Project Description

After major humanitarian disaster spanning numerous countries, many key actors come together to promote a system-wide evaluation of the collective, international response. This was the case to examine the response to the Rwanda genocide in 1996, and the 2005 Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC, in). Again, in 2024, the COVID-19 Global Evaluation Coalition (GEC) was created by OECD/OCDE DAC EvalNet Secretariat. This effort has been leading a Strategic Joint Evaluation (SJE) of the international development and humanitarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic, offering critical insights to strengthen global systems and improve future crisis management.
As part of this global collective evaluation, IRMA led the Global Case Study focusing on Large Ocean States (LoS) officially known as Small Island Developing States (SIDS). IRMA provided an in-depth analysis of the collective response to COVID-19 across the 58 island countries (only some of which are DAC eligible) to assess the influence (effectiveness and development coordination) of DAC support received from January 2020 to December 2023. The study involved secondary data analysis (OECD CRIS data) and primary data collection (key informant interviews) balanced across three LOS regions (Caribbean Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and South China Sea).
This assignment opened opportunities to explore the unique challenges faced by Large Ocean/Small Island Developing States due to their socio-economic, structural, and environmental vulnerabilities, especially in preparing for pandemics and building resilient health systems as part of integrated risk management.