CAF at SELA Seminar on Impact Assessment
The estimation of damages and losses caused by natural disasters is a well-established practice in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, the use of impact assessment as a tool to measure the effectiveness of risk reduction policies is still unusual. A seminar held in the Dominican Republic served as a meeting space to discuss these issues and train public officials in assessment tools.
The Permanent Secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) organized the Seminar on Public Policy Impact Assessment in Latin America and the Caribbean: Disaster Risk Reduction Policies, with the support of CAF—development bank of Latin America—, the Latin American Center for Development Administration (CLAD), the Ibero-American School of Administration and Public Policies (EIAPP), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE), and the Regional Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results for Latin America and the Caribbean (CLEAR-LAC).
In December 2019, a total of 20 public officials from intersectoral institutions engaged in planning disaster risk reduction strategies in Latin America and the Caribbean attended the training in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The sessions features Agustina Hatrick of CAF’s Directorate of Impact Assessment and Policy Learning; Dr. Laura Atuesta, research professor at CIDE; and Omar Bello, Head of ECLAC’s Sustainable Development and Disasters Unit.
“The ultimate goal is for institutions in the region to create knowledge that will reduce the impact of natural threats and increase resilience,” said Ambassador Óscar Hernández, Director of Integration and Cooperation Relations at SELA, at the opening session of the seminar. Laura Atuesta emphasized during the seminar the limited evidence on impact of disaster risk reduction policies, and invited officials to undertake efforts to measure whether programs implemented by their institutions meet the proposed objectives.
Impact assessment of disaster risk reduction policies poses an additional challenge compared to other policies. “If the impact of a threat is to be assessed, we would have to wait for an event that would similarly affect policy beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries,” Agustina Hatrick said. However, in addition to the difficulties that this entails, in this case it is more useful to measure the impact of policies before a disaster occurs, in order to determine their effectiveness and adjust policies accordingly. To this end, a vital task is to design indicators to measure the vulnerability of the population, raising awareness of the risks associated with natural threats, risk management practices, disaster prevention activities, knowledge of actions in case of a threat, among others.
This seminar is organized by SELA annually since 2017, and complements the training efforts of other agencies seeking to promote impact assessment as a management tool. CAF’s Seminar on Impact Measurement for Development (SEMIDE) (2017), Peru (2017), Ecuador (2018), Mexico (2019) and Colombia (2019), is another successful example in the region.
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