Responding to droughts

Making the concept of resilience in the Sahel more useful

This paper explores the mistakes being made in how resilience has been discussed in the Sahel in recent years, and how it has paradoxically undermined efforts to support resilience.

• Research and Studies

2022 Drought Response - Protection Mainstreaming Guidance

• Guidance and Tools

Drought Response - Protection Mainstreaming Guidance Note

• Guidance and Tools

Outsmarting La Niña: Lessons and recommendations for strengthening resilience through the drought response in the Horn of Africa

This brief leverages Mercy Corps’ extensive experience responding to drought cycles in the Horn of Africa and recommends for donors to respond not only faster to the current crisis, but to prepare smarter for the next one.

• Evaluations and Lessons Learned

Models for Prevention: Lessons from the Sahel, Horn, and Latin America

This report argues that a better understanding of its three prevention models will improve the design of future prevention strategies, identify opportunities for multi-stakeholder partnership, and support programming at the national and regional levels.

• Research and Studies

Building resilient communities in Somalia (BRCiS) - Midline evaluation summary

This midline evaluation provides clear and understandable feedback to practitioners in order to inform resilience programming in Somalia.

• Evaluations and Lessons Learned

NRC Horn of Africa Drought Response JANUARY 2022 - JUNE 2023

• Evaluations and Lessons Learned

Lessons from livelihood interventions that increase the resilience of populations to droughts in Afghanistan and other fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCAS)

This rapid review draws on policy and programme information from donor and multi-lateral organisations and some academic literature to identify best practices and lessons learned on interventions to support livelihood resilience (to drought) in Afghanistan.

• Research and Studies

ALNAP Lessons Paper: Adapting humanitarian action to the effects of climate change

This lesson paper reviews evidence from previous humanitarian interventions to identify lessons and examples of best practice that might be applied when designing humanitarian action in response to future climate-related disasters.

• Evaluations and Lessons Learned

Lessons learned from community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) programmes that operate in fragile or conflict-affected settings

This rapid review synthesises the literature on how community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) programmes could be adapted in settings of conflict and fragility.

• Research and Studies

Understanding the Role of Anticipatory Action in Somalia

• Research and Studies

Final evaluation: Multi-country emergency appeal for Southern Africa drought

This is the final evaluation report of the multi-country emergency appeal operation for drought in Southern Africa and assesses relevance, coverage, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability in the implementation of the emergency appeal actions.

• Evaluations and Lessons Learned

Disability inclusive cash assistance: Learnings from practice in humanitarian response

This case study collection describes lessons learned from seven inclusive humanitarian cash transfer projects implemented from 2015 – 2020 in Niger, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, and Indonesia, and five ongoing projects from the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic responses.

• Guidance and Tools

Beneficiary assessment for independent evaluation of anticipatory action pilot in Somalia (August 2021)

The assessment involved assessing beneficiary experiences and drawing lessons from four anticipatory action interventions conducted by WFP, IOM and FAO in Somalia.

• Evaluations and Lessons Learned

Final evaluation of joint UNDP-FAO project entitled “Support to livelihoods of drought-affected households and resilience building of vulnerable groups in Warder and Kebridehar woredas of Ethiopia Somali region”

This evaluation provides a comprehensive and systematic accounting of performance, and assess project design, implementation, likelihood of sustainability and possible impacts of the joint UNDP-FAO project.

• Evaluations and Lessons Learned

Evaluation Report of OCHA's Anticipatory Action Trigger: Ethiopia

This report aims to identify the strengths and limitations of UN OCHA’s Anticipatory Action trigger in Ethiopia, by examining both the development process and the effectiveness of the trigger mechanism.

• Evaluations and Lessons Learned

Protecting development gains: The Crisis Modifier in Mercy Corps’ Ethiopia programs

This paper will discuss the successful use of Crisis Modifiers (CM) in Mercy Corps’ PRIME program, explain how the RIPA program has responded to shocks in the absence of CM approval and describe the potential benefits of activating the CM moving forward.

• Research and Studies

Recommendations for addressing drought displacement in Somalia

• Research and Studies

Coping with drought: Lessons learned from robusta coffee growers in Vietnam

This research studies the impact of droughts on coffee growers over a 10 year period in Vietnam to provide an improved understanding of the benefits and uptake of drought mitigation strategies.

• Research and Studies

Seasonality of Acute Malnutrition and its Drivers in Sila Province, Chad: a Mixed Methods Analysis

• Research and Studies