ITERATIVE EVALUATIONS WITH MINI

ITERATIVE EVALUATIONS WITH MINI-SEMINARS

THE CASE OF EL SALVADOR AFTER THE 2001 EARTHQUAKES

MISSION N°1 SUMMARY REPORT

Véronique deGeoffroy, Eric Levron, José Carid, october 2001

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGICAL PRESENTATION

Within the framework of the Quality Project, the method of iterative evaluations with mini-seminars was tested in the case of El Salvador after the earthquakes in early 2001.

Within that framework, a multidisciplinary team was sent into the field from June 4^th-30^th. The team met a range of actors (government, Open Society Institutes, international organisations, Salvadorian NGOs) and beneficiaries as wide and representative as possible in eight counties of El Salvador. Data collection in the form of formal interviews, discussions, and bibliographic research was marked by periods of analysis and restitution with non-governmental representatives in San Salvador. As a result, an initial mini-seminar was organised in the field "on-the-spot", followed by another one upon return from the mission in Europe. The report in French and English was made available to the actors in Europe and El Salvador in the weeks following return from the mission.

In an attempt to deal with the fundamental issues, brainstorming was structured along three major technical lines and four transversal lines. Housing, health and food security were chosen as technical lines due to the close link with what defines the population’s basic needs and because they bring together the globality of sectors of NGO intervention in the field. As for the transversal lines, elements essential to the pertinence and viability of the projects were chosen in this particular context in El Salvador.

Analysis was therefore based on this double-entry chart crossing technical and transversal lines.

TECHNICAL SECTORS TRANSVERSAL CHALLENGES	HEALTH	ECONOMIC AND FOOD SECURITY	HOUSING
Passage from free aid to meeting costs
Community participation and coordination
Population displacements
Catastrophe prevention

2. GENERAL CONTEXT

El Salvador has lived in a context of chronic crisis for decades. For the time being, that situation does not make it possible to initiate new forms of more equitable development based on the long term. El Salvador is under the supervision of major international institutions such as the BID which offers loans without any specific conditions and imposes a development model based on the «decentralisation, participation and privatisation» triptych. The successive governments have conducted neo-liberal politics favouring the country’s most competitive sectors and actors. For example, each of the governmental development institutions like FISDL or FODES supports the municipalities with the most potential. As for the poorest communities, they are left with the task of managing their own development, without any particular support. The issue of access to basic services was already very distressing before the earthquakes. It is nevertheless an indispensable prerequisite for access to citizenship. The successive privatisation of a certain number of services has brought about substantial increases (up to +300%), thus excluding a large part of the population even more.

The civil society is organised in the political field around various NGOs and foundations. The latter are conducting work at the same time in the most vulnerable communities although they feel they can’t do much faced with the scope of the needs and are helpless in the face of the politics conducted by the government.

After the tropical storm Mitch that partially, but profoundly, affected El Salvador, this Central American state suffered two high-magnitude earthquakes within a 30-day period in early 2001. The very numerous aftershocks recorded throughout the first quarter of the year caused two major phenomena: the destruction of a third of the homes and a blow to the existing, and already precarious, psychosocial order.

This latest «socio-natural» catastrophe is, above all, a rural phenomenon insofar as the majority of the damage is located in zones, sometimes very remote. The earthquakes exposed a bit more the state of instability and vulnerability of a world that had become suddenly visible. In that context of economic and commercial liberalisation, the differences and inequalities between the urban world and the rural world, between people with real access to citizenship and those excluded from all the basic services, were emphasised.

Faced with the catastrophe, the government’s approach was to bet on continuity. Earthquakes are perceived as simple natural catastrophes temporarily disrupting a development process on the right track. It was therefore not a matter of questioning the paradigms that dictate the country’s politics and even less so taking into account the social and economic vulnerability as a major cause of the destruction caused by the earthquakes. In the official stance, a series of good intentions was nevertheless presented to the international community: meeting the population’s most immediate needs, supplying basic services, supporting small and mid-sized companies, etc. In reality, the criteria of competitiveness prevailed over the reduction of inequalities, the aid was distributed in a partisan way and the economic development based on the «economic poles», mainly composed of maquilas (a sort of tax-free zone for textiles, in particular), making El Salvador a pool of cheap labour for multinational companies. As for the civil society, it remained marginal, as shown by the absence of Salvadorian forums at the time of the Consultative Group meeting in Madrid in March 2001 where discussions focused on the amounts the government could reap.

3. INTERNATIONAL MOBILISATION AFTER THE EARTHQUAKES

Bilateral international aid was quickly mobilised. With major media coverage, fairly impressive amounts were announced for El Salvador. However, they do not generally add up to much since the amounts are calculated in loans, various assessments, reductions of interest rates on debt, etc. Debates in the Legislative Assembly are now focused more on the issue of indebtedness (facilitated by the BID) than on the use of funds received for reconstruction. For Mitch, El Salvador only received 25% of the aid promised. For the earthquakes, that amount is likely to be even lower. Returns from the consolidated call launched by the UNDP is revealing: less than a million dollars were received in face of the forty million requested. The PAM also encountered the same problems. Nevertheless, NGOs, OSIs and some major international organisations reacted. For some of them, the Mitch experience was the opportunity to capitalise on their experience and many humanitarian practices were modified: non-intervention in albergues, a refusal to create new urban centres, payment of funds directly to some NGOs, etc.

4. RESULTS OF THE FIRST MISSION

4.1. Health Sector

SECTOR	PROBLEMS OR RISKS IDENTIFIED	ORIGINS	RESPONSE/ PROPOSALS
HEALTH	Overload of local medical human resources	«Structural poverty» of the medical sector	Long-term accompaniment actions
	Overload of local medical human resources	Impact of earthquakes on the medical infrastructures	Aid for reconstruction
	Non-integration of mental health projects in the national health system	No mental health policy	Brainstorming on the pertinence of mental health projects in developing countries Evaluation of experience in this field in other contexts Design of programmes on the basis of identifying needs rather than on the basis of the offer.
		Inadequate forecast of western concerns
	Local teams of mental health programmes themselves under stress	Insufficient supervision
		Lack of preparation
	Inadequate mental health programmes in the mid-term in relation to the population’s basic needs	Inadequate projection of western concerns
		«Fashionable» phenomenon among some donors or NGOs
		Lack of capitalisation on experience in this field

4.2. Economic and Food Security Sector

SECTOR	PROBLEMS OR RISKS IDENTIFIED	ORIGINS	ANSWERS/ PROPOSALS
ECONOMIC AND FOOD SECURITY	Dependence of certain groups on food aid	Emergency action without any long-term thought	Brainstorming devoted to the view of natural catastrophes and to the meaning of reconstruction
		Lack of integration of the programmes with local socio-economic fabric	Brainstorming devoted to local self-sufficiency strategies
		Lack of preparation or supervision of human resources for programming	Specific training or reinforced accompaniment for programming
		Other origins?	Solutions?
	Overload of local capacities, in particular in FFW programmes	Unfamiliarity with population’s socio-economic reality	Socio-economic studies
		Inflexible (organisation and/or donor) programme calendars	Flexible calendars, negotiation with donors
		Other origins?	Solutions?
	Drainage of resources from the sector towards housing reconstruction	Distorted perception of priorities and sector analysis	Taking into account the need for economic and/or agricultural development in an integral view of reconstruction
		«optical illusion» of needs in reconstruction	Same
		Availability of international funds for reconstruction	Same, on the behalf of donors
		Other origins?	Solutions?
	Other problems?

4.3. Housing Sector

Construc-tion of temporary housing, without follow-up	This type of operation is most often the result of major governmental operators (FISDL, supported by the Salvadorian armed forces), OSIs or large international institutions. Generally speaking, they are obviously organisations that are not specialised in the housing issue. Under cover of a purely emergency logic, hundreds of thousands of little shacks in corrugated iron (champas) ranging from 10 to 25 square metres were built at a high price (over $US 300 per «housing unit»). These shacks, quite often built two to four months after the catastrophe represent operators’ incapacity to deal with the complex issue of housing. However, the sometimes differing logic amongst some institutions made it possible to cover various populations (owners and renters). The latter were both the most vulnerable and the least supported by cooperation organisations.
Temporary housing, with follow-up	Certain OSIs or NGOs have become aware of the importance of access to basic services and decent housing. In the form of a partnership, a certain number of monitoring/accompaniment systems have been initiated. The possible solutions are wide-ranging: -Support to economic activities -Micro-credit for housing improvement -Programme of access to basic services -Rehabilitation (regularisation of property ownership, access to services, technical/financial supervision) -Mediation with landowners, to avoid brutal expulsions of families during a determined period of time. -Donation of homes that can be «dismantled» for the most vulnerable (renters, colonos, jornaleros) with respect to land ownership.
Evolution-ary housing	This relatively innovative solution is worthwhile insofar as the approach implemented is based on housing as a process based on thought and on the culture and not on an industrial product. However, this type of response requires, more than other solutions, real accompaniment work.
Permanent housing	The use of certain types of materials have centred the debate on reconstruction of permanent houses. Here again, the responses offered are quite often founded on the visible, i.e. on the destruction of adobe houses. As a result, a large majority of operators did not look for the origin of the destruction (lack of maintenance, loss of traditional know-how, lack of information about the areas at risk, socio-economic vulnerability, etc.) and opted for concrete blocks, sometimes against the tide of cultural systems in rural zones. That choice of materials also raises the problem of recurrent costs of the construction (approx. 50% for materials, 30% for transportation and 20% in labour). Regarding the huge deficit in housing at the present time, models that can be diffused need to be offered, in which it is possible to widen the number of beneficiaries in the communities and facilitate the empowerment of the latter. Given the high logistics costs, in materials, and the low-level of apprenticeship involved in concrete block construction, this majority strategy will not make it possible to solve the housing shortage.

Programme quality varies considerably, depending on the level of thought devoted to the concept of the housing, the intensity of the participative work and the partnerships implemented. As a result, the housing quality in El Salvador has been levelled down. Far from the Salvadorian culture, the imposition of the basic champa–type house as a house for the masses in El Salvador seems to have been irremediably confirmed following this latest catastrophe.

Direct manage-ment	Direct management is often linked to the emergency logic of aid. Organisations want to keep control of the process, even if it means doing an apprenticeship on the housing issue. The results of this type of approach, sometimes worrisome, are likely to lead in the mid-term to other problems (abandon of shacks, destruction in the case of a catastrophe, social problems in zones where there’s a concentration of champas, etc.).
Delegated manage-ment	NG0s and OSIs, aware of the complexity in the face of a housing project’s success or shortages in competent human resources, chose to delegate project management to specialised, often local, companies, and aware of the social and organisational problems that this type of project raises.
Shared manage-ment	Sometimes called a «consortium», this type of management makes it possible to bring together several NGOs gainfully using their respective fields of competence in a project integrating technical dimensions of housing, social engineering and the development of the beneficiaries’ productive capacities. Partnership in the form of a consortium makes it possible not to differentiate, in terms of images, one operator from another. By integrating a Salvadorian NGO into this type of consortium, the crucial knowledge of the context is reinforced, each one’s specialisation used profitably and the possibilities of diffusing the project increased.

Two reconstruction models

In situ housing reconstruction

Often promoted by major institutions, this approach has the advantage of not uprooting the homeless from their socio-economic environment. It corresponds quite often to the will of many families who do not want to leave. However, it seems irresponsible to re-house people in high-risk areas, as those areas are moreover known and inventoried by the Salvadorian Ministry of Environment.

Creation of new «human settlements»

An indirect effect of the drop in the coffee exchange rate, lots of land has been freed up for the construction of new urban areas. That option makes it possible to rationalise the construction and use of the land. The creation of new colonias requires real prior research, taking into account the installation of structuring facilities, access to an employment pool and basic services. Hasty construction only rarely enables this type of approach. Worse is the indebtedness (in the form of 10- to 15-year credit plans) imposed upon the homeless for the purchase of a plot or even the creation of a colonia (a term designating an urban neighbourhood) in rural zones, as it goes against the cultural system and local environment.

The chart below summarises the main observations and recommendations.

SECTOR	PROBLEMS OR RISKS IDENTIFIED	ORIGINS	ANSWER/ PROPOSALS
HOUSING	Risk of transforming temporary housing into permanent deteriorated housing	Programming of an emergency action without any follow-up	Reinforcement of programming capacities + work in partnership Rehabilitation (services, legislation)
		Vision of the product and not of the process	Awareness that housing is not an objective in and of itself
		Pressure from donors (to act fast)	«education», lobby or reinforcement of the convincing arguments
		Identity of emergency NGOs	Institutional brainstorming and/or partnership with local NGOs
		Lack of economic ressources	Micro-credit Aid to income-generating activities
		Other origins?	Solution?
	Reconstruction of temporary housing «in situ», in risky zones	Programming for emergency (providing a roof) without thinking about vulnerabilities	Reinforcement of programming capacities
		Problem of access to property	Solution?
		Pressure from donors (to act fast)	«education», lobby or reinforcement of the convincing arguments
		Other origins?	Solution?
	Heterogeneity of constructions or processes at a single site (possibly leading in the long term to tension between families)	Each organisation’s inflexible criteria	Institutional brainstorming on the criteria
		Coordination viewed as a constraint	Institutional brainstorming on coordination
		Weakness of the local power faced with imposing criteria.	?
		Other origins?	Solution?
	Non-reproducibility/ diffusion of (overly expensive) projects and therefore very imperfect coverage of needs	Outside materials (concrete blocks) and know-how to be brought in	Training Methodological support
		Psychological rejection of the adobe (due to fear or outer sign of social class)	Awareness work within the communities
		Other origins?	Solution?
	Indebtedness via credit systems for housing (or for purchase of land).	Socio-economic studies conducted too quickly	Strengthen capacities to understand the contexts
		Lack of thought in face of the problems	Negotiation with landowners Houses that can be dismantled
		Other origins?	Solution?
	Overload of local capacities (ex. labour for self-construction during sowing season)	Poor knowledge of the social realities and contexts	Strengthen capacities of diagnosis and information research
		Other origins?	Solution?
		?	?
	Non-integration of new settlements	No thought given to the issue of urban planning	Consultation of local NGOs Socio-economic studies
		Political, property problems	Negotiation and technical support to town halls
		Privatisation of services	Participatory work directed at self-management

4.5. Transversal analysis

Transversal analysis of the various sectors shows that the issues of understanding the contexts (including the analysis of structural vulnerabilities), partnerships with local actors, interagency coordination, strategies in favour of a certain durability (including the participation of the populations concerned), are still often dealt with insufficiently within the framework of emergency actions.

Community participation, a leitmotiv of each project, is a real hotchpotch without any real meaning. Participation is quite often considered as a means for the operators to decrease the recurrent costs of the projects by using the disaster victims as very cheap, unskilled labour. There is no apprenticeship and organisation process based on a project. Moreover, the community is often represented as an otherworldly entity, an idealised homogenous group capable of fusing together for one reason or another. It is often forgotten that the community is an extremely complex social and economic structure composed of antagonistic interests and individualities. Integrating social sciences in identifying and implementing interventions could be a way making it possible to improve the participation and organisation of the social groups.

Coordination of the OSIs with Salvadorian NGOs often falls short. There is, nonetheless, real complementarity between them. Yet, partnership experiences are rare.

Four types of partnerships are generally initiated:

Financial support	At the time of the emergency, some Salvadorian NGOs have the material or financial aid to distribute goods to the disaster victims. Unfortunately, no support in human resources was planned to take care of certain tasks, hence a work overload for the staff that leads to problems (health, etc.) which are sometimes substantial. Participation of beneficiary groups was often decisive in ensuring distribution. Positions for logisticians and accountants should be planned to avoid overloads in times of acute crisis.
Coordination/mediation:	One OSI serves as a facilitator for local NGOs. This approach is worthwhile insofar as it is focused on a precise, limited geographic zone to avoid spreading efforts too thin.
Consortium:	See section on Housing
Support to the municipal project manager:	Lots of operators neglect the importance of the local authorities. They do, however, have a large number of skills and quite often claim a role as aid coordinator. Some municipalities who received support/advice from Salvadorian NGOs specialised in local development issues therefore avoided quite a few errors.

5. CONCLUSION

Regarding this first mission in El Salvador, debates about the need to modify humanitarian practices and use new tools in an emergency have remained significant, while the issue of passage from emergency to development has emerged. The next mission and the approaches for outreach and sharing the brainstorming that will accompany it should make it possible to go farther. The fact that the team will conduct a "3-year post-Mitch" evaluation before going back to El Salvador for the second mission of the iterative evaluation process with mini-seminars should enrich discussions even more.

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