Inter-Agency Real Time Evaluation of the Humanitarian ... - alnap

7.2 Monitoring
IA RTE of the humanitarian response to Pakistan’s 2010 Floods crisis
132. The scope of the disaster has made monitoring a major challenge for UN and cluster
members. Nonetheless, basic measures to enhance monitoring have not been applied, including
the type of information that the SRF would bring about. Existing monitoring is therefore agency
based, focusing on accountability towards bilateral funding and organisation’s own reporting
needs. For example, UNICEF has contracted a consulting firm to do monitoring and the work of
third party monitors in Balochistan has also been highlighted, but primarily for UNICEF’s own
programming purposes. NGOs are doing monitoring, but within the scope of their own
programming purposes.
133. Some monitoring was used as control or surveillance; WPF uses food monitors to oversee
food distribution, which is a demanding task considering the number of beneficiaries,
unavoidably, there were reports of cases of unequal food distribution (i.e. not targeting most
vulnerable, political interference with food distribution, etc.). Positive feedback came from the
health cluster where surveillance teams monitored health‐related issues at local levels with a
high degree of embedding of the same within the existing Department of Health setup and
involved regular cluster feedback mechanisms. Generally, however, monitoring of aid remains a
challenge across many clusters, and where mechanisms have been established, there is still
room for improvement.
134. When the evaluation team was fielded, there were no reported cases of organisations
doing reporting or monitoring to inform progress at neither cluster nor inter‐cluster levels. This
means that the response plan as such is not being monitored. The PFRERRP envisioned the
establishment of a monitoring system using output and outcome indicators, but there were no
reporting or adequate indicators in place to support such a system (a general recompilation of
outputs is outlined in annex 7). This means that there is no entity within the government or the
UN system that has the necessary oversight of the assistance provided. Therefore, crucial
questions remain widely unanswered: Where did the aid go? Who benefitted and who did not?
Was it useful and did it cover needs (sometimes identified)?
135. Consequently, the absence of a thorough monitoring system with consolidated
information prevents humanitarian actors from providing the affected population, Pakistani
authorities and donors with the necessary results and accountability data, mandated to them
under humanitarian reform. Civil society is also sidelined in matters related to accountability as
no platforms or mechanisms exist where their views and opinions can be raised. These
organisations’ strength varies across the different affected areas and strengthening their
capacity will be instrumental in ensuring that future responses becomes more demand driven
and accountability measures generally strengthened.
Riccardo Polastro, Aatika Nagrah, Nicolai Steen and Farwa Zafar
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