Performance Goal Statement: By September 30, 2017, the United States will increase the timeliness and effectiveness of responses to U.S. government-declared international disasters, responding to 95 percent of disaster declarations within 72 hours and reporting on results.
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Strategic Goal 2: Strengthen America’s Foreign Policy Impact On our Strategic Challenges
Performance Goal Overview
Timely response to international disasters is a critical component of saving lives, alleviating suffering, and minimizing the economic costs of conflict, disasters, and displacement. USAID leads operations in response to humanitarian crises resulting from large-scale natural or industrial disasters, famines, disease outbreaks, and other natural phenomena. The State Department leads operations in response to political and security crises and conflicts, where there is a challenge to or a breakdown of authority resulting from internal or external conflict or destabilizing activities by state or non-state actors. Humanitarian response is designed to produce rapid results through the immediate provision of life-saving interventions, focusing on such issues as medical care, availability of potable water, provision of shelter, food, and protection.
Performance Goal Progress Update
Key Indicator: Percent of U.S. government-declared international disasters responded to within 72 hours
FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017
Target 95% 95% 95% 95%
Result 86% 88%
Indicator Analysis
In FY 2015, there were a total of 26 declared disasters. USAID responded to 88 percent of these disasters within 72-hours.
USAID took longer than 72 hours to respond to three disasters. The three late responses happened in the first quarter of FY 2015 and were due to administrative issues.
Indicator Methodology
Data source: All numbers are based on actual data from the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) within DCHA. This indicator is calculated by measuring the amount of time between the disaster declaration and the time that USAID/OFDA sends the response cable to the cable room for dissemination.
Data quality: The original way in which this indicator was measured caused a number of late responses that were out of USAID/OFDA’s control. For example, USAID/OFDA would send the response cable within 72 hours of the disaster declaration, but the cable was not sent by the cable room within the 72-hour window. To measure USAID/OFDA’s response time, this indicator is now defined by the time between disaster declaration and USAID/OFDA’s submission of the response cable.
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Strategic Goal 2: Strengthen America’s Foreign Policy Impact On our Strategic Challenges
Key Indicator: Number of internally displaced and host population beneficiaries provided with basic inputs for survival, recovery or restoration of productive capacity as a result of U.S. assistance
FY 2013 Baseline FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017
Target N/A 46,462,565 46,381,077 50,750,582 50,033,482
Result 61,315,940 54,079,863 109,533,298
Indicator Analysis
In FY 2015, USAID provided life-saving humanitarian assistance to more than 109 million beneficiaries
worldwide. Of this total number of beneficiaries, approximately 18.8 million people were internally displaced.
Since DCHA/OFDA provides humanitarian assistance based on need, it is impossible to predict future humanitarian needs with accuracy. However, trends in the past and current calculation of this metric for FY 2014 and FY 2015 indicate 50 million people as a reasonable out-year target. These results are estimates based on systematic analysis of the program planning figures of the NGO, U.N., and other partners DCHA/OFDA funded for disaster assistance in 2015. DCHA/OFDA partners target multiple sectors of assistance to whole or parts of given populations within whole or parts of a given geographic area making it impossible to calculate precise numbers served in aggregate. DCHA/OFDA also funds hundreds of partners through hundreds of awards in any given fiscal year, making aggregation and reliable disaggregation of the data very complex.
The deviation between the FY 2015 results and target is consistent with the known unpredictability of the scale of needs from year to year. The significant increase in total numbers reached this year versus the previous year may, in part, be due to the increased funding committed and scale of humanitarian emergencies that
DCHA/OFDA responded to this fiscal year. However, it is difficult to compare these numbers because provisions of different kinds of humanitarian assistance have different costs associated with them. As DCHA/OFDA funds based on need, it cannot compare assistance provided from year to year because needs and responses vary greatly.
While the USAID’s Office of Food for Peace provides support to internally displaced and host population beneficiaries, it does not input into this indicator as food assistance beneficiary data is not disaggregated by these populations. As the majority of displaced and host population beneficiaries receiving emergency food assistance are also likely to receive other U.S. government support, the inclusion of food assistance beneficiaries would result in double counting.
Indicator Methodology
Data source: FY 2015 Performance Reports from Department of State and USAID Operating Units as reported in the Foreign Assistance Coordination and Tracking System. The largest contributing Operating Unit to this indicator is DCHA/OFDA, which pulls data from its internal awards tracking systems (Abacus), implementing
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partner reports, and verbal or written reports from regional teams.
Data quality: As DCHA/OFDA’s planning and reporting is sector-focused with multiple partners, often working in collaboration in whole or part of the same geographic areas, focused on the whole or part of the same
beneficiary groups to provide different or multiple services (e.g. shelter and protection), it is impossible to calculate the exact number of people assisted by DCHA/OFDA in a given region or country.
Key Indicator: Percent of planned emergency food aid beneficiaries reached with U.S. assistance FY 2012 FY 2013
Baseline
FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017
Target N/A N/A 93% 93% 93% 93%
Result 93% 90% 90.86% 83%
Indicator Analysis
USAID provided emergency food assistance to over 33 million individuals in 53 countries in FY 2015. This
included humanitarian responses in conflict affected areas, geographically isolated regions, and natural disasters required significant logistical effort. Providing timely food assistance to less than 93 percent of projected beneficiaries is below USAID’s historical averages. Conflict impeded implementing partners’ ability to access populations in need in several countries in FY 2015, including Afghanistan, DRC, South Sudan, and Yemen. In light of these challenges of reaching conflict-affected beneficiaries with food assistance, USAID has revised the annual target of 93 percent to 90 percent.
This indicator measures the extent of disaster assistance and recovery provided with U.S. government support.
While this indicator is an output indicator, the effectiveness of the programs in reaching their planned beneficiaries is an important prerequisite to increased field-level impact. Successfully reaching planned beneficiaries is especially important for protecting lives and livelihoods (i.e., protecting human capacities, livelihood capabilities, and community resilience).
Indicator Methodology
Data source: Data is based on annual beneficiary reporting to USAID by implementing partners.
Data quality: Performance data, verified using Data Quality Assessments (DQAs), must meet standards of validity, integrity, precision, reliability, and timeliness. Each Operating Unit must document the methodology used to conduct the DQAs. DQA and data source records are maintained in the Performance Management Plans. (For details, refer to USAID's Automated Directive System [ADS] Chapter 203.3.11,
http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/203.pdf).
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