into a protracted emergency with millions still homeless and without the prospect of beginning to restore their livelihoods and houses for some months (current crude estimates are 3-6 months for the floodwaters to adequately recede). December/January were considered a critical period when many villagers were expected to attempt the journey back to their villages while still unable to produce food. The issue of exit strategies was also identified in the first draft of the operation’s recovery framework in mid-September.

There were not enough humanitarian actors in the area or planning to stay in the area, eg as compared with other parts of the country such as KPK. The IFRC, to its credit, is active and visible in this province, but the branch and the PRCS as a whole do not have a sufficient number of trained and experienced resources to cover the many needs here and in other provinces at the same time. The delegate and PRCS staff recruitment processes appeared to be going too slowly to ensure there would not be gaps in coverage, particularly with large numbers of staff scheduled to take compulsory recreational leave and then having to be issued with new visas to return.

Under the PRCS constitution, their staff recruitment also has to be vetted by their board. Due to the large number of positions to be filled in the emergency response, this cannot be done quickly. The lack of a status agreement for the IFRC secretariat in Pakistan has meant that there are legal risks to the secretariat (country delegation, in this instance) to fill some of these gaps with local employment contracts, so this has not been a viable option to at least temporarily fill the gaps.

This issue was raised with the country delegation, PRCS and flood operation management prior to the departure of the RTE team from Pakistan, with some possible options to speed up recruitment identified. These, and other options, were considered by these stakeholders with an emerging preference to request another RDRT deployment at that time. A second RDRT alert was subsequently issued on 22 December with team members schedules to deploy commencing from 22 December 2010 and 3 January 2011.

17 Since the mission, the RTE team were advised that revised procedures regarding the role of technical departments in ERU ToR will be introduced by the secretariat in 2011 (Logistics comments on RTE draft 1, 11 January 2011. 23

Regional Disaster Response Team (RDRT)

The first RDRT member was deployed in early August as part of the FACT team, an excellent initiative that should be further developed and repeated in future disaster responses to further build capacity and cohesiveness in international responses.

Regarding the main RDRT deployment: although requested and mobilised late in the operation (RDRT alert issued on 16 September and team members arrived in Pakistan from 6-27 October October),18 the RDRT has played an important and much appreciated support role to the PRCS operation in Sindh. The RDRT has performed tasks ranging from information technology management to office set up to internal/external coordination, etc. The team members have come from South and south East Asia, as well as including the first RDRT member to be deployed from Solomon Islands.

While there was discussion of an RDRT deployment throughout August, a formal request was not made by the PRCS until 18 September. The first RDRT team member arrived on 6 October following pre- departure briefing by the SARD office. The reasons for the delay in the decision about fielding an RDRT, a mechanism which had performed well in the 2005 earthquake response, apparently related to:

· Concerns initially regarding the security risks, or appropriateness, of deploying individuals from certain countries in the region which were resolved; · Concerns and misunderstandings about the benefits vis-a-vis the costs of RDRT deployments to the flood response operational budget, i.e. as RDRT deployment and equipment costs are not borne by PNS and contribute less to building the future physical capacity of the Host National Society. This question was also eventually resolved.

Like the ERUs, the in-country strategic planning for the RDRT deployment could have been better. The team members spent five-seven days in Islamabad and then Karachi being briefed and waiting to be deployed; a decision was not made regarding where to deploy the team members for some days and eventually they were sent to the Larkana area of Sindh. The RDRT members who came from South Asia were also lacking in equipment to carry out their job roles (such as the Information and Communications Technology specialist’s toolkit). The reasons for this could not be ascertained by the RTE team. Subsequent to the mission, a zone office staff member advised there was discussion with the country delegation about what to advise the RDRTs to bring. The standard RDRT kit did not include items such as a laptop for each team member and apparently it was suggested to hire such items locally.

The support services provided to the RDRT team members also could be improved. They were provided with aged vehicles that did not meet IFRC secretariat specifications, eg uninsured, with drivers that were unfamiliar with the areas where they were deployed and local languages or English (the ERUs had similar experiences with hiring vehicles in-country). This occasionally led to safety issues as the vehicles broke down frequently and the drivers could not guide others to them to assist; it was anecdotally reported that an RDRT or ERU driver once accidentally drove into a restricted area in Balochistan - local people warned him to leave and helped him to find his way out.

Transitional Planning and Assessment Team (TPAT)

The fielding of a TPAT for the first time by the IFRC secretariat (6 September-18 October) was generally favourably received as a positive initiative that would be very useful in making the important transition from relief to recovery in the Pakistan flood response. The TPAT was credited with strengthening the original draft plan of action (PoA) prepared by the FACT, prior to a key Movement meeting in Doha. The TPAT team leader visited the PRCS Punjab and Sindh Provincial Branches, and engaged by phone with the KPK Branch, to encourage their engagement in the TPAT assessment process, a good practice. The level of overall consultation and inclusion of the PRCS was described by

18 Email correspondence, 7 January 2011 24

some though as still having been less than optimal, as a result of tight production deadlines for its completion prior to the Movement’s mid-October Doha meeting.

Additional to this, a number of zone office and PRCS managers and staff advised that they were unclear on the specific purpose of the TPAT and who was managing the process; some field-based ERU and PRCS staff were also uninformed and not entirely clear on the TPAT role. Two PNS expressed the opinion that the process was dominated by one PNS and needed to be widened to allow contributions from other PNS. Many operational personnel also felt that the TPAT (and FACT) needed to further develop the PoA into specific operational level guidance or action plans, beyond a broad strategic plan – it could be argued, however, that this should be the responsibility of operational leaders and managers, in consultation with their teams.

The Geneva office was conducting a survey/review of its pilot TPAT with team members at the time of the RTE with the aim of further developing and refining the approach. One suggestion received was to include a logistician on future teams, as this can be a problematic area if plans are made without reference to the means to resource them in the field. This has also been the experience of at least one PNS recovery program following the 2004 Asian tsunami.

Some interviewees further advised of confusion regarding the roles and responsibilities related to the administrative arrangements for TPAT deployment. The zone office advised that it ended up processing a number of short-term consultant contracts for various team members. In one instance, a TPAT team member apparently was fielded by Geneva without a contract or travel insurance in place. This situation appears to reflect the context of the TPAT being a new global tool fielded for the first time. The responsibility and procedures for TPAT administrative arrangements will need to be agreed between the different levels of the secretariat and specified, as the TPAT is developed into a regular global operational response tool.

Such ‘teething pains’ are unsurprising for the fielding of a new tool for the first time. The awareness of the TPAT’s role, and the systems and processes related to its smooth deployment, should become further developed and refined over time – assuming that this will be done in full consultation with the different levels of the secretariat and National Societies.

Regular Delegate Recruitment

Around 35 international delegates have been fielded for the flood operation up to mid-November 2010,19 in addition to the five regular delegates in the country delegation. The zone HR coordinator advised only around 10-15 percent were new delegates on their first mission and around 30 percent are female; she attributed the generally reasonable experience levels to the wind-down of tsunami operations in Asia, which also enabled a relatively quick deployment process of these individuals from other locations in Asia to Pakistan. Overall, the requests for delegates for the flood operation were reported not to be substantial in number until after the media interest in the disaster began to grow.

At the same time, the operation has experienced gaps and low response rates for filling various key posts, such as the head of operations position and various relief and recovery roles. This partly reflects the context of the flood operation not being designated a family post and the broader security situation being unattractive to some. At the same time, difficulty in filling key posts has also occurred on other disaster operations. One person also felt there were difficulties with multiple short-term rotations in some of these positions, and another commented on delays in secretariat/PRCS sign-off procedures in- country and posting of the advertisements for some posts.

The decision-making over key positions such as the head of operations was also reported to be an area of contention between the Geneva and zone offices, to the point of losing some potentially good candidates. This would indicate a need to further clarify the decision-making authority for these

19 According to the country delegation flood support list received by RTE team in late December 2010. 25

positions in larger disasters, given a decentralised context but also the reputational considerations at the global level, and to work out a more reliable system of recruitment that does not lead to such contestability over candidates in the first place.

Many people interviewed commented that the recruitment systems and procedures being used by the IFRC secretariat (and those of the PRCS) for relief/recovery operations are better suited to ‘peace-time’ conditions than to the needs of a large-scale major disaster response. Jobnet was considered a cumbersome and reactive recruitment vehicle, with some PNS finding it unacceptable that they had to fill out a long Jobnet application for positions that they were expected to fully fund and questions raised as to whether applicants for certain recovery posts would seek employment through the website of a humanitarian agency (eg livelihoods, etc); for example, the advertisement of a key recovery post on the Reliefweb and ALNAP websites also increased the response rate from potential candidates. Some secretariat personnel observed that they often had to pro-actively ‘head hunt’ and ‘push’ for suitable candidates, as they could not be sourced through the more reactive Jobnet system or did not meet the selection criteria (which were also considered to be unrealistic by some). One PNS representative commented that his PNS had several suitable staff who had been interested to go to Pakistan but because they had not been FACT-trained, they did not meet the eligibility criteria and so did not apply.

The need to streamline human resource planning and procedures for emergency response was also raised as an issue in the Haiti earthquake RTE report. This extends to developing more pro-active approaches to attract a wider range of candidates into IFRC disaster responses and considering different methods of building up skills, experience and rewarding career paths for this work. Some promising examples come from the PNS internships in the Asia Pacific zone office, eg the successful on-the-job training of a dozen logisticians to date (part of a global initiative in logistics). Steps in this direction have already been taken by the secretariat, eg the establishment of field schools, but more could be done. A systematic analysis of the blockages repeatedly experienced to delegate recruitment in certain areas – and why this is less of a problem in others - seems merited in order to identify viable solutions.

In Pakistan, the lack of a status agreement for the IFRC secretariat leaves it exposed to situations such as the non-renewal of delegate visa. The country delegation and PRCS are well aware of this constraint and have been working towards getting such an agreement in place. It would be desirable to make this work a high priority, given the disaster-prone nature of the country. More broadly, there is a trend in Asia to impose visa restrictions on humanitarian workers to avoid prolonged stays (eg China, Indonesia, Myanmar) and some HR personnel advised of a need for greater contingency planning for this situation.

Other Human Resource Considerations

Administrative Support to Operational Personnel

A need to provide additional support to the ‘Welcome Centre’ functions of the country delegation also was identified, both for the remainder of the flood response and for future disaster responses that may occur. While the Zone Office provided important surge support to the administrative area, there have been some gaps in capacity to support incoming international personnel. For example: o The quality of the processing of incoming delegates has been variable, with some not receiving welcome kits in a timely manner or being missed for airport pick-up, also a potential security issue for flights arriving late at night; o The information received in welcome kits and orientation briefings in Islamabad has often been described as too general or out of date.

Cross-cultural briefings have been very limited, except where provided by experienced personnel in the delegate’s national society prior to departure for Pakistan. Some female delegates, in particular, commented on the lack of appropriate advice and support regarding clothing and behaviour (which varies in different parts of the country); some felt this posed a security risk, eg where they did not have

suitable clothing with them. The TPAT took a pro-active role in this area, facilitating the local purchase of appropriate clothing for some team members during the in-country start-up of the assignment.

To date, the provision of such briefings has been the responsibility of (male) security delegate, with limited information available in the welcome kit. This is not an appropriate role for security personnel and is best done by men and women with cross-cultural communication training and experience, preferably a combination of local and international personnel. Incoming female delegates may also need the opportunity, and assistance, to purchase locally appropriate clothing prior to field deployment. It has been further suggested by some ERU/BHCU personnel that an IFRC shalwar kameez be designed in common loose sizes to facilitate culturally appropriate female deployments.

Staff Backstopping

This disaster has also clearly illustrated the need to have staff backstopping arrangements in place for smaller country offices in disaster-prone countries during peak holiday periods; this goes beyond the level of the country delegation itself, ie at SARD, zone and Geneva. One of the contributing factors to the difficulty experienced bedding down the operational roles and relationships and putting support in place quickly was that the Pakistan country delegation was experiencing a period of unusually low staffing. The disaster also coincided with the northern hemisphere summer holiday period, further compounding the situation. Several managers and staff in key posts at all secretariat levels were absent on leave during the critical period over July-August 2010.

Recommendations

Pakistan Flood Operation

12. As a priority, the IFRC secretariat and PRCS identify a strategy to facilitate the smooth transition from ERUs to regular delegates and staff as the ERUs draw down and to reduce the risks of critical operational gaps. This could include measures such as: seeking assistance from PNS for staff-on- loan, mobilising more RDRT; identifying further temporary surge support from the Zone Office, SARD, Geneva and/or other National Societies in the region for key posts until they can be filled; and/or other measures; enlist the support of ERUs/PRCS branches to map out the critical skills gaps. 13. Develop context specific cross-cultural briefings and written information for incoming delegates for the remainder of the flood operation and future deployments of international support personnel to the PRCS. Identify and/or train Pakistani men and women and/or international female and male personnel with solid cross-cultural experience in Pakistan (particularly outside of Islamabad/major cities) to deliver these briefings. 14. Finalise the IFRC secretariat status agreement as an institutional priority. 15. Document the key factors in the successful development of the PRCS emergency water and sanitation capacity, covering both challenges and achievements, and including the role played by technical assistance ERUs to inform the ongoing global process of ERU capacity-building.

IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses)

16. Develop standard operating procedures for the deployment of Zone, regional office and Geneva surge capacity in the event of large-scale disaster responses. 17. Update the policies, standard operating procedures, terms of reference and training programs for FACT/ERUs to incorporate guidance on appropriate roles and relationships in situations where the National Society in the disaster-affected country plays the operational lead role. 18. Put in place pre-agreements on the roles, relationships and requirements for the mobilisation of FACT, ERU and other global tools in a decentralised context to avoid misunderstandings and protracted negotiations on their deployment.

19. Commission a recruitment/HR specialist to conduct a study of the barriers to recruitment of key positions in IFRC-supported emergency operations and make recommendations on adjustments required to current recruitment systems and procedures to attract a larger pool of appropriately skilled and qualified personnel. This includes consideration of alternative models already in place, or under development, within and outside of the RC/RC Movement for both surge and regular deployments. 20. Set minimum field experience requirements for ERU team leaders deployed to complex and sensitive countries/areas with high security risks and a balance of more and less experienced team members. 21. Request and deploy logistics ERUs before, or concurrently with, relief ERUs in line with the recommended practice of the secretariat. 22. Determine locations for the deployment of global tools prior to their mobilisation and based on systematic needs assessment and planning processes. 23. Review the skills and knowledge of current ERU personnel and determine if refresher training is needed and/or other forms of coaching and mentoring to develop and reinforce the skills to apply important Movement/IFRC frameworks to their job roles. 24. Deploy administrative support to country delegations/site and assign a dedicated HR position within zone offices to coordinate recruitment as a standard practice for larger disaster responses.

Security and Conflict Sensitivity

The findings on the security support provided by the secretariat were mixed. Overall, considering the very small number of staff working in this area in the country delegation (one local and one international staff member), and the overwhelming situation in which they found themselves at the start of the operation, the performance of the security area in Islamabad and the zone office has been reasonable; systematic efforts have been made at both levels to identify appropriate responses and solutions to emerging problems. At the same time, it should be noted that this area appears to have been under-resourced throughout much of the relief operation, given the need to regularly monitor and update security information across such a large, complex and geographically diverse operational area.

Like many other areas of the secretariat, the country delegation’s security delegate was on annual leave when the disaster occurred and did not return until around the time of the arrival of the FACT in- country (mid-August). The zone office’s security delegate was unable to mobilise in his place due to the serious illness and hospitalisation of his sick child.

The zone office security delegate formally requested the inclusion of a security delegate on the FACT, on the grounds of a high and increasing risk context (ie deployment of international emergency personnel, expanded areas of operation) but his request was declined by zone management, in consultation with the country delegation (early August). The reasons given were:

· The geographical focus of the response was expanding but it was not known at that time how substantially they would expand and it was felt the existing two-person team was sufficient; · If reinforcements were needed, additional national staff could be recruited (as some suitable candidates had already been identified through a prior vetting process), rather than bringing in an external delegate who might not understand the context or be culturally acceptable.20

The Pakistan delegation’s two-person security team became overwhelmed from mid-August onwards as the number of arriving delegates and global tools rapidly grew. Although the magnitude of the expanding disaster had become apparent by mid-August, it is only recently that two additional security delegates were recruited to support the team (mobilised in mid-November and mid-December respectively). In particular, the quality of the security briefings provided to incoming personnel seems to have suffered, with many individuals complaining that they were too short and often not relevant to the location where they were being deployed (including Islamabad).

20 Email correspondence: 8/10/2010 and 10/10/2010. 28

It is the view of the RTE team that the request of the zone security delegate was reasonable and based on a practical and strategic assessment; it could be predicted that a number of international response personnel would need to be mobilised, their security situation assessed prior to deployment and appropriate briefing/measures provided.

Additionally, systematic analysis of ‘do no harm’ (Better Programming Initiative) or conflict sensitivity considerations in planning and implementing the flood response has been largely absent from the discussions held and documentation reviewed by the RTE team; this is related to, but falls outside of assessing the security risks to deployed personnel; ‘do no harm’ analysis focuses on the identification of ways in which the humanitarian aid provided can increase or reduce tensions/conflict within or between communities, depending on how the assistance package is designed and delivered. Strategies are developed to ensure the aid does not create or contribute to social conflict in the disaster/conflict- affected area. The need to do such analysis apparently was written into the job description for the TPAT team leader and considered by the team in its work – a good practice - but did not come through strongly or in a measurable way in the PoA documentation.

In countries where the risk assessment is high, it would seem prudent to error on the side of caution with deploying surge capacity in security analysis, rather than to leave this key area under-resourced. Additionally, conflict assessments should be a mandatory element of FACT and other needs assessments in conflict-affected areas; this also appears to have been a gap in the Haiti earthquake response – though analyses of the relationship of these issues to post-disaster assistance carried out by other organisations can be found for both countries.21 This applies equally to identifying temporary additional support locally and/or from outside the zone if circumstances require, even though a lack of local knowledge is not ideal in the latter case.

The delegation had clear, written and established security rules and procedures which were provided to incoming flood operations personnel. At the same time, the security briefings have not been specific to the location where a delegate has been deployed and the level and extent of on-site investigations of potential security considerations described as limited. Generic briefings on Pakistan’s political situation, while interesting and providing an important contextual overview, were considered of limited use value for actual field conditions by the majority of interviewees working in-country.

The security team also faced some significant challenges due to the inexperience of some of the ERU team leaders and members deployed. Various ERUs/BCHUs did not follow the security procedures, and/or their personnel lacked the judgement to make calm, rational security-related decisions in remote locations, as evidenced by the nature of security incidents reported during the first rotations of some teams and misinterpretations of the security context. Some of the poor practices and incidents included:

· Driving through a Pakistan Army military checkpoint without stopping · Ignoring lock down instructions during periods of heightened political tensions · Moving among a crowd of affected people without interpretation support/crowd control issues · Travelling at night · Not providing accommodation for a driver to rest in between working an exceptionally long shift requiring the transport of delegates over long distances.

The security personnel, and various other operational managers, believed that some ERU team leaders and members did not complete the required online security course and simply lacked the experience or aptitude to work in more difficult and complex security environments. This situation, which led to some ERU members deciding to leave the country, was sometimes compounded by the lack of available PRCS staff/volunteers that could assist the ERUs to understand the local context, get settled and provide interpretation support. As one Branch Secretary put it:

21 This has been a gap in a number of disaster response operations, further discussed in a forthcoming IFRC study on beneficiary targeting practices. The head of the Geneva Disaster Services Department advised that the secretariat would be further considering and developing approaches to conflict analysis during 2011. 29

“We were overwhelmed with the response needs and found that we did not have enough people who understood the role of and how to relate to foreign relief units as well as having English language capacity. We fully accept that we did not provide sufficient support to the people who came.”

By the same token, better forward planning and communication between Islamabad (IFRC/FACT/PRCS) and the provincial PRCS branches regarding ERU deployment could have reduced these problems. Subsequent ERU rotations have seen improvements, and the introduction of 24-hour radio rooms in each PRCS branch to track personnel movements was especially appreciated by most interviewees and many survey respondents.

The most complex and difficult security issues faced in the flood response concerned the decision by the Government of Punjab to provide armed police/military escorts to foreign agencies assisting flood- affected areas and the question of how closely to liaise with the UN system, given broader perceptions among some groups in Pakistan regarding the neutrality of the UN in the context of recent civil conflict. These issues are discussed in the sub-section on ‘Coordination and Communication.’

Recommendations

Pakistan Flood Operation

25. Update the content of security briefings to include information specific to the provinces and districts in which operational personnel/units are based and ensure it is regularly updated in future.

IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses)

26. Require FACT teams to include a security delegate and capacity to conduct conflict/’do no harm’ analysis in countries with a recent or current context of violent civil conflict. If this option is not feasible, additional security surge capacity should be provided to the in-country delegation or team and/or the need for this more closely monitored by senior managers throughout the operation. 27. Review the issues of compliance with security procedures and aptitude for deployment to more complex and higher risk security contexts of ERU team members raised by the Pakistan operation with the Disaster Management Working Group and PNS that regularly provide these important ‘front-line’ emergency response resources.

Logistics and Relief Distribution

The provision of efficient and effective Figure 9 Logistics Support logistics support and relief distribution services to the Pakistan flood operation has been challenging. Overall, after a slow start, Very good the logistics and relief distribution systems have gradually improved and were reported to Good be coming close to the levels found in ICRC- Average supported areas. The majority of the online survey respondents rated the IFRC Poor secretariat’s logistics support as average to Very poor good, and the logisticians at all levels have implemented a variety of strategies to 0 10 20 30 40 overcome emerging logistics bottlenecks, such as employing a range of local and Percentage (87 Respondents) international procurement methods and using multiple transport methods (air, sea, land). In a similar vein, many favourable comments were received about the strong PRCS capacity for relief distribution once they received supplies of food or non-food items (NFIs). Likewise, the rapid response of PRCS health care providers and Disaster

Management Cells, where they had been created, was reported to have delivered timely and effective assistance early in the response, showing the potential for the further expansion of this approach.

There have been several contributing factors to the slow mobilisation of logistics support and relief distribution, some of these context-specific and others systemic.

Resource Mobilisation

Like all other areas of the flood operation, the logistics and relief functions were affected by the overall initial delay in realisation of, and response to, the growing magnitude and impact of the floods. As discussed under ‘Financial Resources,’ the small amount of DREF initially released, the slow response to the Preliminary Emergency Appeal and the late activation of a PEAR, led to hesitation among the budget managers to sign requisition orders. When the requisition orders were eventually approved, the logistics areas had to try to ‘catch up’ with the delayed start.

Relief and Logistics Planning

The IFRC secretariat’s first NFI logistics support plan was based on the release of the sizeable amount of stock held in-country by the PRCS stock but some constraints emerged. The first was the loss of USD$6-7 million of uninsured pre-positioned winter tent stocks to the floods in one location. The second was a limited level of release of the PRCS relief stock until agreement was reached on replenishment by the IFRC secretariat. This situation raises a number of questions regarding stock control, the purpose of pre-positioning stock and the agreements that need to be in place between the IFRC secretariat and National Societies prior to a disaster response. Subsequent to the RTE mission, the Logistics area of the secretariat advised that this will be addressed in its forthcoming Strategy 2015.

The sheer scale and complexity of the flood operation has tested the relief/logistics needs assessment, planning, procurement, distribution and reporting capacities of all partners. For example, food packages are being supplied on a massive scale to 130,000 families, an area in which most logistics and relief personnel stated they had little prior experience. The bulk of PNS NFI support is also being provided in kind, on different schedules. Some comes from the items they have in stock either in their own or regional warehouses and some has been directly procured for the operation, as per the operation’s mobilisation table. This, plus pipeline complexities and broader planning issues (described below) have been contributing factors to items missing from family kits which then had to be distributed only partially complete in some locations. Having to process unsolicited in-kind donations from PNS has been a further distraction, in spite of ongoing dialogue at a global level within the IFRC on this issue.

The mobilisation problems experienced by the ERUs previously described, including poor sequencing of the arrival of logistics and relief ERUs and the lack of coordination of these functions, have created further challenges. There have been occasions when the relief ERUS did not have anything in stock to distribute, and the participants at a relief/logistics coordination meeting attended by the RTE team in mid-November in Islamabad advised of ongoing work to improve the synergy between these two areas. Two pipelines of relief goods initially were established in the operation for the delivery of locally procured goods: one for food and one for non food items (NFIs). This proved difficult to coordinate, though one logistician described this approach as having been necessary to kick-start this area of the operation, and eventually the two pipelines were merged.

The absence of a clear plan of action (PoA) for the operation until mid-September (the TPAT finalised the draft PoA produced by the FACT), together with delays in the production of a consolidated relief distribution plan by the PRCS, have further contributed to a lack of clarity among ERU personnel regarding their tasks and disjointedness in the identification of needs, and procurement and delivery of the required items – from all levels of the logistics system. As one logistician commented: ” The Plan of Action was not an actual useable plan, but a compilation of assessments.”

At the in-country level, several relief, health and water and sanitation ERU staff met by the RTE said that they still did not have the “bigger picture” of distribution plans to guide their work and there was a certain amount of intuitive ad hoc site selection taking place, often not coordinated with other relief providers. The BHCU staff advised that even internal coordination between different ERUs was sporadic, with mobile health clinics arriving at locations in Sindh where affected people had not yet received basic food and water (and their services rejected).

The in-country supply chain has also been a continuing challenge, most notably the use of hired road transport services. This had led to some awkward situations with beneficiaries travelling to distribution points and waiting for extended periods for the relief supplies. When incomplete packages were delivered that did not match the waybills or NFIs did not arrive, this caused tensions in some communities. A fleet manager had recently arrived, at the time of the RTE fieldwork, a position that had been vacant for some time. Although not his responsibility, he was supporting the operation with problem-solving on the broader challenges of externally hired transport providers, as discussed under ‘Human Resources.’ The Logistics areas have struggled to fill positions requiring specialised skills, and have been developing promising new approaches to meet these needs, such as the global internship program. This again points to the critical importance of effective human resource planning and recruitment systems for an emergency context (see ‘Human Resources’ section).

Many delegates and PRCS staff were not aware of the “Mission Assistant” CD Rom 2010, which contains numerous policy documents and relief and logistics guidelines which would have proved invaluable in some areas. One stakeholder made a broader observation that awareness of a wide range of programming tools was not high across operational personnel in various functions. They suggested that the secretariat examine why the dissemination processes to National Societies, and among its own operational personnel, did not work as well as would be desirable and what could be done to improve the awareness and uptake of available guidance in many areas.

Needs Assessments and Reporting

The PRCS did not have the capacity to carry out comprehensive needs assessments, vulnerability targeting and relief reporting in so many locations, on such a large scale, and to meet the requirements of a large, multi-donor response. Many humanitarian organisations would be hard-pressed to do so, with such extensive coverage targets to reach as the PRCS (300,000 families across ICRC and IFRC- supported areas). The ICRC has used a previously established computerised beneficiary tracking database, and one PNS relief specialist noted the importance of fielding information and communications technology (ICT) specialists at the outset of an operation to help set up such systems and identify capacity gaps, something belatedly being introduced in Sindh through the RDRT deployment. This has also been a lesson learned from some other large disaster response operations.

The 24 September Operations Update captured the dilemma facing the IFRC secretariat and PRCS:

‘Previous figures agreed upon (i.e. the number of households as quantities distributed) have lacked Sufficient foundation, groundwork and assessments. Without these elements, it has been challenging to provide clear validation for distribution as well as a proper base for maximizing efficient distribution. Inadequate use of forms to properly facilitate, streamline and monitor needs and distributions have led to inadequate reporting. This, coupled with insufficient capacity, has created weak data management that does not capture numbers in an efficient and standardized way... [Health] Data and disease surveillance continues to be sketchy and accurate information, difficult to collect’. (pp 6-7).

At the field level, the PRCS district operations have lacked the training and equipment, such as computers and internet connections, to carry out this work. As one staff member described it:

“I ring each distribution location at the end of the day and ask for their statistics. Some do not want to provide the information. They text me their numbers and then I go to an internet cafe or a friend’s house to send them to Islamabad.”

The PRCS has recognised its reporting limitations and the American Red Cross Relief Cell ERU has initiated some capacity-building support for them at the Islamabad level. The Relief Cell ERU has worked to engage all of the key stakeholders to take initiatives to strengthen logistics and relief coordination and reporting but this has happened at a relatively late stage in the response. The Relief Cell ERU was available to deploy at an earlier stage than it did, but the offer was not initially taken up for various operational reasons. Additionally, due to restrictions on the movement of the two cell staff, their outreach has been largely limited to Islamabad. The Relief Cell ERU, which has played a very useful and important role in the operation, was scheduled to demobilize in late November, and it was unclear how follow-up deployments of regular delegates would continue this work - the PRCS/IFRC operational managers were highly aware of the need.

The PRCS suggested there is a need to develop a common global reporting format or template for future relief operations, noting that this was not available at the outset of the response and required some time to develop with the assistance of the American Red Cross relief cell ERU.

Modes of Delivery

Several stakeholders considered the IFRC secretariat’s logistics systems and procedures, at the global and regional levels, to be too slow and cumbersome for emergency situations and not sufficiently facilitating local purchase. The question of local procurement is a real issue, not due to a lack of capacity or willingness to do this – all of the food and a certain proportion of the NFIs are being procured locally - but rather to the application of international standards to local supplies. The Pakistan flood operation has raised questions as to the flexibility of the logistics system to achieve an appropriate balance between speed, quality and price. It has also raised questions among some in the secretariat as to the most efficient system for determining appropriate local standards, and for reaching decisions on appropriate supply options in a timely and cost-effective manner, between the technical and logistical areas (ie what would be an effective balance in decision-making roles and responsibilities and how can this be formalised in the secretariat’s procedures?).

An example comes with the debate over corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) sheeting to construct temporary shelters to protect affected people in the harsh mountainous north of Pakistan from the winter conditions. In order to achieve coverage quickly enough before winter cuts off access, most organisations –including at least one PNS – that have decided to procure CGI sheeting (and several are using other local alternatives) have done so locally. The standard is considered acceptable within Pakistan. While it would be desirable to have a high quality durable sheeting that could be used for other purposes, the more urgent need was to protect people from winter storms. The window of opportunity to deliver the materials was short, and the reality has been that the CGI distribution will take place late and may be impeded by the onset of winter conditions. It is debatable whether durable CGI sheets are preferable to sheets that will last one-two seasons but that meet the critical and immediate need for winter shelter. Ultimately, a decision has been reached for the flood operation to use a combination of local and international materials (the local component comes from PRCS stocks) but at a late stage. The logistics area advised that the locally procured sheets cost significantly more than those procured internationally (but the latter were slower to arrive).

The temporary shelter program further raises broader questions. This need was predicted earlier, based on experience from the 2005 earthquake operation, but the first requisition for shelter was only received by the Logistics area on 11 October. Rushed procurement, whether local or international, should not be a substitute for good planning and prompt decision-making.

Either way, the decision to procure locally or internationally is not a simple ‘either-or’ scenario. It requires robust and regularly updated market and price inflation assessment, especially when done to scale. Local procurement has not been without its own difficulties, such as competition between humanitarian organisations for the same suppliers (ie limited local production capacity) and basic quality control. The decisions on an appropriate mix of local and international procurement, including the possibility of only sourcing locally, should be based on market assessment. This type of systematic

local market assessment does not appear to have been done at the outset of the response by the IFRC [cost, quality, quantity, safety] though other organisations were anecdotally reported to have done this.

The question has also arisen as to why it was decided to provide material support, rather than cash, to households to make their own purchases (note: this was not a secretariat decision). Food is available on the local markets, and the imported contents of some hygiene kits are available locally. The UN-IASC RTE of the 2009-10 IDP crisis found that IDPs were being provided with temporary shelter toolkits and materials when many were renters and would have preferred to receive cash;22 the RTE team understands that the IFRC package will include tools, materials and cash. The RTE team was also advised that many people from the Swat area normally migrated into the valley area in winter and now faced a lack of accommodation and price inflation due to flood-affected families taking up most available rental accommodation. Many families in KPK were also said to be selling their food aid to get funds to purchase other needs and, in a number of cases, will not be able to use seeds and tools for planting as their land is heavily silted. Whether this information is ultimately verified or not, cash is generally a more flexible option for people to meet their own specific needs and circumstances where markets are functioning (as long as access provisions are put in place for those with limited mobility).

The Geneva Logistics area advised that a country level logistics strategy is currently being developed which may be addressing these questions. The PRCS was also very interested to further explore viable local procurement options and approaches. As with other areas of disaster management, the pre-vetting of local markets and suppliers to determine an appropriate mix of local and international procurement sourcing strategies could save considerable time and cost during future responses. This work could also draw from the logistics/procurement experiences of the ICRC. It should also include consideration of alternative systems to increase the distribution of cash, as well as commodities, to beneficiaries - a strategy also used by the Pakistan government in its disaster responses. One person additionally suggested that consideration be given to moving pre-positioned stocks of commonly used relief items into the affected country, simultaneous to the early needs assessment processes.

Recommendations

Pakistan

28. Develop a pilot local-to-global procurement strategy/plan for Pakistan (IFRC secretariat and PRCS), in line with the spirit and intent of Strategy 2020.

IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses)

29. Put in place pre-agreements on stock release and replenishment with National Societies for major disaster responses, including the values, principles and procedures to be followed in circumstances when the IFRC secretariat may not be able to raise sufficient funds to replenish the stock. 30. Put in place pre-agreed protocols for making decisions in situations in which the quality of relief items need to be balanced with speed of delivery (eg life-threatening context), ie under what conditions it is acceptable to apply local standards and what would be acceptable local standards to apply. Clarify or update the decision-making roles in this process between the technical, logistics and in-country operational areas of the secretariat and the Host National Society (when the Host National Society is the operational lead agency). 31. The IFRC secretariat continue to undertake advocacy with PNS to encourage greater use of cash contributions and explore possible incentives to encourage cooperation within the Movement umbrella on the provision of in-kind contributions and unsolicited donations. Disincentives may also need to be considered, such as making the PNS responsible for procurement of the items identified though needs assessments, rather than based on what is available in their stock and responsible for their own storage and delivery of unsolicited items.

22 Cosgrave J , Polastro R and Zafar F. Inter-Agency Real Time Evaluation of The Humanitarian Response to Pakistan’s 2009 Displacement Crisis, v 1.95. Geneva : UN-OCHA, August 2010., pp 42-43.

32. Improve awareness of existing relief and logistics guidelines, specifically the ‘Mission Assistant,’ which should be compulsory for all deploying international staff and form part of disaster preparedness activities for at risk National Societies.

Operation-Wide Needs Assessments, Appeals, Planning, Reporting and Communications

1.c How timely and relevant were the different plans, appeals, and management reports? 1.d How efficient and effective was the initial needs assessment?, Who was involved, and what methodologies / tools were used? What (if any) additional resources would have been helpful; what if anything should be done differently? How has the assessment linked through to planning?

The processes followed for the production of preliminary needs assessments, appeal documents and the Plan of Action (PoA) for the flood operation had several limitations. As a consequence, these key documents were produced late and ‘out of sync’ with each other, contributing to shortcomings in the quality of analysis and targeting information. The quality of management reporting has been reasonable but has been affected by the availability and quality of planning and reporting information. Efforts are being made to improve ongoing data collection and reporting systems.

The key appeal and planning documents produced by the flood operation are as follows: · A preliminary emergency appeal was launched on 2 August 2010 for CHF 17,008,050 (US dollars 16,333,000; euro 12,514,600) for 9 months to assist 175,000 beneficiaries. · An emergency appeal was launched on 19 August 2010 for CHF 75,852,261 (US dollars 72.5 million; euro 56.3 million) for 18 months to assist 130,000 flood-affected families (some 900,000 beneficiaries). · An initial draft Plan of Action was released around 6 September, further developed and presented at the Movement’s Doha Donor Conference on 16 October and finalised in early November. · A revised emergency appeal was launched on 15 November 2010 for CHF 130,673,677 (US dollars 133,873,000; euro 97,968,800) to assist 130,000 families for 24 months.23

Appeals and Needs Assessments

The release of the preliminary emergency appeal took place around five days after the main disaster began with flash floods in the north of the country (28 July), despite considerable effort by the individuals involved to produce it as quickly as possible . The appeal is generally expected to be produced within 24-48 hours after a rapid-onset disaster of this nature occurs.24 The emergency appeal was released around 2.5 weeks after the preliminary emergency appeal. The appeals are usually based on at least a preliminary analysis by the FACT but, according to the stakeholders interviewed, this was not available at the time. Neither the RTE team, nor an earlier internal audit mission, could locate copies of an actual needs assessment report. The best available FACT documentation was its draft PoA of early September, released approximately three weeks after the revised emergency appeal, an unusually long time for an emergency response operation. However, the country delegation advised that it used FACT findings to inform the design of the 19 August emergency appeal.

The preliminary emergency appeal was a reasonable document and the delay in its production may have been as a result of delegation staff shortages and an assumption that the early flood impacts would be more localised, based on discussions with IFRC secretariat personnel (though this could not be confirmed). The delays in production of the follow-up Emergency Appeal seemed to reflect the under- estimation of the likely downstream impact of the floods until the magnitude became more clear and the media attention began to pick up (eg by 10 August, 54 districts and 14 million people were reported to be affected).

23 Sources: Asia Pacific Zone Office Flood Operation Chronology; Revised Emergency Appeal of 15 Nov 2010 24 IFRC (February 2010). Emergency Appeal management & reporting procedures and guidelines, p 7. 35

On the other hand, the production of the Figure 10 revised emergency appeal was characterised The relationship between the Emergency Appeal, by tension and disagreement over the Plan of Action, Recovery Framework within the content. This primarily focused on the overall flood response amount to be requested in the appeal. The PRCS was seeking a budget of CHF 100 million from the IFRC, while the view of the IFRC was that this was too ambitious and the funds unlikely to be donated based on the low response to the Preliminary Emergency Appeal. The origin of this budget request was the ambitious coverage targets set of approximately 10 percent of the affected population during the 12 August visit of the Secretary- General to Pakistan. This decision, based on historic Pakistan government expectations of PRCS disaster response coverage, was itself contentious within the Movement; this was primarily due to the concerns of IFRC and ICRC operational personnel about the capacity to provide relief services to such a large number of affected people (approximately 2 million people by the time the full impacts were Source: Revised Emergency Appeal, Pakistan: Monsoon Floods, 15 November 2010, p 13. known, around 1.4 million at the time the decision was made). Reaching agreement on the budgetary and programming parameters required careful negotiation between the three key Movement stakeholders and across the different levels.

Within the IFRC secretariat, tensions also emerged over the program budget and content including perceptions of who should have influence and control over these decisions, in the context of a major disaster with associated reputational risks at all levels of the organisation. This became most evident in the ‘eleventh hour’ disagreement that occurred over the appropriateness of the budget allocated for water and sanitation activities of CHF one million. The line technical areas in both Geneva and the Zone Office felt their technical advice had been ignored by the appeal managers and that this carried reputational risks for the IFRC with other humanitarian actors - their broad assessment was accurate that flood disasters require robust water and sanitation activities. On the other hand, the Zone Office Appeal managers had been through an exhausting set of negotiations over the overall budget and were concerned that the final compromise agreement on the budget (around CHF 70 million) would be upset and the release of the Appeal further delayed; they felt perhaps the budget activities could be adjusted to add these activities later if needed.

Ultimately, these issues were resolved but at the cost of a great deal of stress and misunderstandings of motives and behaviour among the key stakeholders. The main contributing factors to the delayed and contested appeal process were:

· The lack of a clear and robust needs assessment report to guide decision-making about priorities; · Insufficient attention given to the importance of technical input and appraisal of draft appeal documents at an early enough stage of their development;25 · A lack of clarity regarding decision-making roles and procedures between different stakeholders in the decentralized context or over-negotiation due to concerns of damaging relations; and

25 The February 2010 draft guidelines for emergency appeal management and reporting stipulate that technical appraisal is the responsibility of the zone office but that Geneva reserves the right to provide technical input. 36

· Difficulties of stakeholders in communicating clearly to other each and genuinely understanding the real constraints each was facing in order to facilitate a shared resolution or ‘win-win’ compromise solution (ie a lack of team spirit or trust).

Decision-making regarding appeals and action plans will inevitably have to incorporate consideration of different stakeholders views and the broader political context, but this should be carefully balanced with the objective assessment of beneficiary needs and the assessed (not assumed) capacity of the Movement to respond. As the Emergency Appeal decision-making process did not have specific and systemically collected information and analysis to inform it, the negotiation of an appropriate scale and focus was rendered even more difficult and subject to different interpretations of likely needs.

The origin of this situation goes back to the operational constraints faced by the FACT (see ‘FACT’ sub-section for details). The FACT conducted only a limited needs assessment as: the team leader was pre-occupied with negotiating roles and relationships and resolving field-level issues; the scope of the geographic area to be covered was too large and diverse for the size of the team and it had limited access to the field; and the needs assessment data being received by the team from the PRCS was limited in quantity and quality (as their systems and procedures also could not cope with the scale of the disaster). The lack of adequate direct engagement with the PRCS branches, partly a reflection of the team’s mobility issues, also meant that a great deal of important contextual information was missed from the needs assessments; much of the analysis appeared to be based on assumptions in the end. One stakeholder further observed that the National Disaster Management Authority and other agencies had already completed preliminary damage and loss assessments prior to the arrival of the FACT and felt that this secondary data could have been used more effectively by the team.

The feedback from the End of Mission reports and online survey of a number of FACT members creates the following rough composite picture:

“The team did not follow a set of needs assessment guidelines or use particular tools ... We tried to get what information we could from the PRCS and through the UN clusters ... When we got to the field, we met with whoever we could and did interviews and focus groups in our own ways.”

On the part of the PRCS, they have many personnel who are trained in emergency needs assessment and Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA) techniques. The RTE team did not have the opportunity to observe the specific needs assessment processes and tools being used by the PRCS; however, according to interviews with various staff, it appears that the volume and spread of relief needs assessment work required has extended well beyond the number and locations of trained staff and volunteers. The ability to report back, aggregate and cross-check this information in a cohesive way up to the national level has been hindered by a lack of systems, equipment and staff with well developed skills at this level of data compilation and analysis.

The TPAT members also faced difficulties conducting robust field visits and beneficiary consultations in order to obtain feedback on how past relief/recovery needs had been met and what were present and future needs but were able to pick up more detailed primary and secondary information from a range of sources inside and outside of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement to inform the updating and expansion of the flood operation’s draft PoA And 15 November revised emergency appeal.

Overall, the shortcomings of the relief needs assessments processes have been less a matter of the type of tools used – quality Red Cross Red Crescent tools and trained personnel have been available and were known to the PRCS and IFRC secretariat field-based personnel – and more a matter of the capacity to apply these at scale in a large operation. This includes a need for both sufficient local and international surge capacity and/or a strategy to fill these gaps.

Plan of Action

The constraints to the needs assessment process described above, and in the ‘Logistics and Relief Distribution’ section ultimately affected the timing and quality of the PoA produced by the FACT; the first PoA was provided to other Movement partners in hard copy only at a meeting held shortly before the departure of the team leader in early September, with little presentation or discussion. Additionally, a number of PNS interviewed were particularly frustrated by what they viewed as the poor communication with them by the FACT in relation to needs assessment and operational planning processes; some pointed out the extensive knowledge and experience of their country delegations that could have helped to fill some information gaps. A few felt this situation was compounded by “parallel decision-making structures between the FACT and the country delegation.” As one survey respondent described it:

“Initial planning does not seem to be conducted with partners to encourage shared ownership. They are brought in later usually because of the recognised need arising for their contribution.”

According to the interviews and survey results, this situation considerably improved with the arrival of the TPAT. The TPAT was requested by the secretariat to help improve the quality of the PoA. Many personnel working on the operation, both in Islamabad and field sites, said that the TPAT achieved this. It worked with staff from the operation to edit the document and then supported the production of a final PoA just prior to the Doha meeting; this latter process drew from the TPAT’s own assessment and included inputs from the PRCS, the country delegation and secretariat flood operation personnel. The PNS were also consulted to get their inputs/feedback on the draft document prior to the Doha meeting and on the related recovery framework (note: the latter was not specifically mentioned by interviewees or in the survey responses which may possibly reflect a tendency to view the PoA as the end product of all of this work).

A few of the noticeable improvements to the PoA was the work done to try to create stronger integrated approaches across sectors for recovery programming and to further develop approaches to vulnerability targeting. At the same time, some unrealistic initiatives remained in the revised PoA, such as plans to undertake micro-credit activities; these are being gradually revised or dropped by the Recovery Coordinator as she works on turning the PoA into actual work plans. The timeframe for recovery activities has been extended from 18 to 24 months in the PoA, a sensible decision; it still remains an ambitious timeframe to achieve the recovery objectives of the PoA, based on the experience of past disasters such as the 2004 Asian tsunami response.

In a related vein, Pakistan-based personnel interviewed – including some PNS - said that they still did not have a sense of the ‘bigger picture’ of what the operation was trying to achieve nor how to break it down into actual work plans. This indicates a need to further disseminate the PoA (ie explain its applications to the job roles of various teams) and for the managers of teams to support their staff to develop specific follow-up action plans.

Overall, it should be observed that the new template and guidance to produce PoAs was only recently introduced into disaster response operations by the secretariat. One interviewee noted the challenges of the PoA revision process, as the TPAT aimed to increase ownership of the PoA by the operation, but the specific roles and responsibilities of the different stakeholders in its production were not specified ‘in writing.’ This may indicate a need for more detailed advice in this area to FACT and TPAT teams by the secretariat, to be incorporated in the guidance on PoAs (under development/refinement at the time of the mission).

Management Reporting

The ability of the flood operation’s managers to monitor progress has been restricted to some extent by the shortcomings of the PoA process, the delay in production of a consolidated relief distribution plan and the limited quality of relief distribution reporting information. Much of the reporting to date at

every level has focused on the quantity of food and NFIs being delivered and the number of affected families to whom it is being delivered (this includes the joint Red Cross Red Crescent Movement Factsheets which are further discussed under ‘Stakeholder Coordination and Communication’). There has been little reporting on beneficiary impacts to date, including outreach to vulnerable groups, which is important for the ongoing adjustment of service delivery mechanisms and processes.

The TPAT and the Recovery Coordinator had been developing initiatives in this area, as has the Beneficiary Communications Team; the zone office further supplied examples of beneficiary feedback methodologies to the operation. The Geneva office has also been developing/piloting a standardised beneficiary feedback survey in other disaster responses which could be further trialed in this operation. Despite the limitations of information and planning documentation, the Operational Updates have included some robust reporting on the key issues and challenges faced by the IFRC secretariat and the PRCS in the response. At the same time, because this reporting is in the public domain, it is necessarily restricted by diplomacy considerations.

The RTE team could not access any management reports on the operation that were not in the public domain and the team did not have the opportunity to view the monthly reporting provided by the country delegation to the South Asia Regional Delegation. However, there were frequent teleconferences between the country delegation, operations personnel and zone office and daily emailed situation reports which covered a range of current issues and follow up action required. While useful, this reporting did not follow a particular format or ‘standard’ distribution list (ie copying of key management positions at the different levels of the secretariat involved in the response).

Many organisations have introduced a system of simple, but effective, internal reporting among the relevant managers of a program (or operation) specifically formulated to identify emerging issues/problems, define solutions and who is responsible for their implementation and then track progress in the actions taken. These are generally one to two page documents produced at the frequency which is determined necessary for effective risk management (eg weekly or monthly). Such reporting mechanisms have been found to improve organizational problem-solving and accountability. For example, this kind of reporting system could be used by the IFRC secretariat/PRCS to complement the issues reporting contained in the Operations Update, with specific information on follow-up and responsibility centres, as well as reporting on issues too sensitive to be raised in the public domain. Done well, such reporting systems can actually save managers time by not having to read and track lengthy and diverse emails and meeting records A sample form, which would need to be adapted to the IFRC context, can be found at Annex G.

It would also be appropriate for the operation to develop a formal monitoring and evaluation plan (including a budget for these activities), drawing from the Emergency Appeal objectives and outcomes, as well as the performance indicators developed for the PoA and the beneficiary communications strategy All high value disaster responses also merit effectiveness and/or impact evaluations upon completion – a standard practice in many organisations – for learning and accountability purposes. This goes beyond an internal completion report. Among 88 survey respondents, over half considered the IFRC’s monitoring and evaluation to be average (46 or 52%) with the range of views fairly evenly split across the spectrum though the rating average was not high (2.6/5.0).

Reporting and Communications Functions

The secretariat’s reporting and communications support functions received the highest ratings of all areas in the staff survey, with a rating average of 3.45 and 3.34 out of five respectively. The formal reporting and communications areas and personnel involved in the Pakistan flood response were described by many interviewees and survey respondents as having done a good job. The placement of communications and reporting personnel on the FACT and operational surge support from the zone office – to support the PRCS and regular delegation staff – was considered to have produced very positive results in terms of the timely production of useful information. Some PNS particularly mentioned how this positively impacted on their fund-raising efforts.

The PRCS and operational personnel involved worked effectively together to overcome an initial lack of definition of how their functions should inter-relate, demonstrating a good cooperative spirit (according to the feedback received from various interviewees). The PRCS, secretariat and ICRC also described effective coordination on the production of the Movement-wide Factsheets and other related public information needs, though this was not an easy task.

Fig 12 Communications Support Figure 11 Reporting Support Very good 6.9 Very good 10.6 Good 36.5 Good 40.2

Average 41.2 Average 39.1 Poor 10.6 Poor 8 Very poor 1.2 Very poor 5.7 0 10 20 30 40 50 Percentage (85 respondents) 0 20 40 60 Percentage (87 Respondents)

As covered in previous sections, there were challenges with the data available as the basis of the production of materials; these were beyond the control of the reporting and communications teams and most were well handled in the production of formal public relations/public reporting documents. One of the few issues seen that could have been addressed though was that of changing beneficiary numbers across different appeal and reporting documents, eg -

· The revised emergency appeals of 19 August and 15 November refers to a target of approximately 125,000 beneficiaries for the first nine months of the operation in the preliminary emergency appeal of 2 August , while the operations updates of 24 September and 10 November refer to a target of 175,000 beneficiaries. The preliminary appeal only referred to 25,000 families. · The targeted number of beneficiaries quoted in the 15 November revised emergency appeal from the emergency appeal of 19 August was 910,000 over 18 months when the number in the three- month consolidated report from 10 November was 900,000; the actual stated target number in the revised emergency appeal of 19 August was 910,000.

The inconsistency was not a major issue, as the stated number of families to be reached stayed consistent throughout the documentation, but it was visible as it appeared on the first pages and concerned the important subject of beneficiary coverage; this caused confusion for a few readers. Cross- checking of figures and/or explanations of revisions to numbers over time in the appeal history sections of the documentation would have been useful.

Recommendations:

Pakistan Flood Operation

33. Take steps to ensure that the PoA, and revised Emergency Appeal, are disseminated, their content and linkages to each other understood, and key objectives translated into field level work plans. 34. Introduce a short and simple internal weekly reporting template to strengthen problem-solving and accountability, if not already in use. 35. Develop a formal monitoring and evaluation plan, including an appropriate budget allocation, for the remainder of the flood operation.

IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses)

36. Assess the needs assessment capacity of National Societies and the IFRC secretariat in the initial planning of major disaster responses and any related needs for surge capacity and/or the creation of an enabling environment to collect and analyse sufficient information in a timely manner. 37. Clarify the role of Geneva vis-a-vis Asia Pacific Zone Office technical areas in the provision of input to, and appraisal of, Emergency Appeals. 38. Ensure the written guidance being developed to accompany the new PoA template sufficiently covers the protocols and procedures for stakeholder engagement and ownership building, if not already done.

2. STAKEHOLDER COORDINATION AND COMMUNICATIONS

To what extent the IFRC response was managed in a cohesive and effective manner, including communication, collaboration, and coordination among key stakeholders: a. How timely and effectively has the IFRC internally communicated and coordinated in its response within the Secretariat – including country, region, zone, and Geneva – as well as with Movement members? Coordination should include all stages of the operation thus far, from initial assessment to planning and service delivery.

Establishing and maintaining good coordination, communications and cohesiveness is a challenge in any major disaster response operation involving the interactions of multiple actors from many different parts of the globe. The Pakistan flood operation is no exception, and there have been examples of both good practice and areas for improvement; some of these have been covered in previous sections of the report. One outstanding example is the support provided by PNS country offices and the ICRC to the Acting Head of the country delegation to manage the initial response; all parties interviewed who were involved at the field level in those very early days described their inter-relationships as constructive and productive. At the same time, communications and coordination have sometimes been strained and unclear between different levels and across partners in the operation.

This mixed performance is reflected in the spread of ratings given by the survey respondents on the effectiveness of the IFRC secretariat’s coordination with its internal and external stakeholders, with a median rating of ‘average.’

Figure 13 Effectiveness of Coordination

50 45 40 35

e PRCS g 30 a t

n PNS

e 25 c r

e 20 ICRC P 15 UN/Other 10 5 0 Very poor Poor Average Good Very good

The respondents to the online survey (85-87 for these questions) rated coordination by the IFRC secretariat with it internal partners and external organisations as follows on the 1-5 scale:

ICRC 3.00 PNS 2.97 PRCS 2.96 UN/Other 2.82

A humanitarian diplomacy delegate position was advertised on Jobnet (20 December 2010), subsequent to the RTE mission. This is a very positive initiative for the operation. This position could help to address some of the need areas discussed below, as well as some identified in the ‘Equitable and Proportional Delivery’ section of the report.

Movement-wide

There are several examples of good practice in cooperation and coordination among Red Cross Red Crescent Movement partners at the strategic level in the Pakistan flood response. Some of these include:

· The Movement partners agreed early in the response to a coordination framework that placed PRCS as ‘the lead agency in coordination of the Movement response to the flooding.’26 · By September, the PRCS, IFRC and the ICRC formalized a Movement Platform which sought to delineate the roles and areas of responsibility of the respective parties when carrying out operations in the field. · All Movement partners further agreed to the Joint Statement on the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement in response to the flood crisis in Pakistan on 27 September 2010. · A donors’ conference took place in Doha in October, where the IFRC PoA was shared and the issue of fundraising for the revised emergency appeal was discussed. · At the Islamabad level, the PRCS has also hosted daily operational update meetings and twice- weekly Movement coordination meetings to discuss and agree on a common approach to operational issues, including security.

At the operational level, the combined response and coverage rate of all of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement partners has been impressive and the Movement Factsheets and consolidated IFRC three month report illustrate this well, despite difficulties retrieving and reporting some data on bilateral PNS support.

Despite these impressive achievements, the relationships between the IFRC and the ICRC have been strained at times, with differences of policy and opinion on appropriate roles and practices in the flood operation. The PRCS has sometimes occupied an awkward space between these positions, as well as having their own views as a National Society. It was beyond the scope of the RTE’s terms of reference to explore or comment on these issues, some of which appear to have their origins in earlier conflict and disaster responses, but they do appear to require some form of follow up. This observation is made within in a context of the probability of Pakistan experiencing future humanitarian crises.

In terms of adopting a cohesive approach to the representation of the Movement under one banner, there appears to be less cohesiveness and not all PNS have adhered to the agreements they have signed or there have been different interpretations of the application of these agreements. These are difficult and sensitive issues for all of the partners, and efforts have been made at the global, regional and in-country level to dialogue on these differences of approach and try to reach a greater level of share understanding and approach. The Pakistan flood response shows that this dialogue will need to be continued, both

26 Joint Statement on the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement in response to the flood crisis in Pakistan, 27 September 2010, p 2 42

inside and outside of the flood operation. One stakeholder suggested the creation of a task force by the secretariat to work with these National Societies on this specific issue. They recommended that this should not be done in a negative and critical mode, but should take a positive approach to identifying the measures that would encourage them to work less independently of the Movement ‘umbrella.’

Internal (Secretariat)

There has been reasonably good collaboration between the country delegation and the Asia Pacific zone office over the course of the operation, including the surge capacity provided by the zone office to the Pakistan delegation, which was highly valued by most country delegation and PRCS staff interviewed. At the same time, the country delegation was seen to be bypassed to a certain extent by the FACT and some of the early heads of operation by some interviewees, in terms of the delegation’s decision- making and reporting relationship with the zone office. The situation was described as improving when a Head of Operations arrived that “had an understanding of the important role of the country delegation in ensuring the longer-term sustainability of what is done in a disaster response.”

Others expressed the view that the country delegation also could have been more pro-active and engaged with operational planning and support processes during the early stages of the response. Some interviewees also noted that the SARD office was not consulted or involved much in operational planning, despite being the official reporting line for country delegation’s and having access to valuable knowledge and human resources in the region.

While all of the relevant managers were generally (but not always) ensuring that they were copying each other on communications, actual consultation was said to have occurred to a lesser extent. This was partly affected by the absence of the heads of both the country and regional delegations during the early stages of the response, which may have set the tone of informal consultation and reporting mechanisms. The role of the SARD, in terms of lines of reporting and accountability, vis the zone office during times of emergency seems to require further clarification.

As discussed in previous sections, the relationship between the Geneva and zone offices has been tense and difficult throughout most of the operation; this has contributed to miscommunications, disagreements and – ultimately –delays in some key activities in the disaster response (eg Emergency appeal launch). Staff from most technical/support areas in both offices described numerous stressful encounters, many occurring both before and after the Pakistan flood operation commenced. Several interviewees attributed motives to the actions of their counterparts in the other office that did not reflect a real understanding of each other’s pressures and constraints; this was a striking feature of the interviews conducted in Geneva and Kuala Lumpur.

The lack of clarity of roles, responsibilities and procedures under decentralisation has been a major contributing factor to this situation. Unfortunately, it has also led to a serious breakdown of trust and mutual respect in the relationship; this was directly stated by several staff as well as a feeling of “not being listened to” (by those in the other office). This situation was informally recognised and acknowledged by many in Geneva and Kuala Lumpur. One individual formally suggested a meeting to resolve the differences (September 2010) but did not receive a positive response at the time. The clarification of roles and the resolution of differences should be treated as a matter of high priority by IFRC secretariat senior management as it is likely to negatively impact again on future disaster responses, not to mention the occupational health of the affected individuals in both offices.

Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS)

The mutual decision to support the PRCS in the operational lead role of the flood operation was considered a positive step forward in the evolution of the IFRC by most RC/RC Movement partner staff interviewed, a view also reflected in comments made in the online survey. This has created a new dynamic in the relationship of the IFRC secretariat and PNS to the PRCS in a disaster response, a dynamic that was perhaps not fully recognised at the time the decision was made. The systems,

procedures and mindsets of the secretariat, of PNS contributing to global response tools, and of the PRCS itself are still adjusting to a fundamental change in their ways of working in comparison with past disaster responses. This also has implications for ICRC-PRCS future working models though it was beyond the scope of the RTE to assess these.

The report has already discussed the importance of updating and adjusting the policies and procedures related to the deployment of global tools; this also includes changes to the way that PNS select and prepare the people they provide in future to FACT, ERU and other multilateral response instruments. It has also discussed the increased importance that these role changes imply to the assessment of the capacity of a Host National society to fulfil an operational lead role in a large-scale disaster response, and of other IFRC partners to support that role. This new business model is appropriate but it also requires considerably more development of the policies, systems and procedures to make it workable in practice at scale. A recent mid-term evaluation of the Padang earthquake has highlighted this, as has the Haiti earthquake RTE.

The lack of such a systematic approach to a new model of disaster management (ie this implies a different approach to disaster preparedness as well) has contributed to some of the prolonged negotiations that have occurred during the Pakistan flood response, eg sorting out horizontal and vertical coordination between FACT, ERUs and PRCS counterparts – as well as within the PRCS to facilitate a huge response to multiple locations (a genuine challenge in the context of Pakistan and the PRCS Constitution). Some creative and promising new approaches are already being applied. For instance, the recent deployment of dedicated IFRC secretariat liaison positions to the provincial PRCS branches in Punjab and Sindh were already making a visible contribution to improved communications and coordination in multiple directions and were greatly appreciated by these two branches.

Partner National Societies (PNS)

The PNS have played a major role in the Pakistan flood response, both multilaterally and bilaterally. Over a dozen PNS have contributed to global tools (FACT, ERU, RDRT) and, to date, 37 PNS have contributed to the multilateral appeal in cash or in-kind.27 Several examples of effective collaboration have been provided in the report, as have instances where PNS did not feel adequately informed, consulted or engaged.

A perspective of one PNS representative on how the secretariat could contribute to improving/increasing coordination included:

· Make more use of the knowledge, capacity and expertise of PNS with programs in country during the surge phase Create a formal position on the FACT, or a full-time in-country position to engage in formal liaison with the PNS and other stakeholders for large-scale operations, as the country delegation and operation may be overwhelmed with the demands · Have the HR areas actively engage in dialogue with PNS in relation to current and future HR needs for emergency operations, rather than just rely on PNS to respond through Jobnet. This is done at a technical level but deserves a more formal and strategic process whereby HR actively promotes and solicits support from the PNS · The secretariat teleconference for PNS is a good initiative but this relates mostly to Resource Mobilisation and operations updates with out of country donor PNS. Perhaps a teleconference with in country or operational PNS only at early stage might improve coordination.

Pakistan Government/United Nations

The PRCS has a strong relationship with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and with provincial governments. IFRC representatives regularly attend the humanitarian country team

27 Operations Update:3 Months Consolidated Report, 10 November 2010 (IFRC) and 15 November revised emergency appeal

meetings - equivalent to the inter-agency standing committee (IASC) - which constitutes the highest level coordination of the international humanitarian community in Pakistan and under which the cluster system works.

The IFRC secretariat has coordinated closely with the ICRC and the PRCS to identify ways of operating in the flood response that are sensitive to the complex programming environment within Pakistan. This has not been an easy process but mutual understandings have been reached; the Joint Statement is a reflection of this. Some key areas of importance have included: a limited engagement with the UN ‘one response’ system, for example, separate reporting on assistance provided by the RC/RC Movement; and a decision not to lead the shelter cluster in this response (IOM has taken on this role, which it also did in the 2005 Pakistan earthquake response).

There is no doubt that the RC/RC Movement has to approach its roles and relationships with other actors in Pakistan very carefully in order to protect its fundamental principles. At the same time, the limitations on interactions with the UN system has contributed to miscommunication, information gaps and potential duplication of coverage or ‘mismatched’ distributions of relief and early recovery items with others. While there were some examples of good informal coordination between WFP and PRCS/IFRC in certain locations (as the two biggest contributors to food aid distributions), most UN personnel met (and a small number of NGOS) felt frustrated about the lack of communication and coordination with the IFRC. In Mingorra, the shelter sub-cluster gave specific examples of where they perceived duplication and mismatches between the IFRC and other aid providers to be occurring in the provision of temporary winter shelter, as a result of a lack of interaction. While UN communication and coordination is not flawless either, the limited and inconsistent coordination at the field level was evident. Some NDMA/PDMA personnel also expressed a desire for greater engagement.

In the same vein, while the joint reporting factsheet developed for distinctive RC/RC Movement-wide reporting has been a useful initiative of itself, external agencies felt that this only advised on what had been distributed and did not give information on the Movement’s future plans to assist in avoiding duplication. The UN personnel met repeatedly emphasised that they accepted the limitations of the RC/RC Movement but sought a better working relationship. A lack of human resources and prioritisation of coordination by the IFRC have also been contributing factors to this situation.

Recommendations

Pakistan Flood Operation

39. The Red Cross Red Crescent Movement undertake further internal inter-agency consultation, followed by consultations with the UN, to identify acceptable ways to improve coordination with other humanitarian actors in Pakistan without compromising the Fundamental Principles. This could be done through the new Humanitarian Diplomacy delegate position recently advertised.

IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses)

40. Organise a workshop at the earliest opportunity to identify and resolve the communication issues between the Asia Pacific Zone and Geneva offices. This workshop should be led by a professional facilitator with experience in conflict resolution. 41. Continue to implement a strategy of policy dialogue with PNS on mutually acceptable ways of working in complex environments while respecting the fundamental principles.

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

Pakistan Flood Operation/Regular Programming

9. Review the bottlenecks to secretariat flood operation and related PRCS financial management systems and identify feasible changes to the procedures to increase flexibility while retaining accountability during the remainder of the relief operation. This could possibly include measures such as the direct release of funds by the IFRC to its flood operation budget holders, to reduce the number of steps in funds release, and on-the-job training to field-based PRCS counterparts in IFRC transfer and acquittal procedures. 12. As a priority, the IFRC secretariat and PRCS identify a strategy to facilitate the smooth transition from ERUs to regular delegates and staff as the ERUs draw down and to reduce the risks of critical operational gaps. This could include measures such as: seeking assistance from PNS for staff-on- loan, mobilising more RDRT; identifying further temporary surge support from the Zone Office, SARD, Geneva and/or other National Societies in the region for key posts until they can be filled; and/or other measures; enlist the support of ERUs/PRCS branches to map out critical skills gaps. 13. Develop context specific cross-cultural briefings and written information for incoming delegates for the remainder of the flood operation and future deployments of international support personnel to the PRCS. Identify and/or train Pakistani men and women and/or international female and male personnel with solid cross-cultural experience in Pakistan (particularly outside of Islamabad/major cities) to deliver these briefings. 14. Finalise the IFRC secretariat status agreement as an institutional priority. 15. Document the key factors in the successful development of the PRCS emergency water and sanitation capacity, covering both challenges and achievements, and including the role played by technical assistance ERUs to inform the ongoing global process of ERU capacity-building. 25. Update the content of security briefings to include information specific to the provinces and districts in which operational personnel/units are based and ensure it is regularly updated in future. 28. Develop a pilot local-to-global procurement strategy/plan for Pakistan (IFRC secretariat and PRCS), in line with the spirit and intent of Strategy 2020. 33. Take steps to ensure that the PoA, and revised Emergency Appeal, are disseminated, their content and linkages to each other understood, and key objectives translated into field level work plans. 34. Introduce a short and simple internal weekly reporting template to strengthen problem-solving and accountability, if not already in use. 35. Develop a formal monitoring and evaluation plan, including an appropriate budget allocation, for the remainder of the flood operation. 39. The RC/RC Movement undertake further internal inter-agency consultation, followed by consultations with the UN, to identify acceptable ways to improve coordination with other humanitarian actors in Pakistan without compromising the Fundamental Principles. This could be done through the new Humanitarian Diplomacy delegate position recently advertised.

IFRC (Institutional/Future Large-Scale Disaster Responses)

Operational Structures 1. Review and update the Asia Pacific Zone SoPs to include clear guidance on the roles, responsibilities and reporting lines of all levels of the secretariat in the event of a large-scale emergency response in full consultation with all stakeholders 2. Develop a set of criteria for decision-making on the mobilization of regional and global support and tools, drawing from good practice among other humanitarian actors. 3. Make a pre-agreement between the Asia Pacific zone office and National Societies which identifies their capacity gaps in the event of a large-scale and/or complex disaster and the types of external support likely to be required; this should be updated regularly, possibly in conjunction with Well Prepared National Society assessments. 4. Incorporate education on the content and application of the SoP into FACT, ERU and other relevant disaster management training for secretariat and National Society personnel with disaster response roles and responsibilities in this region.

Proportionality and Equality

Financial Resource Mobilisation 10. Develop guidance on financial risk assessment and risk management for the PEAR process, in consultation with the finance, audit and other appropriate areas of the IFRC secretariat and incorporate these into the current guidelines and procedures. Review the PEAR approval procedures to identify any areas in which the process may be further streamlined for emergency operations (eg increasing the funding gap approval levels of different managers if good risk management procedures are in place, etc. 11. Provide refresher information sessions for key managers in National Societies and at all levels of the IFRC secretariat to raise awareness of the DREF/PEAR guidelines and procedures and to assist staff to interpret how to apply them to their likely emergency scenarios.

Human Resource Mobilisation 16. Develop standard operating procedures for the deployment of Zone, regional office and Geneva surge capacity in the event of large-scale disaster responses. 17. Update the policies, standard operating procedures, terms of reference and training programs for FACT/ERUs to incorporate guidance on appropriate roles and relationships in situations where the National Society in the disaster-affected country plays the operational lead role. 18. Put in place pre-agreements on the roles, relationships and requirements for the mobilisation of FACT, ERU and other global tools in a decentralised context to avoid misunderstandings and protracted negotiations on their deployment. 19. Commission a recruitment/HR specialist to conduct a study of the barriers to recruitment of key positions in IFRC-supported emergency operations and make recommendations on adjustments required to current recruitment systems and procedures to attract a larger pool of appropriately skilled and qualified personnel. This includes consideration of alternative models already in place, or under development, within and outside of the RC/RC Movement for both surge and regular deployments. 20. Set minimum field experience requirements for ERU team leaders deployed to complex and sensitive countries/areas with high security risks and a balance of more and less experienced team members. 21. Request and deploy logistics ERUs before, or concurrently with, relief ERUs in line with the recommended practice of the secretariat. 22. Determine locations for the deployment of global tools prior to their mobilisation and based on systematic needs assessment and planning processes. 23. Review the skills and knowledge of current ERU personnel and determine if refresher training is needed and/or other forms of coaching and mentoring to develop and reinforce the skills to apply important Movement/IFRC frameworks to their job roles. 24. Deploy administrative support to country delegations/site and assign a dedicated HR position within zone offices to coordinate recruitment as a standard practice for larger disaster responses.

Security 26. Require FACT teams to include a security delegate and capacity to conduct conflict/’do no harm’ analysis in countries with a recent or current context of violent civil conflict. If this option is not 47

feasible, additional security surge capacity should be provided to the in-country delegation or team and/or the need for this more closely monitored by senior managers throughout the operation. 27. Review the issues of compliance with security procedures and aptitude for deployment to more complex and higher risk security contexts of ERU team members raised by the Pakistan operation with the Disaster Management Working Group and PNS that regularly provide these important ‘front-line ‘emergency response resources.

Logistics and Relief Distribution 29. Put in place pre-agreements on stock release and replenishment with National Societies for major disaster responses, including the values, principles and procedures to be followed in circumstances when the IFRC secretariat may not be able to raise sufficient funds to replenish the stock. 30. Put in place pre-agreed protocols for making decisions in situations in which the quality of relief items need to be balanced with speed of delivery (eg life-threatening context), ie under what conditions it is acceptable to apply local standards and what would be acceptable local standards to apply? Clarify or update the decision-making roles in this process between the technical, logistics and in-country operational areas of the secretariat and the Host National Society (when the Host National Society is the operational lead agency). 31. The IFRC secretariat continue to undertake advocacy with PNS to encourage greater use of cash contributions and explore possible incentives to encourage cooperation within the Movement umbrella on the provision of in-kind contributions and unsolicited donations. Disincentives may also need to be considered, such as making the PNS responsible for procurement of the items identified though needs assessments, rather than based on what is available in their stock and responsible for their own storage and delivery of unsolicited items. 32. Improve awareness of existing relief and logistics guidelines, specifically the ‘Mission Assistant,’ which should be compulsory for all deploying international staff and form part of disaster preparedness activities for at risk National Societies.

Needs Assessments, Appeals, Planning and Reporting 36. Assess the needs assessment capacity of National Societies and the IFRC secretariat in the initial planning of major disaster responses and any related needs for surge capacity and/or the creation of an enabling environment to collect and analyse sufficient information in a timely manner. 37. Clarify the role of Geneva vis-a-vis Asia Pacific Zone Office technical areas in the provision of input to, and appraisal of, Emergency Appeals. 38. Ensure the written guidance being developed to accompany the new PoA template sufficiently covers the protocols and procedures for stakeholder engagement and ownership building, if not already done.

Organisational Relationships 40. Organise a workshop at the earliest opportunity to identify and resolve the communication issues between the Asia Pacific Zone and Geneva offices. This workshop should be led by a professional facilitator with experience in conflict resolution. 41. Continue to implement a strategy of policy dialogue with PNS on mutually acceptable ways of working in complex environments while respecting the fundamental principles.

Priorities

Among these recommendations, the areas requiring more immediate follow up include: 1,2, 9, 12, 14, 25, 33, 35 and 40. The other recommendations are equally important but require more time to implement.

ANNEXES

ANNEX A

Terms of Reference for a Real Time Evaluation of the IFRC Response to the 2010 Pakistan Floods

1. Summary

1.1. Purpose: This real time evaluation (RTE) will assess the ongoing IFRC response to the Pakistan floods to inform continued response in Pakistan, as well as future global emergency relief operations. Particular emphasis should be placed on overall management and assessing related internal process and systems and how effective they are in delivering services. 1.2. Commissioners: This RTE has been commissioned by the USG of the Programme Services Division, IFRC, Geneva. 1.3. Audience: This RTE will be used by the IFRC in Pakistan, the Asia/Pacific Zone, and at the international headquarters in Geneva; it will also inform all RC/RC stakeholders contributing to or affected by the IFRC Pakistan operation. 1.4. Duration of consultancy: approximately 30 days (with approx 10 days in the field) 1.5. Estimated dates of consultancy: September - October, 2010. 1.6. Location of consultancy: Pakistan, Kuala Lumpur, and Geneva.

2. Background

In the past decade, there has been increasing attention on and practice of Real Time Evaluations (RTE) during humanitarian operations responding to large-scale disasters. An RTE is typically carried out during the early implementation stages of a humanitarian operation to provide timely feedback for immediate use (in real time) to those executing an managing the humanitarian response.28 RTEs differ from other forms of humanitarian evaluations in their speed, coverage, methods, and outputs. Effective RTEs can identify key systems, process, and operation problems that can be addressed in a time and manner that directly improves service delivery to target populations. Therefore, they are a key mechanism for accountability to intended beneficiaries, as well as donors and other stakeholders supporting IFRC work. In this regard, the IFRC is committed to ensuring quality assurance, standards and a strong culture of lesson learning in its disaster response and, as such is committed to carrying out RTEs in the wake of all major disasters requiring an international response.

In late July and early August, the worst floods to hit Pakistan in its history have affected an estimated 17.2 million people , with a death toll reported at 1,600 people, and 2,366 people injured. The latest assessments estimate that up to 1.2 million houses have been damaged or destroyed. Some 70 per cent of the country has been affected; in addition to loss of life and injury, millions of people have lost their homes, possessions and livelihood, with agricultural land, coprs and livestock particularly hard hit. Circumstances have been further exasperated from more rain as Pakistan experiences one of the worst monsoon season recorded.

In response to the urgent humanitarian situation and recognizing the growing needs of the affected populations, the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, in partnership with the Red Cross Red Crescent

28 Cosgrave, J., and B. Ramalingam, and T. Beck., 2009. Real-time evaluations of humanitarian action: An ALNAP Guide, Pilot Version. Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) - Overseas Development Institute: Paris. http://www.alnap.org/resources/guides/evaluation/rte.aspx 50

Movement partners, has responded to the crisis with immediate relief distribution (food and non-food), provision of emergency shelter, health and care, emergency water and sanitation services, as well as plans for longer-term initiatives to assist households in recovery and restarting livelihoods. Towards these objectives, a Preliminary Emergency Appeal was launched on 2 August 2010 for CHF 17,008,050 in cash, kind, or services to support the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) to assist up to 25,000 families (approximately 125,000 individuals) for nine months. On 19 August 2010, the appeal was revised for CHF 75,592,261 in cash, kind, or services to assist up to 130,000 families (approximately 910,000 people) for a total of 18 months. Currently, 14.5 CHF has been donated for the current IFRC operation responding to the Pakistan floods, with a further CHF 20 million pledged. The expected timeframe of the operation is 18 months under the current Emergency Appeal.

3. Evaluation Purpose & Scope

The purpose of this real time evaluation (RTE) is to assess the ongoing IFRC response to the Pakistan floods to inform continued response in Pakistan, as well as future global emergency relief operations. Particular emphasis should be placed on the overall management and assessing related internal process and systems and how effective they are in delivering services.

The RTE will focus on the combined IFRC response from the onset on 12 August 2010 until the time the evaluators collect data. “IFRC” includes the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS), other Red Cross/Crescent national societies participating within the Secretariat systems and processes, and the Secretariat at all levels (country, regional, zone, and Geneva). The RTE will consider links to ICRC activities, but will refrain from pronouncing on those activities. In addition to these RCRC stakeholders, and the intended beneficiaries of RCRC services, the RTE may consult with any other key stakeholder (partner organizations, governmental, etc) relevant to the evaluation objectives. Geographically, the scope of the evaluation will include areas in Pakistan served by the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) with support from the IFRC, and to be specified at evaluation start.

The RTE will not focus on the impact of the operation.

4. Evaluation Objectives and Key Questions

Specific objectives and key questions to be answered in this RTE are listed below. In addressing these objectives and questions, particular emphasis should be placed on the IFRC Secretariat internal systems and processes at all levels – not only the service delivery at the field level, but the related levels that affect this nationally, with the IFRC regional and zone offices, and at the IFRC international headquarters in Geneva. 16. Management Efficiency & Effectiveness: to what extent have internal processes, systems, and mechanisms affected quality management and timely and cost-effect service delivery . Guiding questions include but are not limited to those below: a. Was the Federation’ operational structure well geared to deliver timely, efficient and effective disaster response? Have IFRC internal systems and processes affected whether services have been delivered in an equitable manner, proportionate to need? b. How effective and efficient were the systems to mobilize resources – financial (including DREF and PEAR mechanisms), human resources (including surge capacity and regular delegate recruitment), logistics etc.? c. How timely and relevant were the different plans, appeals, and management reports? d. How efficient and effective was the initial needs assessment?, Who was involved, and what methodologies / tools were used? What (if any) additional resources would have been helpful; what if anything should be done differently? How has the assessment linked through to planning?

17. Coordination: to what extent the IFRC response was managed in a cohesive and effective manner, including communication, collaboration, and coordination among key stakeholders: a. How timely and effectively has the IFRC internally communicated and coordinated in its response within the Secretariat – including country, region, zone, and Geneva – as well as with Movement members. Coordination should include all stages of the operation thus far, from initial assessment to planning and service delivery.

5. Evaluation Methodology & Process

The methodology will adhere to the draft IFRC Management Policy for Evaluations, with particular attention to the processes upholding the standards of how evaluations should be planned, managed, conducted, and utilized.

An IFRC evaluation management team will oversee the evaluation and, with the evaluators, to ensure that it upholds the IFRC Management Policy for Evaluation. The evaluation management team will consist of three people not directly involved with the Pakistan operation; one of which is from the Secretariat Performance and Accountability Department, the other two who have direct experience in emergency operations and assessments – one from the Zone and one from PS Division.

The evaluation team will consist of three people: one an external evaluator, and two internal IFRC evaluator. The external evaluator will provide an independent, objective perspective as well as technical experience to the evaluation, and will be the primary author of the evaluation report. S/he should not have been involved or have a vested interest in the IFRC operation being evaluated, and will be hired through a transparent recruitment process, based on their professional experience, competence, ethics and integrity for this evaluation. The internal evaluators will provide IFRC background and experience to assist the external evaluator in the assessment process, and to best interact with the various RCRC actors involved in the operation and this person should have sound knowledge and understanding of IFRC disaster response. It is expected that this three person team will be able to conduct a reliable and informed assessment of the emergency operation that has legitimacy and credibility with stakeholders.

The specific evaluation methodology will be detailed in close consultation between the RTE team and IFRC, but will draw upon the following primary methods: 1. Desktop review of operation background documents, relevant organizational background and history, including prior IFRC RTE evaluation reports, and any relevant sources of secondary data, such exist surveys from IFRC participants in the operation. 2. Field visits/observations to selected sites. 3. Key informant interviews. 4. Focus group discussions, as time and capacity allow.

An initial draft report will be prepared for a review process, which should occur within 3 weeks of submittal of the draft report to the evaluation management team, and will involve the following stakeholders in the following order:: 1. Week 1 of review: the evaluation management team to check content is in line with TOR and standards . 2. Week 2-3 of review: stakeholders participating in the evaluation – at which point a final draft is prepared 3. Week 4 of review: an evaluation management response team – to be determined, but consisting of key stakeholders from within the IFRC will review the report and compile a management response to be included in the RTE report Appendix. 4. Acknowledging the challenging context and nature of stakeholder participation in this RTE, a fifth week is included for unexpected delays in data collection, and report review and revision.

The review process will be followed to ensure stakeholder input while maintaining the integrity and independence of the RTE report according to the following lines. · Inaccuracy. Inaccuracies are factual, supported with undisputable evidence, and therefore should be corrected in the evaluation report itself. · Clarifications. A clarification is additional, explanatory information to what the evaluators provided in the report. It is the evaluators’ decision whether to revise their report according to a clarification; if not, the evaluation management response team can decide whether to include the clarification in their management response. · Difference of opinion. A difference of opinion does not pertain to the findings (which are factual), but to the conclusions and/or recommendations. These may be expressed to the evaluators during the review process. It is the evaluators’ decision whether to revise their report according to a difference of opinion; if not, the evaluation management response team can decide whether to include the clarification in their management response.

6. Evaluation Deliverables

Inception Report – The inception report will be a scoping exercise for the RTE and will include the proposed methodologies, data collection and reporting plans with draft data collection tools such as interview guides, the allocation of roles and responsibilities within the team, a timeframe with firm dates for deliverables, and the travel and logistical arrangements for the team.

Debriefings / feedback to management at all levels – The team will report its preliminary findings to the IFRC (in-country, zone, and Geneva) in a timely manner, before leaving the region, and will adhere to the above mentioned review process. The team leader will present the full report to Geneva management within two weeks of the return from the field.

Draft report – A draft report, identifying key findings, conclusions, recommendations and lessons for the current and future operation, will be submitted within two weeks of the consultants’ return from the field.

Final report – The final report will contain a short executive summary (no more than 1,000 words) and a main body of the report (no more than 10,000 words) covering the background of the intervention evaluated, a description of the evaluation methods and limitations, findings, conclusions, lessons learned, clear recommendations. Recommendations should be specific and feasible. The report should also contain appropriate appendices, including a copy of the ToR, cited resources or bibliography, a list of those interviewed, and any other relevant materials. The final RTE report will be submitted one week after receipt of the consolidated feedback from IFRC.

All products arising from this evaluation will be owned by the Federation. The evaluators will not be allowed, without prior authorization in writing, to present any of the analytical results as his or her own work or to make use of the evaluation results for private publication purposes.

7. Evaluation Quality & Ethical Standards

The evaluators should take all reasonable steps to ensure that the evaluation is designed and conducted to respect and protect the rights and welfare of the people and communities involved and to ensure that the evaluation is technically accurate and reliable, is conducted in a transparent and impartial manner, and contributes to organizational learning and accountability. Therefore, the evaluation team should adhere to the evaluation standards and applicable practices outlined in the IFRC Management Policy for Evaluation.

The IFRC evaluation standards are: 1. Utility: Evaluations must be useful and used.

2. Feasibility: Evaluations must be realistic, diplomatic, and managed in a sensible, cost effective manner. 3. Ethics & Legality: Evaluations must be conducted in an ethical and legal manner, with particular regard for the welfare of those involved in and affected by the evaluation. 4. Impartiality & Independence; Evaluations should be impartial, providing a comprehensive and unbiased assessment that takes into account the views of all stakeholders. 5. Transparency: Evaluation activities should reflect an attitude of openness and transparency. 6. Accuracy: Evaluations should be technical accurate, providing sufficient information about the data collection, analysis, and interpretation methods so that its worth or merit can be determined. 7. Participation: Stakeholders should be consulted and meaningfully involved in the evaluation process when feasible and appropriate. 8. Collaboration: Collaboration between key operating partners in the evaluation process improves the legitimacy and utility of the evaluation.

It is also expected that the evaluation will respect the seven Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent: 1) humanity, 2) impartiality, 3) neutrality, 4) independence, 5) voluntary service, 6) unity, and 7) universality. Further information can be obtained about these Principles at: www.ifrc.org/what/values/principles/index.asp

9. Qualifications

Selection of the external evaluation consultant will be based on the following qualifications: 1. Demonstrable experience in leading evaluations of humanitarian programs responding to major disasters, with specific experience in RTEs preferred; 2. Knowledge of strategic and operational management of humanitarian operations and proven ability to provide strategic recommendations to key stakeholders; 3. Strong analytical skills and ability to clearly synthesize and present findings, draw practical conclusions, make recommendations and to prepare well-written reports in a timely manner; 4. Experience in qualitative data collection and data analysis techniques, especially in emergency operations; 5. Knowledge and experience working with the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement preferred; 6. Demonstrated capacity to work both independently and as part of a team; 7. Excellent English writing and presentation skills in English, with relevant writing samples of similar evaluation reports. 8. Regional knowledge of Pakistan preferred but not required. 9. Minimum qualification of a PhD in relevant field of study, or a Masters with equivalent combination of education and relevant work experience. 10. Immediate availability for the period indicated.

9. Application Procedures

Interested candidates should submit their application material by 22 September 2010 to the following email: [email protected]. Application material is non-returnable, and we thank you in advance for understanding that only short-listed candidates will be contacted for the next step in the application process. Application materials should include: 1. Curricula Vitae (CV) 2. Cover letter clearly summarizing your experience as it pertains to this RTE, your daily rate 3. At least one example of an evaluation report most similar to that described in this TOR.

ANNEX B EVALUATORS’ BIODATA

Ms Cynthia Burton, Consultant, Team Leader

Cynthia Burton has over twenty years experience in the Asia-Pacific region. She has extensive experience of managing post--transitional and recovery programmes in East Timor, Bougainville and the Solomon Islands for AusAID. Ms Burton was the IFRC secretariat’s first senior officer for disaster recovery from July 2005-July 2007. She has led/coordinated multi-sectoral needs assessments, lessons learned reviews and evaluations of disaster recovery and disaster risk management programs for the IFRC and various National Societies in Fiji, Haiti, Indonesia, Maldives, Pakistan, Philippines, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, as well as multi-country regional assessments in the Asia-Pacific region. She has also carried out similar assignments in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines for AusAID and the World Food Programme.

Ms Burton was trained in epidemiology and medical statistics during her post-graduate tropical health degree at the University of Queensland and has studied and employed qualitative participatory evaluation methodologies such as Most Significant Change and Appreciative Enquiry. She is a qualified Sphere trainer and well versed in the application of the DAC evaluation standards.

Mr Glenn Rose, PNS Representative

Glenn Rose is the Manager for International Programmes at New Zealand Red Cross. His responsibilities include all New Zealand Red Cross- supported bilateral and multilateral humanitarian and developmental programming. Mr Rose has a broad base of humanitarian experience across many thematic and geographical areas, as well as previous missions as a Federation Delegate. His role has required him to undertake a variety of PNS evaluations in conflict, disaster and capacity building settings across the globe.

Mr Yasir Manzoor, PRCS Representative

Yasir Manzoor is currently seconded to the national headquarters of the PRCS in Islamabad, supporting the emergency response to the 2010 floods. He is the Disaster Management Manager for the AJK Provincial Branch of the PRCS and has worked on a number of disaster responses, commencing with the major earthquake of 2005.

Mr Raj Zafar, IFRC Secretariat Representative

Raj Zafar is currently the Cooperation Officer for the secretariat’s Pakistan country delegation. He has extensive Red Cross Red Crescent experience. Mr Zafar previously worked for the American Red Cross ;he participated in the 2010 Pakistan flood response and as an ERU team member in the 2010 Haiti earthquake response. Mr Zafar has also worked for the ICRC and the Swiss Embassy in Islamabad, in addition to other positions held over his long career.

ANNEX C DOCUMENTS REVIEWED

IFRC/Movement

Flood operation

Asia Pacific Zone Office, November 2010. ‘Pakistan Floods Emergency Appeal Response (Millions CHF). Asia Pacific Zone Office, Pakistan Flood Operation Chronology, November 2010. DMIS budget reports Recovery Coordinator, 10 November 2010. ‘Draft Proposal – Integrated Programming in Priority Districts.’ End of mission reports: ERU/FACT/Delegates, various. ERU Terms of Reference.Various. Federation Delegation in Pakistan: Security Regulations, February 2009. Joint Statement on the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement in response to the flood crisis in Pakistan, 27 September 2010. Operations Updates and Situation reports, various (IFRC). Operations Update: 3 Months Consolidated Report, 10 November 2010 (IFRC). Mobilisation table reports/shelter & relief pipeline reports. Movement flood response Factsheets. Pakistan: Monsoon Flash Floods, Emergency Appeal, 19 August 2010. ‘Pakistan Monsoon Flash Floods 2010 Daily Distribution Reporting Table,’ v 6, 17 September 2010. Pakistan: Monsoon Floods Operation Plan of Action, 13 October 2010. Partner National Society progress reports, various. Project Expenditure Approval Request (PEAR), 27 August 2010. RDRT Terms of Reference, September 2010. Relief distribution reporting tables, various (IFRC/PRCS). Revised Emergency Appeal, Pakistan: Monsoon Floods, 15 November 2010. Situation reports, various. TPAT Questionnaire ‘Terms of Reference for FACT team to support response to Floods in Pakistan,’ 2 August 2010 and 27 August 2010. The Movement coordination framework a Movement Platform Email correspondence, various

Policies, guidelines, reports

Asia Pacific Zone Office, Standard Operating Procedures for Disaster Response and Early Recovery in Asia Pacific, March 2010. DREF Procedures and Guidelines, v 2, 17 September 2008. Emergency Appeal management & reporting procedures and guidelines, February 2010. . ERU Standard Operating Procedures, undated. Fisher M, Bhattacharjee A et al. The Haiti Earthquake Operation Real Time Evaluation for the IFRC Final Report. June 2010. Unpublished. Gender Policy, 1999. IFRC Management Policy for Evaluations, January 2010 (draft). Geneva: Performance and Accountability Department. Mid-Year report: Communication and advocacy, 27 August 2010. Mission Assistant CD Rom, 2010. Pledge on Non-discrimination and respect for diversity, 2003.

Other Publications

AEST, 1 December 2010. ‘Nearly $60 m in Pakistan flood aid unspent.’

Cosgrave J , Polastro R and Zafar F. Inter-Agency Real Time Evaluation of The Humanitarian Response to Pakistan’s 2009 Displacement Crisis, v 1.95. Geneva : UN-OCHA, August 2010. Cosgrave J and M Herson. Chapter 4 Perceptions of crisis and response : A synthesis of evaluations of the response to the 2005 Pakistan earthquake in ALNAP (2007), Review of Humanitarian Action, pp 177-224. London : ALNAP. Young Sir N, Khattak Dr SG et al,. IASC’s Inter-Agency Real Time Evaluation of the Pakistan Floods/Cyclone Yemyin. Geneva: UN-OCHA, 31 October 2007 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Pakistan Flooding worsens situation for people displaced by conflict in north-west. Norwegian Refugee Council: www.internal-displacement.org, , 6 September 2010 Nguyen K. ‘Pakistan floods seen setting back recovery of conflict-displaced by years.’ London: Alertnet (www.reliefweb.int) , 6 August 2010. Oxfam GB. Procedures for Calling & Managing Oxfam’s Emergency Response. Undated Righarts M. ‘Pakistan’s floods: a window of opportunity for insurgents?’ in The Drum Unleashed, www.abc.net.au, 8 September 2010 Sungi Development Foundation. Sungi’s Cash for Choice Project: Process Monitoring and Evaluation Study. Abbottabad: Sungi, September 2009. United Nations. Pakistan Floods Emergency Response Plan, Revision. New York/Geneva: OCHA, September 2010. UN-IASC. ‘Logistics Cluster Situation Report.’ , 22 September 2010 UN News service ‘Pakistan: UN issues largest-ever disaster appeal at over $2 billion for flood: www.un.org/apps/news/,’ 17 September 2010.

ANNEX D FIELD VISITS/INTERVIEWS

Tuesday, 26 October and Wednesday, 27 October

Air travel from Canberra to Geneva

Thursday 28 October 2010 (Geneva)

09h30 – 10h15 Mr Pablo Medina Senior Officer, Operations Quality Assurance, Disaster Services Department and Mr Scott Chaplowe, Senior Officer, Planning And Evaluation Department 10h15-11h00 Ms Vera Kremb, Acting Head, Principles and Values Department 11h00 – 11h30 Mr Tamman Aloudat, Emergency Senior Health Officer, Water, Sanitation & Emergency Health Unit, Health And Social Services Department 11h30 – 12h30 Ms Ela Serdarogl, Senior Officer, Shelter and Settlements and Mr Miguel Urquia, Sr Officer, Shelter Alliance & Operations Support, Shelter Department 12h30-14h00 Lunch with Mr Josse Gillijns (Head of PAD), Mr S Chaplowe and Mr P Medina 14h00- 15h00 Ms Birgitte Olsen, Head, Logistics And Resource Mobilization Department 15h00 – 16h00 Mr Matthias Schmale, Under Secretary General, Programme Services Division

Friday 29 October 2010 (Geneva)

09h00-09h30 Ms Lorna Lusambili, HR Coordinator, Field Support, Human Resources Department, 09h30-10h30 Mr William Carter, Senior Officer, Water, Sanitation and Emergency Health Unit, Health And Social Services Department 10h30-12h00 Disaster Services team 12h00- 11330 Ms Emma Delo, Senior Officer Recovery, Disaster Services Department 1330- 1500 Mr Simon Eccleshall, Head, Disaster Services Department 15h00 – 16h00 Mr Pedro Simoes, Senior Officer (Senior Auditor), Risk Management and Audit Department 16h00 – 17h00 Mr Pablo Medina, Senior Officer, Operations Quality Assurance, Disaster Services Department (recap) 17h00-18h00 Mr Mukesh Kapila, Under Secretary General, NS and Knowledge Development Division /Ms Bayarmaa Luntan, Advisor, Office Of The Secretary General

Saturday 30 October & Sunday 31 October (Geneva-Kuala Lumpur)

Air travel to Kuala Lumpur

Monday 1 November (Kuala Lumpur)

0830 - 0900 Orientation Michael Annear 1000 – 1100 Mr Alistair Henley, Director, Asia Pacific Zone 1100 – 1200 Mr Jeremy Francis, Regional Logistics Coordinator 1400 – 1500 Mr Igor Dmitryuk, Head of Regional Logistics Unit 1500 – 1800 Mr Glenn Rose arrives from New Zealand; briefing/planning meeting

Tuesday, 2 November (Kuala-Lumpur)

0830 – 0930 Mr Felix de Vries, Shelter Delegate 0930 – 1030 Ms Letty Sparrow, Zone HR Coordinator 1100 – 1200 Mr Michael Niedermayr, Zone Security Coordinator 1400 – 1500 Mr Nigel Ede, Recovery Delegate 1500 – 1600 Mr Alan Bradbury, R M & PMER coordinator & Ms Melanie Ogle, Resource Mobilization Delegate 1600 – 1800 Mr Jagan Chapagain, Head of Operations, AP Zone

Wednesday 3 November (Kuala Lumpur-Islamabad)

0730 – 0900 Mr Michael Annear, Disaster Management Coordinator 1305 – 2350 Air travel to Islamabad 62

Thursday 4 November (Islamabad)

0830 – 0900 Security briefing 0900 – 0945 Mr Pepe Salmela, Head of Delegation, Pakistan 1000 – 1045 Brig Muhammad Ilyas Khan, Secretary General, PRCS 1100 - 1200 PRCS briefing and daily operational update meeting 1200 – 1300 Air Vice Marshal Muhammad Ateeb Siddiqui, Director Operations, PRCS 1300 – 1345 Lunch 1400 – 1500 Ms Donna Chanda, Cooperation Coordinator & Ms Caroline Dunn, Cooperation Delegate, ICRC 1515 - 1830 Team briefings/field trip scheduling

Friday 5 November29 (Islamabad)

0900 - 0945 Mr John English, British Red Cross Representative, Flood Response 1000 - 1130 Mr Nasir Khan, Country Coordinator, Pakistan Delegation, Canadian Red Cross 1115 - 1230 Mr Dirk Kamm, Head of Office, German Red Cross 1200 – 1245 Mr Ishrat Ullah, Country Representative, Qatar Red Crescent 1245 – 1400 Mr Franz Lanofer, Team Leader, Swiss Red Cross 1300 – 1400 Dr Munis, Gender Coordinator, PRCS [check title] 1445 – 1530 Mr Ali Ufuk Gunduz, Head of Delegation & Ms Guluin Diktas, International Relations Delegate, Turkish Red Crescent 1530 – 1630 Ms Majda Shabbir, Communications Officer, IFRC Pakistan Delegation & Mr Sharil Dewa, Asia Pacific Zone PMER (surge – reporting officer), IFRC 1630 – 1730 Dr Syed Jamal Shah, Health Coordinator, IFRC Pakistan Delegation 1530 – 1730 Mr John Punter, Logistics Coordinator, IFRC Pakistan Delegation 1730 – 1815 Team debrief

Saturday, 6 November (Islamabad)

0900 – 1000 Team debrief/field visit preparations 1000 – 1330 Relief/Logistics headquarters & field teams (ERU) meeting 1000 – 1100 Mr Thu Rein Maung Maung, WATSAN Coordinator & Ms Mariyam Asifa, WATSAN Software Delegate, IFRC 1130 – 1215 Mr Putu Widiantra, Finance Delegate, IFRC 1215 – 1315 Mr Will Rogers, Beneficiary Communications Delegate, IFRC 1400 – 1530 Mr Christophe Lobry-Boulanger, Team Leader & Ms Robin Younger, (AmCross) Relief Cell 1500 – 1600 Mr Thor Thorbro, Security Delegate, IFRC Pakistan Delegation 1900 – 2100 Mr Gocha Guchashvili, Relief Coordinator, IFRC

Sunday 7 November (Mardan/Minggora)

0715 – 1000 Travel to Mardan 1000 - 1230 Mr Mohammed Yousaf Jan, Field Coordinator, Mardan Branch, PRCS ([email protected]) Mr Louis Rol, Team Leader, Danish/Finish Logistics ERU, Mardan + some team members + visit to warehouse 1230 – 1700 Travel to Minggora, Swat 2100 - 2230 Mr Samin Ullah Afridi, National Humanitarian Affairs Officer, Swat, UNOCHA ([email protected])

Monday 8 November (Minggora)

0930 - 1040 Prof Mian Mohib Jan, Secretary, Swat Branch, PRCS ([email protected]) 1030 - 1215 Focus group: NGOs/UN agencies:

Mr Fahad Khau CRS [email protected] Mr Amwar Gul WFP [email protected]

29 Note: team split into two sub-teams for some meetings to ensure coverage 63

Mr Mukutyar Azizsafi ACTED no email Mr Arif Jamal ACTED [email protected] Mr Shauleat Hayat UN-HABITAT [email protected] Mr Ikram Ullah WFP [email protected] Mr Ziaul Amia UNHCR no email

1215 - 1815 Travel to Islamabad

Tuesday, 9 November (Islamabad, public holiday)

1500 – 1600 Brig Sajid Naeem, Member (Operations), National Disaster Management Authority, Prime Minister’s Secretariat ([email protected])

FIELD VISIT ORGANISATION/PREPARATIONS

Wednesday, 10 November (Lahore/Multan)

0700 – 0900 Travel by air: Islamabad to Lahore 0900 – 0930 Ms Karen Hvid, Field Delegate, IFRC 0930 – 1030 Mr M Akram Brar , Staff Officer to Chairperson and Provincial Coordinator ([email protected]) +Mr Attiq Khan, Assistant Director Youth & Volunteer ([email protected]), PRCS, Punjab Branch, Lahore 1030 – 1745 Road travel: Lahore to Multan 1830 – 1930 Mr Abdul Rauf, Disaster Management Manager, PRCS Punjab Province, Multan ([email protected]) Mr David Allen, WFP Logistics Sub-cluster Coordinator 2000 - 2100 Ms Sally Coates, British Logistics ERU II ([email protected]) 2100 – 2200 Mr Jan Kist, Danish/Benelux Relief ERU II

Thursday, 11 November (Multan/Sukkur)

0830 – 0930 Lt Col RA Shahid, Field Coordinator, PRCS, Multan [email] 0930 – 1715 Road travel: Multan to Sukkur

Friday, 12 November (Sukkur/Larkana)

Larkana (Raj Zafar + Cynthia Burton):

0700 – 0930 Road travel: Sukkur to Larkana 0930 – 1030 Mr Frank Warnier, Team Leader, Danish/Benelux Relief ERU II ([email protected]) 1030 – 1130 Ms Colleen Kohlman, Deputy Team Leader, Norwegian Health? ERU ([email protected]) 1200 – 1300 Mr Abdul Aleem Lashari, District Coordination Officer, Larkana ([email protected]) + Dr Nazir Shaikh, Secretary, PRCS, District Larkana & District Kamber Shahdadkot (no email) 1300 - 1400 1) Mr Javed Ahmed, Team Leader, Flood Operation, PRCS, Sindh Branch ([email protected])+ Mr Tarique Ahmed, Administrative Officer, Flood Operation, PRCS Sindh Branch ([email protected]) 2) Ms Charity Sikamo, MSM/ERU Team Leader ([email protected])+ Ms Elisabeth Hood, Hygiene Promoter, British MSM HP HR Support ERU ([email protected]) 1400 – 1500 Mr Saidur Rahman ([email protected]) + Mr Mijanur Rahman, Team Leader, RDRT ([email protected]) 1500 – 1700 Road travel: Larkana to Sukkur

Sukkur (Yasir Manzoor + Glenn Rose):

0830 - 1000 Mr Jamie Sutherland + Mr Michael ?, British Logistics ERU 1000 – 1100 Warehouse operations observation 1100 – 1230 Mr Abdul Wahid Abbasi, Honorary Secretary, Sukkur District, PRCS 64

1330 – 1430 Mr Peter Roberts, IASC Shelter Cluster Coordinator, Northern Sindh ([email protected]) + Mr John LaPointe, Hub Coordinator, Northern Sindh 1430 – 1600 Dr Aijaz Ali Agha, DMG, Regional Director, Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Sukkur Region, Sindh ([email protected])

Saturday, 13 November (Sukkar-Karachi-Islamabad)

1030 – 1200 Air travel: Sukkar to Karachi 1300 - 1430 Mr Kanwar Waseem, Provincial Secretary, Sindh Province, PRCS + staff ([email protected]) 1430 - 1530 Mr Ahmed Sikder, Field Delegate, IFRC 1600 - 1700 Mr Thomas Gurtner, Principal Humanitarian Advisor (Sindh), UN-OCHA ([email protected])

Sunday, 14 November (Islamabad)

1100 – 1200 Mr Nelson Castano, Head of Operations, IFRC 1200 – 1330 Debrief: Preliminary Findings: Nelson Castano + Gocha Guchashvili 1400 – 1830 Team collation and initial analysis of findings

Monday, 15 November (Islamabad-Kuala Lumpur)

1000 – 1100 Debrief: Preliminary findings: PRCS Secretary General + Director of Operations, IFRC Head of Delegation + Deputy Head of Delegation (Mr Younus Karim) 1100 – 1230 Debrief: Preliminary Findings: All HQ PRCSIFRC/PNS staff 1230 – 1400 Follow up discussions: shelter team, early recovery delegate, OD delegate, etc 2330 Air travel to Kuala Lumpur (Burton and Rose)

Wednesday, 16 November (Kuala Lumpur)

1645 – 1800 Skype interview: Pieter De Riejke and Dorothy Francis, Surge Unit, Geneva 1800 - 1930 Debrief with Scott Chaplowe and Michael Annear (public holiday) 2330 Burton departs for Canada

Thursday, 17 November (Kuala Lumpur – Glenn Rose)

AM KL office debrief on preliminary findings Ms Kathryn Clarkson, and Ms Terhi Heinasmaki, Health Coordinator

Thursday, 9 December (by phone)

0730 Mr Ted Itani, FACT Team Leader ([email protected])

Friday 10 December (by phone)

1500 Mr Azmat Ulla, Head, South Asia Regional Delegation

ANNEX E: Online survey - 2010 Pakistan Floods Federation RTE

1. Introduction

The International Federation is conducting an evaluation of its experiences and learning to date from its emergency operation carried out in support of the response of the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) to the recent floods in Pakistan.

This information will be used to help the Federation to refine the ongoing emergency and early recovery operation, as well as to improve the systems and procedures used to manage the delivery of assistance in future disaster responses.

The survey will take around 20-30 minutes to complete and is anonymous. The survey outcomes will be compiled into an overall RTE report, together with the results of more in-depth interviews with a cross-section of staff and other desk/field- based research.

Your feedback about your experiences will be a valuable contribution to the RTE and overall organizational learning form the Pakistan operation.If you are unsure of the best response to any question choose the one that is most relevant or closest to your position and role.

2010 Pakistan Floods Federation RTE

2. About you

1. How long were you or have you been involved in the operation?

nmlkj 1 -7 days nmlkj 15 - 30 days nmlkj +60 days

nmlkj 8- 14 days nmlkj 31 - 60 days

2. Please indicate which best decribes your relationship with the flood operation ?

nmlkj International Federation (all levels)

nmlkj Pakistan Red Crescent Society

nmlkj FACT/ERU/RDRT

nmlkj PNS

nmlkj ICRC

nmlkj Other

3. You are:

nmlkj Male

nmlkj Female

4. How many large scale disaster operations have you worked on?

nmlkj This is my first

nmlkj 2-4

nmlkj 5-7

nmlkj More than 7

2010 Pakistan Floods Federation RTE

3. Operational Management

5. What is your overall opinion of the Federation's support to the PRCS emergency operation to date? Very Poor Poor Average Good Very good Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

6. How timely was the initial Federation response in support of PRCS? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

7. How well has the Federation's response contributed to meeting the needs of the affected population? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Dont know Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

8. How would you rate the service delivery support provided by the Federation (all levels) for this operation? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Logistics nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

Finance/administration nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

Reporting nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

Human Resources nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

Security nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

Communications/media nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

9. In your view how effective have the relief assessments been in identifying the needs of the affected population? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Dont know Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

10. How would you rate the ongoing Federation monitoring and evaluation of this emergency operation? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Dont know Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

11. How would you rate your personal satisfaction working on this operation? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

2010 Pakistan Floods Federation RTE

4. Coordination & Cooperation

12. How effective has coordination been between the Federation and Movement partners during the operation? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good PRCS nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

PNS nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

ICRC nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

Please explain your answer m

13. How effective has the Federation been in coordinating with other agencies on the flood response? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

2010 Pakistan Floods Federation RTE

5. Accountability to Beneficiaries

14. To what extent have the self-expressed needs and opinions of the affected population been taken into consideration during the operation? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

15. To what extent have the different self-expressed needs and opinions of women/girls and men/boys been taken into consideration during the operation? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

16. To what extent has the affected population participated in making decisions about the operations strategies and priorities? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Dont know Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

17. To what extent has the affected population had the possibility to access information about the operation? Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Dont know Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

18. To what extent has the affected population had the possibility to share a complaint about the operation?

Very poor Poor Average Good Very good Dont know Rating nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj nmlkj

2010 Pakistan Floods Federation RTE

6. Overall experience of the Operation

19. Please explain anything that you feel has worked particularly well with this operation. m

20. Please explain anything that you feel has not worked well with this operation. m

21. What suggestions do you have to improve this and/or future Red Cross/Red Crescent emergency response and relief operations?

Thankyou for your time and contribution. ANNEX F ASIA PACIFIC ZONE OFFICE CHRONOLOGY OF RESPONSE

Informal emails DMIS / DREF / Date Impact / Events Funding / Movement FACT / RDRT / TPAT Ops Coordination Relief ERU Log ERU WatSan ERU BHC ERU Appeal / OU Fact Sheet 21-Jul First report of floods Balochistan 22-Jul DMIS 23-Jul Balochistan 24-Jul 25-Jul 26-Jul 27-Jul DMIS Balochistan, 28-Jul Main disaster starts KPK, Punjab 29-Jul DREF Bulletin 30-Jul 32 districts affected [budget 250,000] and approval 31-Jul 01-Aug Prel Emergency Initial FACT request 02-Aug [budget 1,7008,050] Appeal IEU 1 made + RDRT alert Additional FACT 03-Aug 33 districts affected 114,143 IEU 2 members requested [aggreed to 10,000 food parcles [1ST AP Zone Surge 04-Aug approx 700,000] 300,000 support arrives] FACT reporting added to 05-Aug OU1 IEU 3 team 06-Aug 44 Districts & 4 million people FACT team finalised First FACT team member 07-Aug 901,427 IEU 4 arrives ISL preparations 08-Aug MFS starts 1st Relief and 1st Logs ERU requested [agreed to working budget of CHF 09-Aug 5m - with 3.5m exposure] 1,139,539 OU2 IEU 5 10-Aug 54 Districts & 14 million people IEU 6 Discussion on 2nd Relief ERU Full fact team started + issues with established [including 1 communication field direct to 11-Aug IEU 7 RDRT member] GVA Consideration of using RDRT Relief ERU trained members instead of 2nd Danish / Finish (1st) Log ERU 12-Aug IFRC SG visits Pakistan 3,649,525 IEU 8 Relief ERU TL in country confirmation of 2nd Relief ERU filled + TL French/Benelux (1st) Relief 13-Aug OU 3 MFS 1 ERU in country 14-Aug 6,956,292 IEU 9 15-Aug

[agreed to working budget of CHF 8m - l need to confirm the exact date but the confirmation was 16-Aug made between the 9th and 19th] requested availability of ERU resources for possible further deployment Requested HR support for 1st BHC request + acting TL PRCS M40 and M15 + Norwegian / Canadian / HKRC 17-Aug 7,585,590 IEU 10 relief cell requested additional M15 (1st) BHC in country ANNEX F ASIA PACIFIC ZONE OFFICE CHRONOLOGY OF RESPONSE

Informal emails DMIS / DREF / Date Impact / Events Funding / Movement FACT / RDRT / TPAT Ops Coordination Relief ERU Log ERU WatSan ERU BHC ERU Appeal / OU Fact Sheet

18-Aug FACT Dpty TL arrives confiramtion of problems with Relief cell re American Nationality + TL Danish/Benelux (2nd) Relief 19-Aug [budget 75,852,261] EA ERU in country TL Spanish M15 HR in country [agreed to working budget of CHF 20-Aug 12m] 8,350,855 IEU 11 21-Aug 9,886,901 Request for 2nd Log ERU TL for Austrian RC M40 HR in 22-Aug country 23-Aug PNS Conf. call Request for 2nd BHC

24-Aug 65 Districts & 15.4 million people 10,848,633 OU 4 IEU 12 Ok for relief cell based in ISL TL German M15 ERU in country [Issue of German RC 14,696,783 deploying BHC under [request for Government umbrella is 25-Aug 35,000,000 PEAR] IUE 13 raised] Request for 1 mth FACT extension health, early recovery, communications, shelter made TL for British RC (2nd) Log 26-Aug TPAT AGREED ERU in country 15,481,368 Request for MSM delegate & [35,000,000 PEAR RDRT deployment Confirmation of 3mth discussions on possible MSM TL for French/Jap/Austr ERU 27-Aug approved] OU 5 MFS 2 request? Ops Coord deployment (2nd) BHC in country 28-Aug 16,005,562 TL Relilef Cell in country 29-Aug RDRT deployment 30-Aug 20,252,822 denied? 31-Aug

Agreement to move German 01-Sep 23,140,080 IEU 14 RC M15 from Punjab to Sindh 02-Sep OU 6 03-Sep 04-Sep 05-Sep 28,174,934

AP Zone briefed interium Ops Coord 06-Sep IFRC SG IEU 15 TPAT TL arrives deployed from Zone 07-Sep 28,449,401 FACT TL Departs - FACT demobilised - note some FACT 2nd round rotations integrated into 08-Sep 31,286,836 Ops team 09-Sep 31,989,316 OU 7 MFS 3 10-Sep IEU 16 11-Sep 12-Sep 34,391,433

13-Sep 82 Districts & 20.6 million people ANNEX F ASIA PACIFIC ZONE OFFICE CHRONOLOGY OF RESPONSE

Informal emails DMIS / DREF / Date Impact / Events Funding / Movement FACT / RDRT / TPAT Ops Coordination Relief ERU Log ERU WatSan ERU BHC ERU Appeal / OU Fact Sheet

14-Sep Draft Plan of 15-Sep Action IEU 17 RDRT Request confirmed 16-Sep 40,867,123 MFS 4 and made requested extension of relief and log ERUs until end 17-Sep 41,412,073 Full TPAT finalised november 18-Sep 19-Sep Anouncement that British RC had made agreement with PRCS to deploy MSM ERU. No IFRC engagement in 20-Sep 41,432,297 conversation. 21-Sep 43,278,874 22-Sep MFS 5 23-Sep 46,426,467 24-Sep OU 8 25-Sep 26-Sep 27-Sep President IFRC visits Pakistan 46,783,066 28-Sep 47,993,799 IEU 18

29-Sep MFS 6 TL BRC HR for MSM in country 30-Sep 48,151,113 01-Oct OU 9

02-Oct 3mth Ops Coord arrives 03-Oct 04-Oct 05-Oct 48,710,355 1st RDRT team member arrives [ not does not include RDRT team 06-Oct member in FACT ] 07-Oct 08-Oct ERU NS conference call 09-Oct 10-Oct USG Prog Serv visits Pakistan 11-Oct 12-Oct OU 10 13-Oct 50,333,847 PoA 14-Oct 51,710,099 15-Oct MFS 7 16-Oct Doha Donor Conference 17-Oct TPAT TL Departs - TPAT 18-Oct demobilised Confirm long-term Ops 19-Oct 50,000,265 Coord 20-Oct 21-Oct 22-Oct 50,045,795 23-Oct 24-Oct ANNEX F ASIA PACIFIC ZONE OFFICE CHRONOLOGY OF RESPONSE

Informal emails DMIS / DREF / Date Impact / Events Funding / Movement FACT / RDRT / TPAT Ops Coordination Relief ERU Log ERU WatSan ERU BHC ERU Appeal / OU Fact Sheet

25-Oct 26-Oct 27-Oct TPAT report 28-Oct 53,605,207 29-Oct OU 11 MFS 8 30-Oct 31-Oct

ANNEX G:

SAMPLE WEEKLY OR MONTHLY REPORTING PRO FORMA

Reporting period covered: ______

Progress against appeal objectives, logframe or key outcome indicators:

Significant achievements of operation over this period:

#1 …. # 2 …

Issues identified during last reporting period:

#1 …. # 2 …

Follow-up undertaken and results:

#1 …. # 2 …

New issues:

#1 … #2 …

Follow-up to be undertaken/who responsible

#1 … #2 …

Name(s): Position(s): Date: