Strategic Joint Evaluation of the Collective International Development and Humanitarian Assistance Response to COVID-19

Description What is done in the programme or project and why, what results are pursued, who benefits from the activities and who are involved in the implementation.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented test of development co-operation’s ability to react quickly, adapt to shifting priorities, mobilise and reallocate resources, and build and sustain a co‑ordinated global response. Understanding how the collective response of international development and humanitarian assistance actors played out in practice is crucial to learning lessons and informing future co-ordination and crisis preparedness. The evaluation units of individual governments and organisations have also launched evaluations and internal reviews of their respective response efforts. Similarly, several global evaluations have been launched with a focus on different aspects of the international response to COVID-19, e.g. Inter-Agency Evaluation of the COVID-19 Humanitarian Response, MOPAN’s Assessment of the Multilateral System and COVID-19, and the System-Wide Evaluation of the UNDS Response to COVID-19. Less is though known about the response in partner countries, and this joint evaluation will shed light on that. The purpose of this evaluation is to document the collective response of international development and humanitarian assistance providers to COVID-19 in partner countries, inclusive of efforts to support equitable access to vaccines and vaccination roll-outs. The goal is to generate credible evidence and draw lessons to support development co-operation providers and partners in the ongoing response and recovery efforts, and to inform future co-operation and crisis preparedness. Three key objectives are: 1) document the collective response to COVID-19 of OECD DAC members in partner countries with a focus on where support was concentrated, how, and why; 2) answer evaluative questions of relevance, coherence, effectiveness and efficiency about the overall response effort; and 3) generate useful lessons and good practices to inform future co-operation and crisis preparedness. The evaluation will be done under the auspices of the Covid-19 Global Evaluation Coalition. The evaluation will be guided by a steering group in which the Development Evaluation Unit will participate.