Summative evaluations are important to be carried out at the end of the program/project so as
to assess impact and to the extent to which the project have succeeded in meeting the
objectives and potential sustainability.
Personnel training:
Technical skills are needed in most areas of humanitarian intervention
such as first aid, rescue operation, tracing, and distribution of food and non-food items,
conflict resolution and peace building. These skills should always be readily available and on
standby even in the absence of disasters because most disasters are unpredictable. Training of
personnel in various skills may present a challenge to most organizations and the
organizations are almost always caught unaware during times of crisis.
Community Participation:
The importance of community participation ingredient in the
effectiveness of humanitarian aid delivery presents itself in the need to harness local resources
to solve local problems. Experience shows that incorporation of local participation leads to
more durable solutions to local problems.
Management o ffunds:
Mismanagement of funds is directly related to availability of funds.
Even if funds are available initially, it will be of no value to the intended recipients if it is
diverted to unintended use or embezzled. Worse still is if the custodians of the funds are
bribed to favour a section of less deserving beneficiaries leaving out the most vulnerable
groups. Donor agencies have put strong conditionalities on donor money and implementing
agencies should also put in place strict accounting and auditing systems so that the money is
used for the intended purpose.(Humanitarian Practice Network, HPN).
Management o f logistics:
The Planning and mobilization of material, non-material and
human resources is necessary to ensure that the target groups benefit from a humanitarian aid
delivery. If a humanitarian aid organization plans and implements its activities poorly, the
whole process becomes ineffective.
Personnel
training:
Training of personnel is as important as the availability of funds, and
humanitarian aid agencies should not take it for granted any more. Over-reliance on
volunteers who are often unskilled or ill- equipped to deal with complex operations such as
emergency food distribution will compromise quality of delivery of services.
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