The destructive power of tsunamis leaves communities, infrastructure and people devastated.
The response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami confronted the humanitarian community with fundamental challenges.
In the response's wake, the sector pledged to set new standards of accountability and transparency, ‘build back better’ and utilise the lessons learned to ensure improved responses in the future. This collection highlights key learning resources on tsunami preparedness and response.
ALNAP explores whether the emergency indeed served as an inflection point for humanitarian action and why collective learning as undertaken by the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC) has not become a standard practice for humanitarian emergencies since.
One of the extraordinary things about the TEC was how quickly the agreement to conduct the evaluation came together. A few quick phone calls was all it took to get many organisations involved.
Niels Dabelstein, former Head of the Evaluation Department of Danida, Vice Chair of the DAC Evaluation Group and member of the TEC Core Management Group
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition
The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC) was set up in 2005 to evaluate the system-wide humanitarian response to the Indian Ocean tsunami. Housed under ALNAP , the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition brought together over 50 member agencies, including United Nations organisations, non-governmental organisations, the Red Cross, and private donors .
The TEC had three aims:
-- To improve policy and practice in future humanitarian crisis responses
-- To provide accountability to those who received support and to public and private donors.
-- To test this collective approach as a possible model for future evaluation and learning in the humanitarian sector
The TEC represented the most comprehensive evaluation of a humanitarian response since the Joint Evaluation of the Rwanda Crisis in 1994.
As a system-wide evaluation, the TEC set the foundation for some of today’s most important humanitarian agendas such as cash-based programming, accountability to affected people and localisation.
After conducting five independent studies of the international response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition identified four key recommendations
From supplying aid to supporting locally-led humanitarian action
The international humanitarian community needs a fundamental reorientation from supplying aid to supporting and facilitating communities’ own relief and recovery priorities
Improve coordination and work in partnership
International humanitarian actors should improve the way they coordinate their activities and include those from the affected countries themselves in order to achieve greater coherence in humanitarian responses.
Improve standards
The international humanitarian relief system should establish an accreditation and certification system to distinguish agencies that work to a professional standard in particular sectors.
Funding according to need and impact
All humanitarian actors must improve the current funding system’s impartiality, efficiency, flexibility and transparency, in alignment with good donorship principles.
What changes did the TEC recommendations lead to and where is the system still stuck?
Explore our summary of progress and sticking points in humanitarian reform since the 2005 tsunami response collective evaluation.
Explore key documents from the TEC below
Latest resources in this collection
There are 65 resources in this collection