Performance Goal Statement: By September 30, 2017, effectively support an increased number of countries with people and places historically subject to recurrent crisis to become more resilient by reducing chronic vulnerability and facilitating inclusive growth.
Performance Goal Overview
In late 2011 and early 2012, building resilience to recurrent crises emerged as a shared, cross-agency priority within the Department of State and USAID. This was prompted by large-scale humanitarian emergencies in the Horn of Africa and Sahel and the collective recognition by USAID, other donors, governments, regional
institutions, and a wide array of humanitarian and development partners that continuing to treat recurrent crises as acute emergencies - and chronic vulnerability as a perpetual humanitarian risk - is extremely costly.
This cost includes loss of lives, livelihoods, dignity and aspiration, with the famine in Somalia providing an extreme and devastating example. Recurrent crises also negatively impact national and regional economies as evidenced by the estimated $12.1 billion in losses associated with drought in Kenya between 2008 and 2011.
Finally, the $1.5 billion the U.S. government contributed to support humanitarian efforts in the Horn and Sahel in 2011-2012 alone speaks to the economic cost of recurrent crisis in budget terms, as does the fact that 75 percent of USAID’s humanitarian spending over the last decade was spent in just 10 countries.
The challenges of building resilience to recurrent crisis are significant. First, people and places at the
intersection of chronic (and deep) poverty and exposure to risk and, as a result, subject to recurrent crisis have been historically treated as a perpetual humanitarian risk, and otherwise neglected by development actors. To address this head-on, USAID has placed building resilience to recurrent crisis in the Horn, Sahel and elsewhere firmly on both its development and humanitarian agendas by leveraging humanitarian and development
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perspectives and resources through joint analysis, planning and sequencing, layering and integration of programs to build resilience in areas targeted by these efforts.
A second major challenge made explicit in USAID’s efforts to build resilience to recurrent crisis is that recurrent shocks such as droughts have become a perennial feature of these landscapes – not anomalies. The impacts of these shocks and associated vulnerabilities to them are exacerbated by stresses from demographic trends, conflict, and climate change. To address this, reducing and managing risk and building adaptive capacity figure prominently in facilitating inclusive growth as central programmatic and policy aims.
The United States is also at the forefront of helping to drive enhanced coordination, planning, and integration of efforts to address these and other challenges associated with building resilience to recurrent crisis among other development and humanitarian actors including governments, regional institutions, other donors, UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, the private sector, and civil society.
Performance Goal Progress Update
Key Indicator: Number of people trained in disaster preparedness as a result of U.S. assistance FY 2011 FY 2012 FY 2013
Baseline FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017
Target N/A N/A N/A 16,805 34,428 34,804 29,628
Result 12,396 26,768 28,647 148,714 106,923
Indicator Analysis
FY 2015 showed a decline in the number of people trained in disaster preparedness as a result of U.S.
government assistance when compared to FY 2014, however the target was still exceeded.
This indicator is defined as individuals who have attended U.S. government funded disaster risk reduction and preparedness training programs. Disaster preparedness includes: risk identification, analysis, prioritization, and reduction activities; the design and implementation of regional, national, local, or community level hazard reduction policies and plans; early warning systems, as appropriate; and identification of roles and
responsibilities in preventing, responding to, and recovering from disasters.
Indicator Methodology
Data source: FY 2015 Performance Reports by partners through the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance’s (OFDA) ART reporting system. The data is submitted by partners under the Risk Management Policy and Practice Sector. The numbers above are an aggregate of the following two OFDA standard indicators: 1)
“Number of people trained in disaster preparedness, mitigation, and management, by sex” and 2) “Number of people participating in training, by sex.”
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The greatest number of people trained in DRR were observed in the Building a Culture of Resilience in Afghanistan’s Provinces which reached over 17,000 beneficiaries in FY 2015 Q4 alone.
Data quality: This indicator does not measure the quality, effectiveness, or applicability/appropriateness of disaster preparedness training. Without follow-up or standardization of curricula, this indicator is subject to some over-reporting. 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).
Key Indicator: Number of communities and stakeholders involved in the development of plans, policies, and strategies related to hazard risk reduction
FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017
Target 60 60 N/A N/A
Result 117 N/A
Indicator Analysis
OFDA no longer tracks the number of communities and stakeholders involved in the development of plans, policies, and strategies related to hazard risk reduction. OFDA has found that the data for this indicator is not a reliable measure of the office’s work in disaster risk reduction. To track the office’s work in DRR, OFDA reports on the number of people trained in DRR each year. The data available for this indicator is more reliable and comprehensive than the data for the indicator measuring stakeholders. The fact that OFDA has stopped tracking the number of communities and stakeholders involved in the development plans, policies, and strategies related to hazard risk reduction does not mean that the office has stopped funding important DRR work that involves key community stakeholders. The office continues to fund important DRR initiatives and believes that the most accurate and representative way of reporting on this aspect of our work is by reporting the number of people trained in DRR.
Indicator Methodology Not applicable.
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