I facilitated the design of a programme titled the “Ethiopia Relief and Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP)”. The ERRP draws on past experience of humanitarian assistance provided by several agencies in collaboration with partners in targeted geographic areas. The ERRP Theory of Change document (see sample diagrams) provides details of the conceptual approach used to translate these lessons into innovative humanitarian interventions that can address both the consequence of a crisis and the underlying causes – not necessarily at the root level (e.g. climate change) but at the household level addressing the causes of individual people and households vulnerability to these crisis.
The challenge facing any humanitarian response in Ethiopia is to not simply address the immediate consequences of a crisis - particularly predictable or recurring crisis, but to do so in a manner that:
• strengthens rather than depletes community coping strategies;
• directly links the relief assistance being provided with the recovery and development activities (LRRD) that support an effective transition strategy from emergency to longer term resilience;
• builds resilience at the most effective level – individual & household, of a humanitarian intervention;
• allows for continuous improvement of the support and assistance that is provided to the community that enables downwards accountability and quality (as envisioned in CMDRR)
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In addition to embedding the LRRD approach to designing humanitarian responses – that both meet the immediate humanitarian needs and create links to longer term development initiatives, the theory of change that underpins the programme also looks at understanding the factors that can impact on community resilience and incorporating resilience-building into the modalities of assistance that are provided.
Two simple examples include cash-based programming and nutritional programming:
Cash-based programming: where a humanitarian need has been identified and, with functioning local markets (supply) it is possible to provide assistance through cash transfer (from unconditional cash transfer to cash-for-work type programmes)
In the majority of cases cash-based programming has a condition for eligibility/participation – cash-4-work where a number of days must be completed (the condition) for the beneficiary to be eligible to receive the humanitarian assistance. By understanding why that same beneficiary needs assistance in the first place (the vulnerability) and designing the condition around addressing that vulnerability allows for the humanitarian assistance to be provided and for the vulnerability against future shock to be mitigated (e.g. Cash-4-literacy, vocational skills, increased water harvesting – as well as cash-4-work that targets strategic community &/or livelihood infrastructure)
Nutritional assistance: where the humanitarian crisis – whether acute (i.e. sudden and extreme) or chronic (i.e. long-term and recurring) results in levels of malnutrition among vulnerable households.
Fortified foods are the primary assistance in crisis that result in malnutrition. CSB, Unimix and plumpynut (SFP) are provided to those individuals that do not require more intensive treatment (OTP). By adding a family food ration (or cash transfer) to those families that have a member being treated for malnutrition, this can protect other members of the family from becoming malnourished and can also ensure that the fortified foods prescribed for the person being treated are not shared among the other family members. Rather than a relief assistance that ends when the food has been consumed, by providing a durable source of nutrition – for example goat, sheep or chickens, you can provide the protective food ration to the family and also create a transition from the aid (dependency) to the families recovery (recovery) – opening a door potentially to supplementary nutrition through meat, milk, eggs and – via the scale of off-spring, income)
The opportunity that has been incorporated into the three objectives (long term results) of this programmes draw on the short-term immediate and short-term intermediate results across all three objectives - vertical logic across objectives rather than the horizontal logic within objectives that underpins Development Logic Models and Results Frameworks. This is consistent with the Humanitarian Theory of Change (see the Annex) for relief-based programmes; and is consistent with the LRRD approach that supports the ERRP two year programme.
The ERRP has three objectives (long-term results) each of which prioritise the three opportunities to successfully engage in the Ethiopian humanitarian context – each objective support the other through the capacity to:
• work continuously with communities through preparedness and risk mitigation (CMDRR) assistance in a advance of any potential crisis;
• work collaboratively with communities during recurring, seasonal (chronic) crisis to provide relief and address the underlying causes of vulnerability at household level;
• escalate a response as and when a crisis escalates to acute proportions (e.g. sudden-onset crisis or peak in slow onset crisis such as drought) to provide relief in an accountable manner while also focusing on the underlying causes of vulnerability;
• create a link as an exit/transition strategy from between chronic and acute crisis interventions to preparedness and risk mitigation assistance against future crisis.
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The Logic Model identifies the key activities, outputs and short-term results that form the basis of this accountable approach to continuous programme improvement and household resilience-building. And as explained above, these activities, outputs and results support the entire programme – building the capacity of individual actors and combining these to optimise
ERRP and Protection
The Theory of Change and design principles that underpin the ERRP are based sound protection practices. The humanitarian interventions across each of the three objectives look to embed into the individual projects – aligned to mainstreaming approaches to key cross-cutting themes, but also in the core concepts of the modalities of assistance that will support the LRRD approach. That is to say:
• By strengthening existing traditional community structures as part of an integrated approach to CMDRR we create an entry point for women, youth and marginalised groups to become involved in these structures – increasing their participation (their voice) in community decision-making on risk prevention and preparedness, periods when vulnerability can change to exploitation;
• By identify the needs of both the community and the individual as part of the mobilisation of crisis response (both chronic and acute) we can design modalities of assistance that address the causes of vulnerability and both community and household level – linking not only relief to recovery & development but also linking assistance to durable solutions to vulnerability within communities
• By providing more durable solutions in cash and food/dietary assistance we will be proactively protecting the beneficiary households against future vulnerability to crisis – making them less vulnerable to exploitation of future assistance
• And by adhering to good humanitarian standards during project interventions - as embodied in the approaches outlined below, we can mitigate the instances for exploitation during times of crisis
To summarise, the basis of the ERRP is to facilitate a tangible, demonstrable connection between our response and the needs of communities; AND a tangible, demonstrable link between those immediate needs of the community (the consequence of the crisis) and the underlying causes of either the crisis or the vulnerability of people as a result of the crisis.
The Theory of Change for humanitarian interventions links relief to recovery and development (LRRD). A description of the Humanitarian theory of change adopted in East Africa is provided in the Annex and looks to answer questions such as:
• What interventions will we directly engage in to meet the needs of the targeted communities?
• And how will we define eligibility, prioritise vulnerability and, where we are not providing 100% coverage of eligible families/people, select beneficiaries?
However, the challenge facing any humanitarian response in Ethiopia is to not simply address the immediate consequences of a crisis - particularly predictable or recurring crisis, but to do so in a manner:
• that strengthens rather than depletes community coping strategies;
• that directly links the relief assistance being provided with the recovery and development activities (LRRD) that support an effective transition strategy from emergency to longer term resilience
• that builds resilience at the most effective level – individual & household, of a humanitarian intervention.
And it is this combination of resources, activities and results that has been captured in the ERRP Theory of Change, the programme model (logic model and results framework) and the proposed modalities of assistance.
In addition to embedding the LRRD approach to designing humanitarian responses – that both meet the immediate humanitarian needs and create links to longer term development initiatives, the theory of change that underpins ERRP programme also looks at understanding the factors that can impact on community resilience and incorporating resilience-building into the modalities of assistance that are provided.
