TEC Background Information

Who the TEC is

The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC) is an independent learning and accountability initiative in the humanitarian sector. Work by TEC member agencies represents the most intensive study of a humanitarian response since the Rwanda multi-donor evaluation in the mid-1990s, and is the first time in 10 years that the sector has sought to scrutinise itself as a whole.

TEC Aims

The TEC has three aims:

  • To improve the quality of humanitarian action - including linkages to longer term recovery and development - by learning lessons from the international response to the tsunami.
  • To provide accountability to both donor and affected-country populations for the overall response.
  • To test the TEC approach as a possible model for future joint collaborative evaluation.

Member agencies

The TEC has over 40 member agencies from across the humanitarian sector. These agencies represent a broad coalition of UN agencies, donors, (I)NGOs, the Red Cross / Red Crescent Movement, and research groups.

Reasons the TEC formed

  • The agencies that formed the TEC were interested in maximising learning from the tsunami response though joint evaluation, with a focus on topics that would benefit from a humanitarian-sector wide approach rather than an individual agency one.
  • It was hoped that this collaboration would reduce the need for individual agency evaluations as well as duplication of effort.
  • Another significant intention was to focus collaborative efforts on recurring systemic problems in humanitarian action, with analysis concentrated at the policy rather than programmatic level.
  • Participating agencies also believe that joint evaluation increases the likelihood of evaluation findings being used to their full potential, and agencies involved in the TEC are committed to following up on findings of the joint evaluations and subsequent synthesis report.