18 - Navigating Post-event Evaluation Challenges: Amplifying field voices and key processes in large-scale humanitarian assistance

Abstract Information: Post-event evaluations of a large response pose numerous challenges, but there are evaluation approaches to mitigate, even leverage, evaluation data after the close-out of humanitarian assistance. The U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA) seeks to improve accountability and learning from evaluations of emergency programming. With the unprecedented nature and scale of the COVID-19 pandemic response, there is ongoing critical learning from this emergency. BHA commissioned global evaluations around the COVID-19 response in humanitarian contexts from 2020-2022, led by TANGO International with partner Tulane University. A key challenge post-event is capturing the voices of crisis-affected communities and frontline workers, as well as learning from managers on the award decision processes, to drive future response and evaluation approaches. The evaluation employed various methods to mitigate these challenges and ensure diverse perspectives were included. This panel discussion aims to bring together evaluators, donors, and humanitarian partners to discuss practical experiences in collecting both real-time and retrospective evaluation data in global emergency response. The panel will focus on approaches to transforming the risks of recall or selection bias into an opportunity for longer-term reflection on the lasting results of the response.