How to assess the impact of a Drought Risk Financing facility: A guide

This guide outlines some of the conceptual questions, and practical tools, that can be used to evaluate drought risk financing (DRF) initiatives. It offers a framework for thinking about the impact of drought risk financing, along with risk financing more broadly and the wider general issue of the added value of earlier humanitarian response.

Our approach is different from other commonly used methodologies, because it looks to go beyond benefit-cost ratios and instead takes a programme theory approach that tests each assumption and each causal link individually.

We hope this will result in a richer picture of the impact of DRF, which can be used to inform learning about what works and what doesn’t. The guide is directed at the practitioners who will be delivering the interventions: this will allow the collection of evidence in real time, enabling shorter feedback loops.

This guide was written for the Start Network by external consultants Simon Levine and Bill Gray, and reflects their own personal experience and opinions as experts in this field.