Principles of disaster management. Lesson 14. Criteria for assessing a program

This lesson examines mechanisms that can be used for the evaluation of a program or project. The principal concern raised is whether the project has met its stated goals and objectives and whether the project has resulted in producing benefits to the affected society. Short-term (immediate) and long-term (developmental) contributions are discussed. The importance of projects contributing to increasing the absorbing capacity of the affected community for the next event is stressed. Twelve problems commonly encountered in program execution are defined. Optimal management attempts to identify potential pitfalls in advance, designing and implementing mechanisms to avoid them, and to deal with them if they should become manifest. Simply meeting the goals and objectives of the sponsoring organization is inadequate, as all responses must be coordinated and approved by the national coordinating agency. Thus, not only is the effectiveness of the project in meeting the defined goals and objectives important, but the project must be assessed in terms of the overall impact of the project on the society. Reference is made to using the structure provided by the Health Disaster Management: Guidelines for Evaluation and Research in the Utstein Style as promulgated by the Task Force on Quality Control of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine and the Nordic Society of Disaster Medicine.