ABSTRACT
The Haiti earthquake showed that the humanitarian sector is confronted with a persistent challenge to provide impactful aid. One important explanation for the persistence of this challenge is, as suggested by the above evaluators, the lack of analysis of humanitarian crisis situations and the use of these analyses in humanitarian work. This lack of understanding of the context can also hamper the design of appropriate risk management measures in humanitarian projects. In addition, lack of analysis and correct use of information can lead to ‘classical mistakes’ which seriously affect the outcomes of humanitarian aid operations and can even lead to more harm than good, as not only the Haiti earthquake but other humanitarian crises have shown. For example, also after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, subsequent Tsunami evaluators stated that ineffective and inappropriate recovery programs were implemented due to a lack of awareness of the context at both the individual and institutional level (TEC 2006). This book focuses on ways to improve the use of information and analysis in humanitarian programming.
