ECB Project

The Good Enough Guide: Impact Measurement and Accountability in Emergencies is a free, downloadable tool that is one of the results of the collaboration between partners in the ECB Project. It is a guide focused on accountability to beneficiaries, and provides guidelines and practical tools on how to ensure that beneficiaries are involved in every step of the process in a humanitarian emergency: "In The Good Enough Guide, accountability means making sure that the women, men, and children affected by an emergency are involved in planning, implementing, and judging our response to their emergency too. This helps ensure that a project will have the impact they want to see."[8][9] The Good Enough Guide, currently available in 14 languages, is accompanied by communications materials such as posters, leaflets and films, as well as a Training of Trainers module. All tools are available in several languages.[10]

In 2015, the Good Enough Guide: Humanitarian Needs Assessments was published in collaboration with Assessments Capacities Project (ACAPS).

This facilitation handbook, also freely available for download, is designed to build trust in situations where diverse teams are coming together for humanitarian emergencies. The Building Trust handbook includes exercises on measuring trust between team members (for instance, a Trust Index), as well as a number of ice-breakers. This tool supports emergency teams in building staff capacity during emergencies.[11]

Needs assessments are conducted in order to determine the needs of beneficiaries in the first 72 hours following a disaster. Multi-agency, or joint needs assessments are increasingly perceived as being more beneficial than single-agency assessments as they provide better opportunities for improved coordination, and prioritization of assistance both in terms of resources and geographically[12] The ECB Project developed the joint needs assessment template and tools so that agencies could begin to coordinate their disaster response programs, and co-develop operating procedures, common standards and a common platform for assessment data capture[13] in ECB countries.[14]

Several joint evaluations have been undertaken by ECB NGO agencies, following natural disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake[15][16] and the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake in Indonesia.[17][18] A guide entitled What We Know About Joint Evaluations of Humanitarian Action: Learning from NGO Experiences[19] assists humanitarian organizations with practical guidelines on how to effectively conduct a joint evaluation. This tool also includes a number of practical tips and templates.

Simulation exercises in the humanitarian sector are meant to prepare humanitarian staff for emergencies, such as quick onset disasters. Simulation participants engage with disaster scenarios such as floods or landslides, with the expectation that participants will be able to practice and reflect upon their response strategies and therefore be better equipped to deal with future disasters. In Phase II of the ECB Project, there have been multi-agency simulations in Niger, Uganda, Bolivia, Kenya and Bangladesh[20] in partnership with many different stakeholders, including UNICEF and local NGOs.

The Simulations Administrators Guide is designed for trainers and facilitators in the humanitarian sector to prepare for and implement a single or multi-agency Simulation exercises. The Simulations tools which accompany the guide are designed to support the detailed planning and preparation required for a simulation and consists of materials including a detailed timeline form, evaluation forms, situation report templates, and role-playing materials.

Accountability and Impact Measurement for the ECB Project team is focussed on the ways in which NGOs provide information to beneficiaries in times of crisis, and how agencies can measure the effectiveness of the assistance they provide. "Evaluations of emergency response frequently highlight insufficient accountability, especially to the people affected by emergencies, such as failure to provide communities with even the simplest information on what programs are there, and why. Country offices often lack clearly defined accountability frameworks and related tools that would enable them to systematically assess performance and ensure their response meets sector-accepted quality standards."[21]

The ECB Project has engaged with this theme through the development of reports, tools and inter-agency activities. Some of these include the Good Enough Guide, Joint Evaluations and Joint Needs Assessments.[22] The Project also works with partners in Quality and Accountability Initiatives including ALNAP, Humanitarian Accountability Partnership International, People in Aid and the Sphere Project. The Department for International Development is funding a new specialist Good Enough Guide to Impact Measurement, which will be most useful for rapid-onset natural disasters. This guide is being developed in partnership with the University of East Anglia.[23][24]

The Staff Capacity theme of the Project encompasses several sub-themes, all of which are aimed at increasing staff capacity to respond to humanitarian emergencies and engage in disaster preparedness at the national level. The ECB Project is working with the Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies (CBHA) to support the implementation of their Humanitarian Staff Development Project and two core programs designed to build staff capacity at the national level: the Humanitarian Management & Leadership Skills Development Programme, and the Humanitarian Core Skills Development Programme.[25][26] In addition, the ECB Project published recent findings on addressing the challenges of staff retention with a case study of the Horn of Africa in partnership with People in Aid.[27]

The ECB Project website describes disaster risk reduction (DRR) as "the process by which disaster risks and vulnerabilities are identified, analyzed, and minimized to avoid or limit the adverse impacts of hazards".[28] UNISDR (2007) defines DRR as "the concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyse and manage the causal factors of disasters, including through reduced exposure to hazards, lessened vulnerability of people and property, wise management of land and the environment, and improved preparedness for adverse events".[29] DRR encompasses early warning and prevention systems, disaster preparedness, and disaster risk management, and can take the form of disaster risk tracking systems and training of nationals in disaster preparedness. The ECB Project consortia have developed programs designed to raise awareness of disaster risk reduction as well as improve capacity in DRR at the local level. Toward Resilience: A Guide to Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation was developed by a specialist committee within the ECB Project.[30]