Humanitarian Evidence Week 2018

30/11/18

Last week, CEBaP participated to the Humanitarian Evidence Week 2018. This initiative is led by Evidence Aid, in collaboration with the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine of the University of Oxford. Its main aim is to promote a more evidence-based approach in the humanitarian context. Different trainings, webinars and blogs were provided to highlight topics related to the generation, use and dissemination of evidence in the humanitarian sector.

During this years Humanitarian Evidence Week, CEBaP presented a webinar titled “Evidence reviews and field data collection to strengthen disaster preparedness and response at the Red Cross”. In the first part of this webinar, the usefulness and need for more scientific evidence in humanitarian aid was demonstrated. In addition, an introduction to Evidence-Based Practice, and to the different research types that are being used by Belgian Red Cross was given: Type A research = planning, monitoring evaluating and reporting of your ongoing projects; Type B research = developing guidelines and systematic reviews by looking at the existing literature; Type C research = setting up a primary field study involving an intervention and a control group. In the largest part of the presentation some practical tools on how to conduct and how to incorporate each research type into the field were provided. In the YouTube movie below, you can find the recording of this entire webinar.

A second CEBaP contribution was a blog titled “How can evidence-based practice support Forecast-based Financing?”. Forecast-based Financing (FbF) aims to bridge disaster risk reduction and disaster response, by using a weather forecast for rapid-onset hazards such as floods, extreme cold or cyclones to trigger action just before a disaster happens. FbF leads to the quick release of funds for “early actions”, activities which should enhance preparedness and early response in the days or hours before the hazardous event. In one of its projects, the Belgian Red Cross and CEBaP collaborated with collaborate with Cruz Vermelha de Moçambique (CVM), German Red Cross (GRC) and the IFRC Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (RCCC) to develop the evidence base for a FbF project in Mozambique for cyclones and floods. The full blog can be read here.