Case Study

European Commission Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid: Review of Water and Sanitation issues relating to the funding of Humanitarian Operations under the EC Humanitarian Regulation (2005)

In December 2004 Aguaconsult won a contract with the Evaluations Department of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid on the basis of a competitive international tender. A three-person team then carried out an extensive review of water, sanitation and hygiene promotion interventions in emergency contexts, including both natural disasters and complex emergencies. The team consulted with a wide range of experts, practitioners and policy-makers from international organisations, donors, NGOs and ECHO’s own technical specialists in three geographic regions of the world.

The review process was completed and a DVD-rom produced, which includes a policy statement by the Director General, a concept paper that describes ECHO’s strategy and outlines key issues influencing water, sanitation and hygiene interventions and a set of model guidelines, with detailed annexes, which aim to improve the effectiveness of interventions funded by ECHO. The guidelines include a framework for assessing the most appropriate intervention according to various disaster scenarios – acute, chronic, natural, conflict-induced – and provides direct links to many valuable sector documents and reference materials which can assist project staff and ECHO advisors in the design of appropriate, integrated projects.

The full set of review products is now available on-line by clicking here and DVD-rom copies can be ordered from ECHO directly by emailing this address: (ECHO-eval@cec.eu.int). Since the end of 2005 the various review documents have been translated into both French and Spanish.