policy and institutional responses to drought risk - do they work?

The evaluation aims at identifying feasible policy options to improve risk reduction management in future drought episodes

RATIONALE

• Drought is a natural phenomenon that can evolve into a disaster with high economic and social costs

• Drought event occurrence is likely to increase in frequency and severity according to climate change predictions

• Drought management through risk reduction contributes to impacts prevention and mitigation

OBJECTIVES

• To assess past drought management strategies

• To understand current opportunities and pitfalls in addressing vulnerability and drought risk reduction

• To determine policy gaps and integration needs in present public drought policies

• To identify good practices for drought management

APPROACH

• Integrative approach, sensitive to the socio-economic, institutional and environmental context

• Ex-post evaluation: it recapitulates and judges an intervention when it is over

• Analysis from a Case Study perspective

• Analysis of two past drought events per Case Study

• Evaluation timeframe: Oct 2011-Oct 2012

Drought is a recurring natural phenomenon that can evolve into a disaster. It is about water, humans, environmental and socio-economic systems. During the past decade, there has been a shift from facing droughts using an emergency approach to framing them into disaster risk reduction policies. Has this shift improved our policy and institutional responses to droughts?

Existing drought policy assessment initiatives mainly focus on descriptive analysis of responses or on modeling of specific drought impacts. They rarely consider ex-post evaluation or look at drought responses from a systemic perspective. An integrative evaluation approach based on a Theory-driven Evaluation Model (TEM) is being developed to deal with these evaluative gaps and will be tested in six case studies in Europe.

Theory-driven Evaluation Models have been rarely applied to nature-related policies. They allow for the systematic analysis of the socio-economic, policy/institutional and environmental context and give valuable insights into what and why measures have functioned or not.

CASE STUDY

Case Studies were selected to include a range of different

• Scales (macro-micro levels): national- river basin – local context (island)

• Drought typologies and hydrological characteristics

• Socio-economic, environmental and management characteristics

STEP 1 RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PROGRAM

THEORY

TEM EVALUATION PROCESS

STEP 2 DIAGRAM THE LOGIC MODEL

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Netherland Switzerland Portugal Jucar River Basin Po River Basin Syros Island

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ESA; Photo: ESA/Envisat; Image: ESA/NASA - Europe

POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO DROUGHT: DO THEY WORK AND WHY

J. Urquijo & L. De Stefano Departamento de Geodinámica, Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas

Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) Madrid, Spain

Poster presented at International Water Security Conference WATER SECURITY, RISK & SOCIETY, Oxford, UK, April 2012

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Research supported by the European project DROUGHT R&PSI: Fostering Drought Research and Science-Policy Interface www. http://www.eu-drought.org

CONTACT INFORMATION Julia Urquijo –PhD candidate: juliaurquijo@gmail.com Lucia De Stefano – Associate Professor: luciads@geo.ucm.es Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas – Depto. Geodinámica Universidad Complutense de Madrid - SPAIN

The logic model summarizes the theory of how the intervention works

It also helps and guides the emergence of the evaluation questions, that must correspond to a real need of information by the stakeholders and should cover all the dimensions of the evaluated policy

A Theory-driven Evaluation Model (TEM) refers to a variety of ways of developing a causal modal linking programme inputs and activities to a chain of intended or observed outcomes, and then using this model to guide the evaluation (Rogers et al., 2000)

STEP 3 EVALUATION

MATRIX

STEP 4 DATA COLLECTION,

ANALYSIS & REPORTING

• Primary and secondary data

• Questionnaires

• Qualitative data from interviews and stakeholders group discussion

• SWOT analysis results

CASE STUDIES DATASET

• 120 Surveys

• 60 Interviews

• 6 SWOT analysis

• 12 Best practices

Need for a common framework of analysis: establishment of a comprehensive and integrative framework, structured in two levels:

• General: Policy – Institutional – Organisational framework

• Operative: DROUGHT MEASURES as the unit of analysis

STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVEMENT

A diagram or visual scheme of the intervention theory or model organizes such information into different dimensions or components of analysis:

Mixed methods that include quantitative and qualitative techniques and triangulation will be used to analyse the results.

• Outputs: effects that are under the entire responsibility of officials/program

• Outcomes: the responses of target groups to these outputs

• Impacts: the ultimate effects of the intervention

INPUTS

ACTIVITIES

(Measures)

OUTCOMES - IMPACTS OUTPUTS NEEDS

CONTEXT

ACTORS

CAUSAL RELATIONS

1. Structural elements: All what is necessary for the

program to start and function

2. Process: Sequence of activities which represent the manner in which

the program is implemented

3. Results:

STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVEMENT

STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVEMENT

Evaluation matrix

Toward a risk management approach?

EVALUATION PROGRESS

The evaluation framework and tools have been designed and pre-validated in one Case Study (Jucar basin, March 2012)

Case Study data collection in progress

The evaluation process finalizes in October 2012

LESSONS LEARNT SO FAR

The logic model is a simplification of a complex reality but it helps making the intervention logics explicit

The evaluation process leads to an improved understanding of the mechanisms by which the program produce effects

Tailoring the approach to the circumstances is a critical step when applying a TEM approach to a risk-related policy

Working at different scales (Case Study) requires a flexible evaluation framework

The establishment of a common understanding of drought-related concepts, drought measures and effects typology is key

Drought management responses are mainly considered as a water management issue only

Systematic analysis and ex-post evaluation is lacking even in advanced risk-management settings (Júcar River Basin CS)

INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGY

CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCE Rogers, P.J. 2008 Using Programme Theory to Evaluate Complicated and Complex Aspects of Interventions. Evaluation 14, 29-48

• Literature review

• Stakeholders perception survey

• Semi-structured interviews

• Stakeholders group discussion

• Specific for each CS

• Based on: Review of previous

research/literature Expert opinion Stakeholders

perception

• 17 evaluation questions

7 on structural dimension

5 on process

5 on results

Group discussion with Jucar river stakeholders. Valencia, March 28th, 2012

• Ad hoc criteria Participation and

coordination Integration and policy

coherence Resources availability Effectiveness &

relevance Contribution to

impact reduction

Fight-fighter who tries to

estinguish a drought...

EVALUATION QUESTIONS

CRITERIA INDICATORS TECHNIQUES SOURCES OF

INFORMATION