Humanitarian action

Over the last decade humanitarian needs have grown at an unprecedented pace due to conflict, climate change, pandemics and economic instability, creating increasingly complex and overlapping crises. At the same time, the humanitarian sector is evolving, with greater emphasis on local leadership, innovation and evidence-based decision-making to ensure effective and accountable responses. Understanding what works—and why—is more critical than ever, which is why robust monitoring, evaluation and learning play a key role in improving humanitarian action and ensuring accountability.

Read more Projects overview

In support this, ADE offers a range of services:

  • Evaluations: ADE has been engaged in evaluating humanitarian action for more than 15 years. Covering contexts affected by conflict and natural hazards, ADE has led large-scale evaluations at the global, regional and country-level, including strategic, emergency response, programmatic and corporate evaluations. In addition to a deep knowledge of the humanitarian system and how to undertake evaluations in complex environments, we have expertise across key humanitarian sectors, thematic areas and cross-cutting issues.
  • MEAL systems: ADE provides a portfolio of services aimed at building and improving MEAL systems, with a focus on accountability and learning perspectives, supporting the generation of continuous meaningful knowledge to support better decision-making.
  • Learning studies and research: ADE supports humanitarian organizations and those involved in humanitarian action to generate evidence, capture lessons, and identify good practices to improve future programming and policy.
  • Third Party Monitoring: ADE provides independent, objective oversight of humanitarian programs, helping donors and implementing agencies to understand what is happening with programs, verify progress, assess compliance and gather real-time feedback. This service allows organizations to enhance accountability, improve transparency, and strengthen evidence-based decision-making in challenging or hard-to-access contexts.

Project examples

  • INTPA – DRC: Strategic Evaluation of EU-DRC partnership 2021-2024 (2025)
  • WFP – Niger: Evaluation of Niger WFP Country Strategic Plan (2025)
  • WFP – Ukraine: Corporate Emergency Evaluation of WFP’s Response in Ukraine (2025)
  • WFP – Iraq: Evaluation of Iraq WFP Country Strategic Plan (2024)
  • WFP – Evaluation of WFP’s Emergency Preparedness Policy (2024)
  • Norway/NORAD – Evaluation of the Triple Nexus – Humanitarian aid, development cooperation and peace efforts (2024)
  • WFP – Evaluation of WFP’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management and Climate Change Policies (2023)
  • ECHO – Combined Evaluation of the EU humanitarian response to sudden-onset disasters and of DG ECHO’s partnership with the IFRC (2022)
  • Belgium/SEO – Evaluation of the Belgian strategy for humanitarian aid (2022)
  • WFP – Strategic evaluation of WFP’s use of technology in constrained environments (2022)
  • ECHO – Yemen: Evaluation of the EU’s humanitarian interventions in Yemen and in Humanitarian Access (2022)
  • WFP – Lebanon: Evaluation of WFP’s County Strategic Plan for Lebanon (2021)
  • WFP – Zimbabwe: Evaluation of WFP’s Country Strategic Plan for Zimbabwe (2021)
  • ECHO – Ex post evaluation of the EU’s Aid Volunteers Initiative (2021)
  • ECHO – Evaluation of the implementation of the DG ECHO Gender Policy (2021)
  • ECHO – Rohingya: Evaluation of the EU’s response to the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh and Myanmar (2021)
  • INTPA – Fast-track Assessment of the EU’s Initial Response to COVID-19 crisis in Partner Countries and Regions (2021)
  • Denmark – Joint Evaluation of the Integrated Solutions model in Kalobeyei (2020)
  • DEVCO – Evaluation of the EU’s co-operation with the region of Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, and the Indian Ocean (2018)
  • ECHO – India & Nepal: Evaluation of the EU’s humanitarian interventions in India and Nepal (2018)
  • ECHO-INTPA – Evaluation of the EU’s Approach to Resilience to food crises in African Drylands – Sahel & Horn (2017)
  • ECHO – Study on Approaches to assess Cost-effectiveness of DG ECHO’s Humanitarian Aid actions (2017)
  • ECHO – Evaluation of ECHO’s Use of Different Transfer Modalities (2016)
  • ECHO – Syrian crisis: Evaluation of ECHO’s Response to the Syrian Crisis (2016)
  • ECHO – Evaluation of the implementation of the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid (2014)
  • EC – Honduras: Evaluation of the European Commission’s Co-Operation with Honduras (2012)
  • EC – Madagascar: Evaluation of the EU Cooperation – Madagascar (2012)
  • ECHO – Colombia: Evaluation of the European Commission’s Humanitarian Activities in Colombia (2012)