Evaluation of USAID/BHR's grant to the World Food Program for disaster mitigation

Interim and strategic evaluation covers the period 1993-7/96. Overall, the DMP has contributed to the visible improvements in WFP. VAM and training have had positive results and are leading to improved programming decisions and staff capabilities. Activities undertaken in the VAM component are appropriate to the original purpose of "better targeted response in emergency situations". They have achieved limited but identifiable successes in improved targeting. Additional improvements are likely to occur in WFP country programs as VAM techniques are adopted and refined. Two additional foci of the VAM component -- logistics preparedness support and maps for public relations and general communication -- have value-added features that were positively assessed. The workshops in emergency management and emergency operations organized periodically by WFP have been favorably assessed by the participants. The use of the grant to improve WFP's staff capability has been effective in moving WFP to establish a pool of trained emergency personnel. New advances in vulnerability analysis and mapping have been incorporated without delay in training materials, constituting a feedback from one component of the grant to another. Since the benefits from VAM and training are only now beginning to be realized, changes in project identification and formulation, which presuppose these benefits, cannot yet be fully assessed. Trends in food aid distributions in the countries visited are overlain by the powerful influence of the erratic recurrence of drought or other emergencies. The team found instances, nevertheless, where VAM maps were being used constructively in project identification. The state of acceptance of VAM techniques for operational purposes by host governments showed quite a bit of variability among countries. In summary, the program has substantially contributed to improvements in WFP's emergency management and disaster mitigation capabilities, principally stemming from investments in VAM and training. These changes in WFP are pervasive and evident at many levels, and are not all due to the OFDA grant. WFP's approach to food aid has changed over the last 3 years and the DMP has played an important role in this process. A number of recommendations with respect to the three DMP components are provided. (Author abstract, modified)