Post-Disaster Needs Assessment PDNA

This article is a Letter to the Editor and does not include an Abstract.


Rationale, approach, and general conclusions
The Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) is an internationally accepted methodology for determining the physical damages, economic losses, and costs of meeting recovery needs after a natural disaster through a government-led process. As of mid-2017, 55 PDNAs have been conducted since the methodology was elaborated by the European Union (EU), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the World Bank (WB). A review of the PDNA process was first proposed to be a "quick lessons learned" exercise in November 2015. The present review was conducted by the UNDP and World Bank's Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) with support from the EU from March-June 2017.
The review focuses on 10 areas of inquiry and draws on a sample of 14 PDNAs (10 of these involved an intensive focus including field missions and four were evaluated through desk study and long-distance interviews). The selected sample represents a range of socioeconomic settings, geographic regions, country circumstances (e.g., inclusion of four small island developing states), and types of disasters (floods, cyclones and hurricanes, earthquakes, landslides, and drought). Over 145 people were interviewed for the review, eight of the 10 focus countries were visited, and six of the 14 PDNAs were in countries that had conducted previous PDNAs. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) of the World Bank Group have undertaken the present review with support from the European Union between March and June 2017. The UN and GFDRR each engaged a consultant with coordinated terms of reference (TOR) to work together as a team, with the following objectives: ■ To assess the relevance, impact, effectiveness, sustainability, and value of the PDNA as a mechanism and tool to support national governments in developing practical and useful post-disaster recovery plans; and ■ To propose recommendations for the improvement of the PDNA methodology and its implementation with an objective to better respond to the needs of the clients.

Scope of the review
The terms of reference (see Annex 1) identify 10 areas of inquiry to be studied with respect to the selected PDNA examples, supplemented by a documentary review of the resulting reports and other related PDNA policy materials. The review has been conducted with a broad exposure to widely varying national conditions and the disaster circumstances represented by 14 PDNAs conducted between 2014 and 2016. Ten country PDNAs were designated for concentrated attention through short missions, with four other PDNA cases identified for limited desk study. The latter cases were included in the review as examples of joint assessments that responded to unique national interests or special requests from governments that were not typically characteristic of other systematic PDNAs or for disasters of greater magnitude. 1 The countries that were included in the PDNA review were distributed across global regions and demonstrated both shared and contrasting geophysical, socioeconomic, political, and cultural characteristics. The countries included six low-or lower-middle-income countries, seven middle-or upper-middle-income countries and one high-income country. The special circumstances of four Small Island Developing States (SIDS) were among the cases reviewed.
The following assessments were selected for the review and provide the primary basis for the findings. Members of the assessment team interview the local population as they are deployed to assess the damage and losses of the landslides and floods of the Western Area of Sierra Leone on August 14, 2017 . Photo credit: Integem .

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The disaster context of post-disaster needs assessments As natural disaster events 2 continue to occur with increasing frequency at greater material and human costs globally, there is an imperative need for countries to recover from these disasters' damaging effects with increased national resilience. Successful disaster recovery demands definitive and commonly agreed information that can guide governments' planning and implementation of national strategies. The extent to which that information can be obtained in a way that balances timeliness with comprehensiveness, and is accurate and justifiable, will accelerate recovery initiatives.
Post-disaster needs assessments (PDNAs) have evolved over the past decade. The focus earlier was on quantitative damage and loss assessments that focused on economic analysis and the reconstruction requirements of infrastructure and productive capacities of a country. By agreement of the main institutions involved, the PDNA methodology has now become "an integrated framework for assessing disaster effects and impacts across all sectors" and is used by partner institutions to jointly support governments' recovery interests and needs. The PDNA is comprehensive, multi-sectoral, and grounded in well-tested analytical methods that now encompass economic, productive, commercial, social, and human development dimensions of recovery.
Experience demonstrates that successful PDNAs are attained through collaborative efforts that combine international resources, national abilities, and specialized technical knowledge when there are clear objectives and shared purposes requested by national governments. As disasters are disruptive and destructive, the many demanding social, economic, and political influences make every disaster recovery experience unique with challenging national circumstances. International institutions and external organizations can best support government recovery efforts and advance affected populations' needs when technical assistance and development agencies coordinate their different types of assistance. Success depends on agreed priority requirements determined by government planning that take full account of national contexts and local conditions, and government authorities who then proceed to direct the conduct of the assessment toward realizing the agreed objectives.
The transition from the losses and destruction of disasters to resilient development is driven by commitments to short-, medium-, and long-term recovery activities. Recovery objectives are defined by disaster reduction principles that minimize peoples' exposure to future disaster risks and expand the opportunities for human development throughout a society. Effective recovery spans the domains of both disaster and development practices. To succeed, the recovery process needs to depend on a country's own capacities, grounded in elements of risk reduction, gender equity, public participation, and environmental sustainability. These features need to be recognized as inherent shared values among the participants of

The evolution of post-disaster needs assessments
The European Commission (EC), the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), and the World Bank adopted the PDNA process in their "Joint Declaration on Post Crisis Assessments and Recovery Planning" on 25 September 2008 (henceforth, the Tripartite Agreement).
Based on the well-established procedures for quantitative damage and loss assessment of disasters (DaLA) originally developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC) in 1972, the PDNAs sought to provide "a harmonized and coordinated approach for an objective, comprehensive, and government-led assessment of post-disaster damages, losses, and recovery needs." This expanded effort was undertaken to apply a joint analytical methodology for supporting countries in their development of a "comprehensive recovery plan that would lead to a sustainable development process where risk reduction in the face of disasters is explicitly considered." 3 The PDNA provides a systematic means to synthesize rapid data collection, analysis, and recovery planning applicable across the multiple societal sectors of production, infrastructure, social dimensions, human development, finance, macroeconomic interests, and crosscutting development concerns. The findings and recommendations of the needs assessment are considered in terms of a country's short-, medium-and long-term recovery needs. They influence the determination of resource requirements that will have lasting impacts on individuals, personal livelihoods, human and social development, and a government's national interests.
The PDNA process further emphasizes the need for including increased consideration of the disaster effects and impacts on the social sector and for advancing human development needs in the recovery strategies. These enhancements signaled a stronger combined commitment of the three institutional partners 4 to use the opportunity of conducting PDNAs in support of government recovery initiatives to build national technical, managerial, and institutional capacities required by resilient societies.
Since 2009, PDNAs have been conducted in more than 50 countries following an official request by governments after the occurrence of natural disasters, as defined in accepted international terminology at the time. 5 PDNAs have been refined through experience, becoming accepted as the international standard for the post-disaster assessment methodology.
The Tripartite Agreement included the development of common approaches for post-disaster needs assessments and recovery planning that can provide multiple benefits for participants and other stakeholders. The PDNAs are designed to provide a single assessment with trusted information that is led by national governments to meet their primary recovery objectives. This beneficial arrangement reduces the occurrence of multiple assessments and minimizes the potential for conflicting assessments conducted by different agencies. The PDNAs encourage mutually agreed estimations of disaster consequences and impacts between national governments and the international assistance community. By adopting a more collaborative process with agreed obligations among the partners, PDNAs emphasize government ownership of the process and support their national capacities to direct systematic assessments that advance national recovery objectives.
3 Post-Disaster Needs Assessment Guidelines, Volume A. (2013). http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/crisisprevention-and-recovery/pdna.html 4 Reference to institutional or agency "partners" or "principals" related to PDNAs in this report indicates the primary implementing parties of the signatories of the Tripartite Agreement. These are departments of the European Commission of the European Union, the United Nations Development Programme of the United Nations Development Group, and entities of the World Bank Group including the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. When capitalized, "Government" refers to the national government authority of a country. When additional primary institutions may be associated with a particular PDNA, or specific United Nations departments, programs, or agencies are intended, they will be identified by name. As more PDNAs were conducted jointly by the partner institutions with increasing national emphasis and growing institutional experience, guidelines for planning and conducting PDNAs published in 2013, 6 were updated by the principals, and officially adopted at the Second World Reconstruction Conference (WRC2) in September 2014. These comprehensive guidelines defined the expanded purpose and expected qualities of PDNAs, particularly in the guiding principles. They emphasize the importance of inclusive participation and coordination among all stakeholders working under government leadership. The guidelines also outline the intended process and procedures to be pursued by the tripartite institutions and governments to initiate, organize, and conduct a PDNA in a comprehensive and expeditious manner. By underlining the importance of including disaster risk reduction measures such as "building back better" in the recovery process, the PDNAs harness the common assessment for building a more resilient population for future disasters. This crucial link between disaster recovery and national development furthers policy dialogue among participating stakeholders for future collaboration in areas such as enhanced risk financing.
Technical guidelines were developed by the partners for all the technical sectors likely to be included in a PDNA, currently numbering 18 subject areas. 7 As both volumes of the PDNA guidelines were adopted officially by the principal partners late in 2014, they are still becoming more fully realized in practice in the PDNAs conducted since then.

Country contexts and arrangements for conducting PDNAs
Among the 55 PDNAs conducted since 2008, 85 percent of them addressed hydro-meteorological events (floods 49 percent, tropical cyclones/storms 27 percent, and droughts 9 percent), with geologically induced disasters accounting for the remainder. A similar distribution of the rapid onset floods and storms, and two earthquakes, was represented by the cases included in the present review. The two droughts that occurred in Malawi and the Marshall Islands in 2016 were the only examples of slow onset disasters that were considered. Both proved to be challenging for different reasons, but together they highlighted important characteristics related to incrementally worsening disaster effects and impacts that must be seriously considered in anticipation of more varied disaster types requiring future PDNAs.
From its original inception, the PDNA process is characterized by several actions and corollary activities that proceed from preparatory discussions about the scope of a PDNA to the presentation of results and the final draft report submitted to the government for its approval.
The PDNAs are a carefully structured assessment methodology to be implemented by the requesting government, its technical departments, the principal institutions, and other supplemental supporting entities associated with disaster or recovery interests in the country. The assessment process has been designed around the collection, analysis, and use of primary or secondary data and related consolidated reporting procedures. The assessment should be comprehensive in scope and accurate in its analysis by using the most recent data possible and, to the extent feasible, improved by field visits and public observation or dialogue. It is intended to be conducted as soon as possible after the measurable consequences of the disaster become apparent. It is expected that governments are best suited to determine when the assessment should begin and the timespan for the government to meet its intended objectives.
The methodology has been formulated with some flexibility so that it can be suited to the circumstances of the disaster and conditions of the country concerned, while at the same time meeting the primary needs of the government. The review of the selected cases noted that there was a wide disparity in either the size or impact of the various disasters reviewed with three cases being negligible to slight. In a few instances, unclear rationales were provided about why the agencies agreed to a government's request for a PDNA.
The "consideration for flexibility" has been cited by partner institutions, but the consultants found it difficult to establish the rationale without some commonly agreed parameters under which particular PDNAs were undertaken. In more than one case, contrasting views were observed about the desirability or the need for a PDNA from country-based staff, often 8 Post-Disaster Needs Assessment expressed along organizational lines. The decision process on when and where to conduct a PDNA remained unclear in some instances, other than an explanation being given that "the Government requested a PDNA" or that the concept was intended "to be flexible to respond to national needs and circumstances." The prevalence of such ambiguity suggests that there is a need for the institutions to be more transparent in either determining criteria for committing resources to conduct a PDNA, or otherwise being prepared to consider alternative forms of need assessments to address variable circumstances by requesting countries. Despite the difficulties involved in modifying special approaches for countries with particular circumstances, such as Small Island Developing States (SIDS) or particularly "low-capacity" countries, there is a need for some commonly agreed a priori parameters or impact criteria to justify PDNA activities. This is a key policy matter that should be addressed through high-level dialogue among the principals of the tripartite institutions, with some guidance adopted to avoid potentially ad hoc decisions for each "atypical" request.

Challenges in the country context
There are several challenges in conducting a PDNA. The first challenge is to produce a high quality assessment report within a short duration, the second is the coordination required to bring all partners together under the leadership of the government, and the third is conducting PDNA in fluid political environments.
Photo from the Malawi Drought PDNA report, 2016 .
It has been noted that there are multiple benefits that result from the collaboration of the partners in a PDNA, and their relative importance should guide the emphasis of an assessment in a given situation. Conducting a PDNA certainly raises beneficial technical and/or financial expectations among governments. The timely distribution of PDNA reports and their validated documentation motivate additional stakeholder interest and support for disaster-affected countries. PDNAs are also used by partners to inform their institutional program initiatives. PDNAs allow timely and definitive information to become publicly available without the expense or duplicated efforts of other independent assessments or the conflicted understanding of different recovery needs within the affected country, but also among international donor agencies. However, relying on the resources mobilization alone can undervalue the potential opportunities that the assessment can provide. In nearly all cases, the collaboration between international technical specialists and a country's policy makers or line ministries concentrated on national recovery activities for urgent needs or critical sectors.
Based on the PDNA's underlying principles, locally affected communities should be encouraged to participate in their own recovery efforts by contributing to the assessment process, although wider public inclusiveness requires dedicated efforts by PDNA leadership for the process to occur.
Influential political and economic features or national contexts beyond the control of principal actors can either encourage or impede a mutually beneficial assessment. It is important that these potentially defining forces be considered by the principals when evaluating a request for a PDNA. Contentious or troubled political environments or motivated economic considerations within a country can potentially affect Governments' roles or jeopardize an assessment's outcome. Particularly challenging circumstances were noted in at least three of the PDNAs reviewed, raising questions about the rationale for the initial approval process among the partner institutions. Potentially problematic conditions heighten the importance of Government determination, ownership, and firm direction of the process, and rigorous "risk analysis" or scoping should be undertaken by the tripartite institutions before commencing a joint exercise in a fluid or unsure political environment.
The type and magnitude of the triggering disaster or limited technical capacities in a devastated country can unify a decision to conduct a PDNA. These conditions certainly influenced the common purpose demonstrated by the PDNAs conducted in Fiji, Haiti, Myanmar, Nepal, and Vanuatu. Many institutional interests and challenging national circumstances were involved in each case, and they needed to come together for a common purpose if a PDNA was to be successful. Partners' purposes for conducting a PDNA can and do vary, but they can be compatible and mutually arranged for a joint outcome as occurred in Sri Lanka, Vanuatu, and to some extent in Myanmar. The review observed that each PDNA was unique regardless of common intentions and a practiced methodology.
Therefore, this review has identified leadership by national authorities as a primary and often determining factor of overall performance in conducting a PDNA. The mixed outcomes among the cases also suggest that a more considered evaluation of requests for PDNAs is required among the principle partners.

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Overall observations on the PDNA process

Defining criteria for future assessments
The PDNA is triggered by a Government's request in response to disasters such as floods, landslides, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruption and droughts. The magnitudes of disasters for which PDNAs were conducted have varied significantly.
In the absence of discernable criteria to undertake a PDNA, the consultants questioned the partner institutions on the basis of decisions to accept government requests to conduct assessments and their parameters of what should be considered a disaster. Despite noting that PDNAs were dependent on a government initiative and that assessments were meant to be applied flexibly by the partner institutions, there was little indication of a uniform understanding of disasters suited for PDNAs other than partner institution comments that they be "natural disasters." No commonly agreed criteria were cited by partner institutions about the agreed type, scope, or scale of a disaster; the extent of human losses and people affected; or the socioeconomic consequences experienced.
Among the selected PDNAs reviewed, disaster events ranged from ones that had no fatalities and no seriously injured people (Seychelles), modest damage in a localized area (Georgia), to costly national catastrophes of unprecedented national destruction affecting millions of people. Devastating disaster events such as those in Nepal, Haiti, Myanmar, and Vanuatu clearly required extensive external assistance for recovery. Serious disasters that occurred in countries with more technical abilities or national resources like Ecuador, Fiji, Serbia, and Sri Lanka also qualified for PDNAs. In at least three cases, some initial hesitation was noted by a tripartite institution, but the decision process or negotiations involved in the approval process were not evident.
The types of future disasters and their consequential impacts are likely to become more varied or uneven in their effects, given the uncertainties of climate change or an increase in pandemic disasters. The integrity of the PDNA process and the successful accomplishments of assessments depend on country-driven initiatives, prior agreed criteria among the tripartite institutions, and the joint adherence of all stakeholders to transparent guidelines.

Joint assessments benefit both disaster management and development interests
The purpose, intended procedures, and principles for planning and conducting PDNAs are well stated and comprehensively covered in the published guidelines. It is anticipated that the guidelines, and especially the PDNA principles they contain, will become more widely circulated and adopted within the institutions and among governments. In the cases reviewed, partial or specific principles are embraced depending on the inclinations of the directing principals, so additional attention should ensure that PDNAs can fulfill the expectations that have been adopted by the tripartite agreement. The principles are fundamental and too important to ignore until after a disaster occurs.

Findings of the Review
As PDNAs have evolved, they have been constrained by being driven by singular catastrophic events rather than becoming integrated into routine disaster preparedness, risk management, and continuing national development practices. The importance of recovery in transcending loss and damage after a disaster by focusing on building back better and pursuing resilient development principles is crucial for bridging the shared interests of both professional disaster risk management and development communities.
It is therefore important that both risk assessment and sustainable development commitments be anticipated, which is consistent with the importance of the PDNAs encompassing "build back better" and disaster risk management awareness as essential elements of disaster recovery planning. This relationship with disaster risk management (DRM) is established through the PDNA principles, and it is particularly relevant for countries that are subjected to recurrent disaster conditions.
Prior contingent recovery planning, sectoral baseline data requirements, and locally engaged community participation are essential features that should prefigure arrangements to conduct an assessment only after a disaster occurs. The potential roles for PDNAs in serving a national interest and progressively building localized or institutionalized capacities was noted in the cases reviewed, but they often remain to be systematically adopted as a sustaining instrument of multi-sector engagement.
A major strength of PDNAs has been their convening power to focus multiple institutional, professional, government, and public intentions and commitments around both minimizing and recovering of peoples' losses.
The PDNA process should seek to maintain the shared momentum beyond the production of a statistical report. Pacific island communities are proceeding to explore these opportunities by taking stock of the countries' seven previous PDNA experiences and applying lessons in localized communities on a continuous basis. This example is one of the few efforts identified by the review to extract the public value from what is otherwise a largely institutionalized or official government joint enterprise.

Purpose of PDNAs, and how they have served governments and partners
In principle and in practice, assessments in the aftermath of a disaster are globally valued as they enable a better understanding of the disaster effects and impacts, and what is needed in terms of recovery. The PDNAs have been able to support government recovery and reconstruction efforts, and in the process, they have also contributed to advancing partners' institutional interests.
In the aftermath of a disaster, confidence in the government can be jeopardized by inaction, bad decisions, or poor performance. Requesting a PDNA is an opportunity for governments to demonstrate leadership, timely actions, and integrity in publicly addressing the needs of citizens in the interests of the country. This political awareness is seldom explicit, but was noted by respondents as a powerful motivation for governments to initiate, direct, and own a PDNA. Moreover, a Government's decision to conduct a PDNA has international implications because an assessment holds potential financial and political opportunities for the country.
One national leader of a selected country had personally experienced the "eye opening" results of a previous PDNA that significantly improved the analysis of the Government's own data. He later reportedly instructed a hesitant minister facing a disaster to initiate and direct a PDNA. He added, "It is in our interest, and you will have all the national resources you require." Such political emphasis and expected beneficial returns are not usually mentioned openly, but they are cited by knowledgeable country-based commentators. However, it is crucial that authorities determine their national needs and expected results before initiating a joint and transparent assessment. National priorities should provide the core driving elements of a successful PDNA.

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Institutional partners have their own organizational and program interests that are served by participating in PDNAs. 8 The extent to which they are active within the context of an individual PDNA varies depending on the nature of the disaster and organizational affinities or institutional mandates in the country concerned and the priority objectives of the Government leading the assessment. As with some government motivations, political and economic motivations can become contributing factors encouraging institutions' support to PDNAs in addition to their other development or technical assistance program relationships with the affected country. In rarer cases, motivations can also lead to a certain degree of competition between institutions, which might undermine the success of a PDNA. By working with UN agencies, or being affiliated with World Bank resilient development programs or risk finance program initiatives, the PDNAs provide a beneficial environment to advance awareness, motivate commitments, and direct resources through recovery strategies toward achieving national objectives.
The PDNAs provide a favorable environment for UN agencies and the World Bank to contribute to and advance their respective institutional interests and shared program objectives to support government involvement in risk governance, the reduction of human vulnerability, and support for resilient development. This reinforcing collaboration of agencies involved in conducting PDNAs can foster public inclusion of marginalized or vulnerable populations, encourage community participation, and advance livelihood issues. The intense exercise dedicated to a common purpose provides a basis to enhance government recovery capacities necessary for resilient development. This can be pursued through the promotion of "building back better" and by encouraging community awareness about how recovery can minimize exposure to future disaster risks. Technical recommendations can emphasize the importance of rebuilding safer schools and allocating resources to use land-use planning techniques to protect community infrastructure and housing areas from future disaster impacts.
Additionally, the World Bank uses PDNAs for designing and approving immediate disaster recovery grants or loans, and for developing extended national development programs. A flood prevention program being designed for Sri Lanka was modified because of data provided by the 2016 PDNA. A multiyear education grant was authorized for Mozambique's Ministry of Education following post-disaster assessments conducted in 2015. It is debatable that programming interests alone determine an institution's motivation to participate in a PDNA, but it is undeniable that PDNAs provide useful program information and may cultivate future program opportunities for participating institutions.
An EU respondent acknowledged that PDNAs provided opportunities to extend solidarity in near and neighboring countries of Europe, and it also provided support to meet recovery needs of developing countries especially in Africa, the Caribbean, and Pacific regions, and also in South Asia. EU specialists also work with the disaster-affected countries requesting PDNAs to introduce or upgrade professional and technical standards that can provide lasting benefits in various productive sectors.

Coordination and collaboration
The case studies and interviews indicate good collaboration among the tripartite institutions. The established partnership seems to have reinforced productive relationships among the respective headquarters with respect to promoting the perceived values of the PDNAs. This was evident in the frequent communications among directors and their supporting staff members.
The positive impact of the partnership was also observed in many, if not all, country locations despite the complex situations in which PDNAs were usually conducted. The influx of short-term specialists from different institutional cultures, each with their own working procedures, presented common but manageable challenges.
The numerous visiting specialists were cited as being at times overwhelming for governments that were already stretched by the operational demands of the disaster, especially in small or low capacity countries. The need to work quickly and closely with government associates in many sectors required informed and accommodating leadership from all principal stakeholders, which reportedly evolved as local operating procedures were installed.
Government ownership of the assessment and evident direction of its progress are critical factors to ensure the broad engagement of all national stakeholders and the coordinated actions of tripartite partners.

Coordination among partner institutions
Country ownership, leadership, and engagement can be enhanced by the early assignment of clear roles and responsibilities for each of the participating institutions and the combined government departments that are involved in the PDNA. A unified purpose and coordinated actions are crucial conditions for procedural clarity; contrary circumstances that create Findings of the Review 15 duplicate efforts or multiple sets of information generated by different institutions or overlapping assessments need to be recognized as deficiencies that are counterproductive.
By all accounts, the PDNA conducted in Nepal stands out as a fine example of excellent collaborative direction and interagency coordination that led to exemplary outputs. Extensive technical information was produced through analyses, and comprehensive recovery recommendations were made in little more than four weeks of deliberate and explicit exchanges between partner institution specialists and government departments associated with primary sectors. The Government was decisive and determined in its national commitment to conduct a PDNA while equally acknowledging its national limitations. The resulting PDNA secretariat established innovative approaches of coordination with the expanded participation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) joining the tripartite institutions. In several other cases, individual personalities played a crucial role in realizing the harmonious accomplishment expected from PDNAs. A focused approach that encouraged inclusion and common purpose over individual parties' interests was an essential quality mentioned frequently as a success factor by respondents.
While the direction of the assessment process itself was often disciplined, there were other occasions where a uniform commitment was not always displayed by the various tripartite institutions. The direction of some exercises was joint or more inclusive than others, with other cases drawing adverse comments about a participating agency by either United Nations (UN) or World Bank (WB) participants, depending on the occasion. Indeed, some government officials or country-based technical specialists expressed disappointment at seemingly "different approaches" being pursued by partner institutions. For example, in some of these latter instances, the stated objectives of the PDNA were diminished by different institutional or programmatic interests being pursued at the same time or through other government ministries. It was difficult for the consultants to establish the motivations that contributed to the contrary actions, but the extent of local comments received validated the concerns raised at the time. Mutually agreed priorities for the PDNA, an appropriate timeline for the expected outputs, a single set of recommendations produced by a joint assessment, and a firm direction of implementing the PDNA process by the government can minimize multiple or competing interests.
Moreover, several commentators noted that better or mutually consistent communications between an institution's headquarters and country office leadership could be improved by maintaining a shared or consistent sense of purpose. There was a tendency expressed more than once by country offices that (their own) headquarters was pursuing more of an institutional set of priorities rather than one determined by the actual conditions prevailing in the countries concerned. Whether these issues were substantive, institutional, procedural, or personal would need to be explored by each institution, but they do suggest some inconsistencies in perceived roles and purposes of some PDNAs.
Some of these divergent observations were evident in the cases of the droughts in Malawi and initially in the Marshall Islands because of disputed technical characteristics of the slow onset of events. Ambiguous distinctions between humanitarian relief activities and disaster recovery needs and responsibilities also complicated a unified sense of purpose among partners. There were additional national economic and political issues that influenced institutional views about the suitability or coordination in carrying out an assessment. In one contentious example, a local respondent informed the consultants that the PDNA was "100 percent political, and a justification for external financial assistance to the government by another name." In another problematic case, the reason for including a minor localized event as a variation of a PDNA was not convincingly explained other than for political reasons or other interests of one or another partner.

Key issues in coordination among partners
The greater the magnitude of a national disaster, generally the more collaboration was found among the institutions because of the expanded technical resources required and the many people involved in the assessment. Large disasters also have more needs to be addressed that may overwhelm all national capacities. Other "lesser" disasters displayed some competitive or diverse institutional interests, inviting some commentators' skepticism of a unified effort. When this occurred, hesitation among one or another partner about pursuing a PDNA resulted from questioning whether a disaster's effects or impacts warranted the intensive efforts and cost of conducting a full or "complete" PDNA. In two cases, there was some skepticism indicated by agency specialists if external assistance was indeed required given the countries' own resources and technical abilities.
These variable conditions highlight the need for further consideration about the correlation between the relative scales of need or impacts of a disaster and the extent of the assessment warranted. The variety of the cases chosen for review, and the scope of their respective impacts on the countries concerned, further reflected different rationales or expectations of the governments. In at least three cases (Fiji, Seychelles, and the Marshall Islands) the governments were equally interested in managing or limiting future potential disaster losses, as they were on the needs for immediate recovery. There may well be a justification for different types of needs assessments determined by the combined considerations of disaster impacts moderated by a government's "purpose" in terms of scope, policies, future preparedness, national inclusiveness, and related resource requirements, rather than simply current recovery. Future disaster threats posed by climate change are prominent features in SIDS' views about the utility of PDNA outcomes.
In a limited number of cases, there were some doubts of institutional nature concerning a partner's capacities. These are operational realities and a reason why one or another partner institution leads each PDNA depending on the primary objectives of the government for the exercise. Such preliminary interinstitutional frictions are generally resolved by the partners' agreement and their respective distribution of PDNA roles and responsibilities. Directors, though, need to ensure their common understanding about each institution's relative capacities and complementary roles for conducting an assessment. A common agreement and a shared understanding among the partners about the proposed PDNA objectives when they are being formulated are crucial to guarantee good coordination.
A deeper evaluation of PDNA requests among the partners would be beneficial for improved coordination. More consideration is required when determining how the national needs are influenced by a specific disaster event, the magnitude of the disaster's effects on the country, or whether the needs are more fundamentally a consequence of the country's socioeconomic or political conditions. This suggests the need for more transparent dialogue among the partners at higher institutional levels, as well as between them and their respective country offices. The dialogue should be based on commonly agreed norms or criteria for conducting PDNAs, or alternative variations of need assessments for particular circumstances, which are currently lacking.

Coordination and collaboration within countries
Given the magnitude of the Nepal earthquake and the enormity of the recovery required, the institutional partners responded jointly with good collaboration and common purpose. More than 250 technical experts worked with the Government and other national partners through 23 technical sector teams headed by joint secretaries of government ministries. These collaborative arrangements provided access to more capacities and national resources than any partner institution could have accessed alone, while also allowing national stakeholders to develop skills and benefit from multilateral perspectives. Joint leadership and carefully distributed responsibilities were essential for determining people's needs in the affected areas.
The Nepal government was wise to emphasize that the PDNA effort "focused not only on the product, but also on the process," 9 which necessitated highly coordinated joint efforts. The intense, comprehensive, and multi-sectoral teamwork was a valued strength of the PDNA process that was shared by all the partners involved in Nepal. Variations of this collaborative benefit in conducting the assessment and its joint power to convene interests for a common purpose were cited by participants and governments in most of the PDNAs that were reviewed.
The level of coordination and collaboration among institutions differed in countries. In Haiti and Mozambique, different intentions of partners and government ministries resulted in duplicate requests for assessments and in separate initiatives by PDNA partners. These parallel activities created conflicting agendas between different ministries and government authorities, or they involved separate UN agencies. Other interviews indicated that personal difficulties between individuals representing partner institutions in a country also could limit coordination efforts, even in a country that had an established familiarity with PDNAs and previous coordinated donor relationships.
Similar circumstances arose in another contested national environment where a PDNA was conducted. A series of contingencies resulted in an assessment process characterized by setbacks and ambiguity. In Ecuador, UNDP and donors had previously worked together to coordinate and organize PDNA training for a volcanic eruption. However, after the occurrence of the 2016 earthquake, the Government altered its prior arrangements to conduct a PDNA. Instead, a more narrowly conceived damage and loss assessment (DaLA) was coordinated by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, supported by another regional institution, the Andean Development Corporation-Development Bank of Latin America (CAF). The assessment was based on the core methodology of the DaLA, 10 originally developed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The frame of reference of the assessment though, was not consistent with the current norms or principles adopted by the PDNA partners. The exercise was owned and directed by the Government as the country was preparing for a forthcoming presidential election, so some assessment features received prominent political attention.
In the case of Pacific regional disasters, the positive development relationships existing between the intergovernmental Pacific Community and the three tripartite institutions provided a productive intermediating opportunity. In several Pacific PDNAs, this regional engagement in planning and conducting successful, if atypical assessments, produced beneficial outcomes suited to the particular country's needs.
10 The Damage and Loss Assessment (DaLA) methodology was developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC). DaLA was developed in the 1970s and since then has been customized for application by the World Bank in different areas of the world. The PDNA methodology builds on the quantitative analysis of DaLA methodology by adding specific sectors and a qualitative analysis on issues of gender, environment, disaster risk reduction, livelihoods, and human impacts of the disaster on people's lives and livelihoods.
Akhaldaba landslide and destroyed road . Photo from the Georgia Floods PDNA report, 2015 .
As future disasters become more diversified and country assessment needs continue to evolve, distinctive national needs and regional institutions' support can become valued opportunities to broaden collaboration in specific country settings or for purposes such as occurred in the Marshall Islands.

Communication
Communication among partners and with the national government were not always clear. There was seldom an explicit reference available about the institutional processes that provided the defining decision to conduct a PDNA, a commonly agreed rationale to do so, and what the primary objectives would be. Beyond the common acknowledgment that "the Government requested support to conduct a PDNA," the interagency means leading to the collaboration arrangements, directing leadership, and assigning agency responsibilities were not readily evident. There were several occasions of different views about the need for a PDNA at the country level with different perspectives provided by the various partner institutions. This was the case for undertaking the drought PDNA in Malawi. Different views were bridged by supportive accommodation in Sri Lanka. Contradictory views were evident in Haiti and Mozambique with duplicated work or contrary initiatives being pursued that were inconsistent with the agreed PDNA guidelines. Prior expectations and preliminary contingency planning to conduct a PDNA in Ecuador proved to be unrealized when a disaster actually occurred.
By contrast, in seven Pacific PDNAs, there was a mutually supportive, joint involvement of the partners despite differing degrees of enthusiasm for a specific exercise. Each partner went along in accommodating a supportive initiative guided by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and its technical support with local or regional inputs.
PDNAs appear to suffer from a diminished presence until a disaster occurs. Then country office staff become more locally familiar and have an informed appreciation of the complexities and underlying interests in a country. Country office staff demonstrated a better grasp of both the opportunities or limitations of national contexts, government priorities, respective partners' programming interests or professional abilities, and leading technical authorities able to advance PDNA efforts in the country. Headquarters can enhance those capabilities and build future capacities by equipping national staff with necessary skills and technical knowledge. Such an investment would benefit future PDNA activities while additionally supporting other development programs in the country.
From the different experiences encountered in various countries, there is a need for better and more consistent communication, with explicitly shared information among all principals and within individual institutions. Regional organizations can play important roles in providing guidance, easing interinstitutional relationships, and engaging local partners. Established regional partners and progressively developed national assessment capacities can provide a continuous link and memory bank for the additional utility of PDNA data and the benefits of previous assessment experience. Such a continuing awareness of multidisciplinary data analyses between ministries and a potential for actuarial information to inform other national development programs are attributes that can maintain the relevance of PDNA capacities between disaster events.

Coordination between partners of headquarters and country levels
The intended objectives of individual PDNAs and the desirable timing required to obtain beneficial results from an assessment have been debated on some occasions between the primary partner institutions. As mentioned earlier, in cases of large-scale disasters, the accepted rationales have been broadly consistent among partners at the national level and at their headquarters. The extent to which country contexts have been able to be readily evaluated has varied. However, in some countries there were diverse views expressed by partners' representatives that did not necessarily share the same outlook or expectations. The consultants noted a lack of institutional consistency about a PDNA's emphasis or purpose between some World Bank country office representatives and GFDRR colleagues based in headquarters engaged in country programs.
The work of some individual EU advisors was highly respected for their experience in initiating and organizing PDNAs, but other operational contributions or consultancy roles provided by the EU were not so readily apparent nor noted by Findings of the Review 19 national participants. Even though many PDNAs are financially supported by the EU, this important communication did not translate readily into widely recognized country-level operational roles or organizational presence in comparison to the more numerous WB and UN specialists associated with the assessments.

Comprehensiveness of the assessment
The technical quality of the assessment has been the foundation of the PDNA reputation and can be characterized as consisting of several equally important components. First, there is the comprehensiveness and appropriateness of the assessment to the scale and type of disaster. The list of sectors to be included in the assessment is neither uniform nor defined by institutional preferences. Rather, the combination of the type, extent, and characteristics of the natural phenomena that caused the disaster are expected to define the thematic coverage of the assessment.
The PDNA reports that were reviewed contained a wealth of data and analyses based on the core subject areas of losses, damages, and priority recovery costs. Similarly, the information, analysis, and rationale for recovery actions in nearly all the technical sectors were extensive and well considered. This information was presented in a thorough and accessible manner for use by a variety of policy makers both in the country concerned and among other external institutional stakeholders. These elements can benefit international and domestic users, as they have been refined over the evolution of the PDNAs.
Depending on the type and nature of the disaster impacts being assessed, the cases have illustrated that some sectors such as agriculture and housing often have significantly greater and potentially lasting social and human development consequences. Recent assessments have sought to provide wider attention to livelihood issues, local community infrastructure, and local governance capacities as crucial elements to advance disaster recovery within the immediately affected populations and localities. Regardless of the various roles of partners or leading institution involvement in specific PDNAs, it is important that the government's direction and management ensure that full and complementary attention be given to all productive and social dimensions of the exercise. This awareness is emphasized by the agreed PDNA principles, which should be acknowledged by all contributing parties at the beginning of an assessment.
There have been tendencies on some occasions for institutions to emphasize productive or commercial sector impacts at the expense of perceived "softer" or less tangible concerns such as culture or inclusiveness and participation, areas that are not so easily expressed in economically quantifiable terms. Similarly, when urgency or "streamlined efficiencies" are promoted, less consideration has been given to the social or qualitative measures essential for assessing the human impact needs that PDNAs seek to expand. This dichotomy remains a common matter of different emphases and resulting analytical concentration among participating institutions or dominating ministries within governments.
Partners and the government should assure that a full and appropriate balance be addressed across the spectrum of PDNAs' integrated and comprehensive framework of sectors, and within assessors' corresponding institutional interests. Governments have an obligation in conveying their ownership of the process to ensure that full and balanced consideration is given to assessing the economic and social needs pertinent to resilient recovery and human development. This should be an important foundation element agreed on during the introductory negotiations before a PDNA begins, as it has not always materialized during the course of previous assessments.
While the reviews of the documentation and interviews suggest that the quantity and quality of the information developed by the PDNAs are good and very comprehensive, they are produced with considerable effort and under demanding deadlines. The word "cumbersome" or similarly excessive requirements are frequently used to describe the process by country team members and among external partner staff members. Their concerns are often accompanied with a rhetorical question about possibly streamlining the process without sacrificing the essential quantified parameters of the exercise.
Some commentators believe these concerns should encourage new thinking about how quality information can be obtained by less arduous means or in a more efficient manner, but that needs to be accomplished in a way that does not compromise the defining features of essential PDNA objectives. A tempting but challenging consideration is to scale the assessment to a relative degree of a disaster's impacts, limiting the sectors assessed, or favoring a concentration on only infrastructure impacts on sectors. However, the determination of what would be the priority considerations in a partial, limited, or "more efficient" needs assessment should be influenced by the needs and interests of the Government.
The consultants believe that both country and individual disaster contexts should become more defining features in aligning the PDNA methods to the government's stated objectives, but without compromising the essential purpose of a timely and comprehensive assessment to support their recovery initiatives. It therefore should be emphasized that the government's role in defining and directing the nature, extent, timing, and operational dimensions of PDNAs needs to be enhanced beyond what has been demonstrated so far in several of the cases that were reviewed.

Risks addressed in PDNAs
Several PDNAs refer to the recurrent nature of specified disasters, and nearly all mention "the importance of climate change" in some respects. Risk factors clearly have emerged in PDNAs as a commentary about advancing national sustainable development objectives through recovery practices. However, it seems that the issue of risk is not reflected substantively in the PDNAs, as the assessments are triggered by singular disaster events. Risk awareness and potential or recurrent disasters in a country appear to be inconsistently considered, or in some instances noted only superficially.
A review of PDNAs reflects a growing tacit recognition of these emerging issues, although some of the discussions are either casually stated from international promotional documents, limited in scope, or yet to be developed in applications. More substantive comments and references to policy development of relevant risk and preventative strategies are evident in some PDNAs and appear to be motivated by leading international institutions or government authorities, as can be seen in the cases of Sri Lanka, Mozambique, Malawi, and Pacific island countries, among others.
There is a similar concern about the adequacy of the existing concepts of relevant sectors and their combined influence for the recovery process. The intrinsic relevance of the mutual relationships among the previously distinctive professional disciplines within sectors needs to be considered as being more critical to PDNAs than only being expressed simply as "crosscutting" issues. Many of the comments seen in several, but not all, of the selected PDNAs speak largely in popularized terms of "building back better," unspecified "resilient" features, and the need for better gender-referenced applications or needs. Reliance on other conventional disaster risk recovery (DRR) phrases can convey only a slight conviction and often less tangible substance. In some cases, the subjects are limited to a few obligatory paragraphs; however, the Sri Lanka PDNA Report for 2016 floods and landslides devoted nearly one-half of its text to a thoroughly researched discussion of the fundamental "crosscutting" subjects that would be essential for lasting, risk-sensitive recovery.
A serious consideration of durable recovery strategies in PDNAs will require a more analytical and better documented commentary about the risk-disaster-recovery-resilient development relationships. This will depend upon additional baseline and cumulative data, and more granular household or locally derived and gender-referenced analysis from a wider circle of social and service sectors in the country. Without such a conscious effort to link these related aspects of development policies, the PDNA methodology lacks a sustaining momentum within countries. The concepts involved will be diminished over time without active attention being devoted to cultivating the assessment and analytical abilities between extended periods between disasters. This is a poor basis for sustained interest, much less for maintaining relevant capacities within disaster-affected countries.

Time frames for conducting assessments
The determination of when a PDNA should be conducted for best effect and the time required to do so are important factors contributing to the success of the exercise. It is difficult to provide a precise time frame as country conditions vary, but the full effects of the disaster and all of the affected locations should be evident. Emergency response and humanitarian assistance are the first priorities of government before an assessment should be considered. The associated information obtained and initial damage assessments, particularly from outlying areas, should be used by the government to frame its primary objectives for conducting a subsequent PDNA.
Findings of the Review

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The specific characteristics of the disaster and initial estimates of its scope and magnitude should determine the best-suited time requirements and conditions to allow a viable and sufficiently inclusive assessment. There was some doubt expressed if the droughts in both Malawi and the Marshall Islands warranted a PDNA at the time they were requested, based on either the disaster effects or limited geographical impacts. Rapid onset disasters such as earthquakes, severe storms, and floods exhibit a definitive period of impact. By contrast, slow onset disasters like droughts, lasting food insecurity, extended public health crises, pandemics, or far-reaching environmental disasters like nuclear or toxic contamination have uncertain durations. These unknown characteristics or continuously evolving conditions also can cause increased or much delayed impacts.
The ambiguous or unique effects of climate change in a particular natural or productive environment that are critical for peoples' livelihoods, were mentioned by several national respondents with regard to their determining future PDNA scenarios. They are of particular concern in island states for agricultural or pastoralist economies and in large, urban coastal environments. How a changing climate alters disaster circumstances raises difficult questions about timing "post-disaster" assessments to provide a meaningful analysis of disaster effects and impacts, or even the duration of the disaster consequences for the country and affected populations.
The readiness of governments to request and direct a PDNA based on their own operational abilities and primary objectives should determine the appropriate time to conduct an assessment that would produce the intended results. Additional matters that the tripartite institutions need to consider include (i) the availability and organization of key specialists, (ii) access to the affected areas, and (iii) the functional capacities of government services. Following major disasters such as those in Nepal and Myanmar, available government officials can be overwhelmed and material resources limited in providing customary services.
In Myanmar and Haiti, the PDNAs were conducted amid current or imminent political transitions. Despite these assessments proceeding with different amounts of government engagement, their respective results suggest that alternative times to conduct the assessments may have produced better outcomes. Fragmented or contentious political environments existed in two other countries that created additional challenges for conducting harmonious or productive PDNAs.
Overflow of small hydropower plants . Photo from the Bosnia Floods PDNA report, 2014 .

Rapid assessments
The utility and increased use of rapid assessments are reportedly valued by ministries of finance or economic planning immediately following a disaster. They are cited as being particularly beneficial in terms of efficiency and the rapid dissemination of initially estimated recovery costs and priorities. Rapid assessments may have their merits in specific situations, but they cannot be equated with or replaced by the comprehensive and collaborative features that characterize PDNAs.
On occasion, these rapid assessments have been rushed, in one case two weeks before the rains had ceased and the floods had not yet crested. A sense of urgency motivated the start of some PDNAs with the intention of mobilizing external resources quickly while the disaster impacts were still commanding attention. A more deliberate approach was adopted in Mozambique to enable more participation in the affected areas. Government planning officials noted that if PDNAs were conducted too soon after the disaster occurred, the purpose of the exercise could be misunderstood: it would be dominated by disaster management concerns to address immediate response needs. Their concern was driven by the availability of contingent emergency grants from donors' rapid response disaster funds that can compromise the requirements of investing in extended recovery commitments. Some national respondents noted the important transitional role of PDNAs in shifting policy attention and resource requirements from disaster relief to supporting successive recovery needs.

Time required to complete an assessment
The time required to conduct a PDNA can vary based on country circumstances. The PDNA Guidelines indicate that the exercise should take between six to twelve weeks 11 from the initial government request to the government's acceptance of the draft report of findings and recommendations, official approval, and distribution of reporting documentation.
Typically, the demanding time frame included the creation of sector teams and work programs, organization of a secretariat or coordinating government authority, two days of team orientation and training, collection and analysis of data, consolidation of the information, and the writing of a draft report. In some cases, delays were experienced by the need for additional data validation, finalization of some technical reporting, delayed government approval of draft results, or the final production and dissemination of the official report.
In a majority of the cases reviewed, the three-to-four-week time frame envisioned for the assessment functions themselves was realized. However, such stringent timing was achieved by limiting the extent of field visits, or by using existing secondary or national data in contrast to obtaining current documentation of social parameters or household-level information.
In a few cases, there were occasions of additional time required to reconcile inconsistent or multiple data sources (Ecuador and Myanmar). Obtaining social and human development data and some crosscutting subject information was time consuming because it required interaction with households or affected populations. Qualitative data were not easily or routinely available at local government or community levels and were seldom disaggregated by sex, age, or special needs. In some instances, data from different ministries, local administrative authorities, or dated sources were not comparable to nationally consolidated statistics.
The actual team assessment activities of data acquisition, analysis, technical team reporting, and the preparation of initial consolidated findings typically required four to six weeks. In a few cases, where governments were strongly committed to the process, they obligated the partner institutions to finalize the assessment and analysis process within three weeks after the scope of the PDNA had been established and participants were assembled. This was the case in Fiji, Vanuatu, and Serbia. The general expectation, though, is that at least an intensive month of activity should be required.

Additional timing issues affecting assessments
Despite an observation that the tight timing required by PDNAs could be met, each assessment has had to make adjustments for its stated objectives, local circumstances, and country limitations. One respondent commented, "Perfection should not become the enemy of the good" when pursuing a solid and productive PDNA. Other PDNAs did not allow for spending enough time and effort concerning local populations or for seeking adequate public participation.
Limited time was cited as a reason for few field visits to affected areas, or for the use of more deliberate consultative methods. More time was required to involve inputs or locally generated information from affected populations. These limitations likely reduced the consideration given to disaster impacts on social or human development and the crosscutting of subjects.
Some commentators suggested that the use of drones and remotely accessed technologies could be used to conduct surveys more efficiently, but other respondents preferred to expand the time required to increase personal contact with affected communities to understand the human dimensions and local consequences of disasters better. While there may be benefits in developing technological innovations to facilitate data collection, several respondents working more closely with affected populations in the countries cautioned against an overreliance on technology for the sake of institutional efficiency at the Photo from the Nepal Earthquake PDNA report, 2015 .
expense of reduced physical exposure to disaster effects and human interaction with affected populations. Access to data from social media could potentially increase civil society viewpoints, but those techniques have not yet been used in PDNAs.
Once assessments were completed, the commitment of governments and national circumstances sometimes delayed the dissemination or use of information and recommendations produced by the assessment. While the circumstances involved resulted from particular conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mozambique, and Sri Lanka, they illustrate factors and national contexts that should be taken into account when contemplating an assessment and the practical time required to collect, analyze, and disseminate the comprehensive information that characterizes PDNAs. Prior contingent arrangements can be agreed between the government and tripartite institutions to circulate draft information after it has been reviewed and authorized by the government if publication delays are expected.

Roles of other international and national partners in the assessment
The PDNAs have evolved as instruments developed by partner institutions and are intended to be implemented through government ownership and direction. The assessment outputs have been distributed and used for both governments' policies and planning purposes, as well as for partner institutions' program promotion and design purposes. The documentation about PDNAs consistently notes partners' intentions to engage additional contributors and to relate the assessment activities to the interests and expanded participation of vulnerable people, disaster-affected communities, and the needs of socially marginalized segments of the population. Since 2014, these intentions have been included in the PDNA guidelines and emphasized in the defining principles. There have been many additional institutions contributing to all of the PDNAs, yet the voices of directly affected populations or local communities impacted by the disasters seem to be still largely absent in the recorded information.
All final PDNA reports acknowledge many collaborating partners in conducting assessments, but they are all institutional bodies or official government structures. The array reflects many contributing technical departments and specialists drawn from various divisions of partner institutions, other United Nations programs and agencies, and additional international organizations or intergovernmental bodies. Regional development banks or financial institutions, bilateral technical assistance agencies, and other donor disaster assistance or development agencies have routinely participated in PDNAs related to their respective interests.
The ADB and JICA became additional principal partners in the Nepal PDNA, for instance, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community was an important collaborator in all of the Pacific country PDNAs. The involvement of these additional institutional contributors and the technical or material support they provided validate the confidence they have in the PDNA process and demonstrate in return an added value.
There is a mixed record in terms of how far reaching and inclusive the PDNA processes have been to engage non-state actors or public participation. Social and local community issues are predominantly discussed and considered by experts or responsible ministries. The Red Cross/Red Crescent national societies are regular contributors to the assessment process, although by their representatives' own acknowledgments, their views and information are often more focused on meeting emergency assistance requirements than for planning extended recovery needs.
Consultations with local communities and non-state actors were not always able to be conducted in field visits, but they did occur in the cases of Mozambique, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and some of the Pacific country PDNAs. It was a requirement in Fiji, however, that no field visits would be possible and that the assessment would need to be based solely on existing government documentation. The conditions under which field visits could be conducted in PDNAs limited the amount of new primary data that could be collected systematically unless a concerted effort was organized for that purpose, although field observation is valuable for validating previously reported information. In one case, improvised assessment techniques were used by a knowledgeable specialist who arrived at an isolated community on an outer island in Vanuatu shortly after the disaster. Under the circumstances, the information proved to be very useful in the absence of others, but that was an exception rather than the rule for obtaining direct input from disaster survivors.

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There are few instances of elaborated NGO contributions cited, or indications of roles demonstrated by local community or civil society organizations. In contrast to their humanitarian assistance involvement, local community organizations such as women's associations, community faith-based leadership, focus groups, social welfare, and mutual aid societies were seldom noted as being recognized contributors to PDNA activities. Only very limited academic or independent field research was noted, and local inhabitants' opinions of conditions or recovery needs were seldom recorded in PDNA documentation. When questioned about this lack of public participation in conducting PDNAs, respondents suggested that the stringent time restraints or a lack of preparation or existing relationships to obtain direct participation at local levels could be contributing factors. Similarly, local authorities often were poorly equipped to provide systematic data or needed information beyond personal observation.
Participants from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were interviewed in only two of the fourteen selected cases (Mozambique, Sri Lanka). Their responses about the roles of eight NGOs conveyed an appreciation of being asked to participate in the assessment, but they also noted that their roles were marginal and in some respects contrary to the macroeconomic interests that they believed were driving the assessment objectives. Two NGO respondents believed their participation was primarily requested to provide logistics and to arrange visits for the PDNA team to representative villages, where the inhabitants had already been interviewed weeks before by the NGOs themselves. The NGOs expected little if any direct benefit to their organizations from participating in the PDNAs and questioned the value of participating once again. An alternative view was expressed in Ecuador about voluntary activity to support the earthquake recovery assessment organized under different arrangements; engineers spontaneously organized a rapid survey of damaged housing in some isolated communities.
There were virtually no private sector roles nor commercial enterprise contributions acknowledged in any of the PDNA cases reviewed other than a parastatal organization that coordinated the Seychelles assessment. There are many references in PDNA reports that the private sector and public participation should be involved in recovery, but only the Nepal and Sri Lanka PDNA reports elaborated on efforts to include them in addressing primary issues. The primary references to "the private sector" were to describe the percentage distribution of losses and damages between public and private ownership of the assets concerned. Expected roles or meaningful participation of private sector interests in the PDNA process requires considerably more mutual understanding and better expression of a means to pursue collaboration among partners and within countries before disasters occur.
A conscious effort is required by governments and institutional partners when planning and conducting a PDNA to arrange opportunities for increased public participation and the substantive involvement of non-state and civil society contributors. Field travels to affected areas similarly need to be anticipated and pursued to interact with disaster survivors. The time required to do so should not be sacrificed to institutional efficiencies or national perspectives alone that could compromise the value of obtaining a better understanding of affected communities' disaster impacts or priority needs. Interaction with a variety of individual local or nongovernmental viewpoints in areas of disaster risks prior to a disaster event also builds prior relationships, identifies crucial baseline indicators, and may determine locally available resources that could aid future recovery efforts. Without prior dialogue and anticipatory preparation for recovery, it is not feasible for PDNA principals to expect immediate and spontaneous partners and local contributions to official assessments.

National capacities
The quality of PDNAs can be enhanced by the timely availability of technical experts, specialists working with crosscutting subjects, and the existence of constantly updated rosters with multiple language skills. The selection process should focus on national experts that have strong knowledge of local socioeconomic, political, environmental, and cultural realities.
Gaps arise in assessments when institutions evaluate only selected sectors or limited geographic locations where they have projects or experts in place.
Field surveys to verify data rather than to collect data are an important part of the PDNA planning process and can benefit from experienced researchers who possess local or culturally relevant knowledge. The quality and accuracy of PDNA data provide lasting value as they contribute to other aspects of recovery, resilient development, and peace building. In this respect, the quality of PDNAs is truly tested at times.
An enhanced capacity development strategy should be considered to provide an effective means of continuous training and institutional learning within the PDNA process. It should be focused on the management and technical functions of initiating and conducting a PDNA by the next generation of partners and supporters who are increasingly grounded in the local needs and national realities of communities exposed to future disaster risks. The training and development capacities should strive to involve all primary institutions and likely government client partners, including regional ones.

Data issues
Data collection and analysis are essential for the core deliverables of the PDNA. They need to be appropriate, current, and reliant on existing institutional capacities. National data should draw upon the best available country and international information, and need to be validated to the extent possible during the assessment process. The significance of data depends on the prior existence of a relevant baseline and the ability to close information gaps or to update knowledge about altered social conditions or changing populations in disaster environments.
Credible damage and loss estimations employed in DaLAs provided the foundation for definitive quantitative baselines, but these databases should be used or developed further and updated continuously in disaster-prone countries. 12 One example worth mentioning is the Pacific Catastrophic Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative (CRAFI) 13 pursued by Pacific island countries and the World Bank Group. Such broadened and anticipatory data initiatives serve multiple functions beyond post-disaster needs assessments, such as disaster risk reduction, urban planning, and risk finance opportunities. They additionally encourage comprehensive infrastructure, housing, and community planning in changing or sensitive natural environments.
Several PDNA cases disclosed that adequate qualitative data related to social conditions and human development parameters were not always available in comparable or disaggregated formats. Frequently, they were not readily compiled by households or at local community scales. This information is necessary to identify particularly vulnerable or marginalized populations and their relative exposure to disaster impacts considered by the assessment. The more challenging requirements to identify, access, and use qualitative data related to social and human development in a meaningful assessment have drawn on Human Impact Assessment parameters and techniques to some extent, but additional acquisition procedures are needed.
As with the case of exposure databases, household-level surveys should be undertaken in advance and be incorporated into routine preparedness responsibilities for particularly vulnerable locations and populations exposed to disaster risks. They can provide additional and continuing inputs for the creation of poverty maps, modelling potential impacts of natural hazards and the identification of targeted requirements for social protection needs in local communities.
This important work can and should be undertaken by local administration officials and sector ministries using compatible formats before a disaster occurs. The foresight to develop valid baseline information is an example of how PDNA interests can be related to national development indicators, such as the progress of countries' Sustainable Development Goals or other measures of people's exposure to disaster risks.
Both quantitative and qualitative methods are needed to identify trends of growing exposure, to describe anticipated disaster impacts on specific populations, and to map causal relationships before disasters occur. These functions anticipate potential 12 The PDNAs build on DaLA with an analysis of the differentiated impacts of disasters on the affected people and their livelihoods. They provide a qualitative analysis on issues of gender, environment, disaster risk reduction, and livelihoods, which are beyond the traditional sectors of national economy. 13 http://pcrafi.spc.int/ Findings of the Review 27 disaster assessment baseline data requirements and encompass social development monitoring needs. They thereby can encourage the expansion of more discerning analysis based on disaggregated age, gender, socioeconomic, or other demographic considerations. National assessment capacities and a greater potential for resilient recovery can be enhanced by associating PDNA social data requirements with ongoing development programs.
Concerns also were expressed by country respondents about the acquisition of valid and mutually compatible primary data accessed from lower administrative levels or social indicators that require household sourcing. The organizational logistics involved and the operational mechanics required were cited as being "too much" to meet procedural system expectations and stringent time limitations of PDNAs. NGOs that routinely work with local communities noted that PDNA efforts to collect localized data were undertaken too late, superficial, and duplicated with counterproductive results experienced in at least some affected communities. One NGO representative noted, "Being asked to participate in a PDNA is not worth our time, particularly when we are used to providing access to a community. The villagers we work with asked us why we brought these people to ask them the same questions they already answered some weeks earlier. Such disregard also can affect our own relationships we have worked hard to develop with the community. Besides, their own local recovery was already under way through our programs."

Outcomes of the assessments
The intended outcomes of the PDNA are broadly defined to reflect the purpose and aims between the government and partners; the efficacy of the PDNA in advancing recovery; and the fulfillment of providing added value to multiple stakeholders. There is a general understanding that PDNAs are intended to facilitate the mobilization of resources by the joint agreement of trusted data, but that is not the only expected outcome. These combined outcomes and the specific emphasis for a country's PDNA are decided by the government's priorities for recovery, which vary from case to case. However, all of these criteria are predisposed to a long-term appraisal only after a recovery is completed.
The additional strategic PDNA roles of creating or renewing effective collaboration are critical for a durable recovery. The efficacy of the PDNA in advancing recovery depends upon whether it was able to produce data outputs and recommendations that could effectively bridge early, medium-, and long-term recovery and reconstruction activities through a coherent and sustained strategy pursued by governments. This requirement is associated with, but is not limited to, improvements in disaster risk management and human development objectives through institutional change and policy reforms. It should additionally build upon national development strategies and the realization of crosscutting issues, such as those related to gender, environment, governance, and human rights, among others.
In the present review, the information provided about the PDNA outcomes was largely provided by respondents and was often limited in scope, or tended to reflect a respondent's organizational affiliation. The government officials who were able to be consulted on short notice mostly provided generalized observations about the conduct of the PDNA process, but were less able to provide cumulative documentation of resulting recovery outcomes and the degree to which they were directly influenced by the PDNA alone. The experiences of the various cases differ sufficiently to encourage much better systematic monitoring and evaluation in the future.
Recovery planning provides an understandable rationale for PDNAs' proven methodology to compile comprehensive information focused on a full range of recovery needs through a joint collaborative process using established data acquisition and analysis protocols. However, based on the views of respondents, experience in the selected cases demonstrates that there is not often an evident correlation between the availability of priority recommendations for recovery and the resulting government procedures to implement a similarly comprehensive recovery program. This may be an incomplete observation, but it was frequent enough to suggest the need for further detailed evaluation and government documentation regarding the decision-making process and resource allocations involved over the duration of the recovery period.
In at least three countries (Mozambique, Malawi, and Sri Lanka), government officials acknowledged the structural and procedural challenges involved in relating external resource commitments following a disaster into extended recovery strategies that are administered by established planning and financial policies. The national consequences of disasters and the political demands they often place on governments frequently result in ad hoc or additional high-level executive authority direction for near-term resolution of needs with maximum political impacts.
Mozambican officials explained the practical difficulties involved when countries do not have existing legislation, policies, or necessary interministerial recovery procedures in place. Officials from both the National Institute Disasters Management (INGC) and the Ministry of Economy and Planning noted that an established legal basis for government remained elusive to clearly manage the sustained implementation of disaster recovery beyond an annual budgetary cycle.
Elsewhere, it was observed that requirements for recovery financing in the aftermath of a disaster could result in additional constraints. Indeed, urgent and expedited requirements of a crisis, as well as statutory budgeting procedures, both require multiyear commitments to enable a coherent implementation of a recovery strategy. There are few transitional procedures in force and seldom a sufficiently empowered authority to supervise discreet recovery activities comprehensively across implementing ministries besides already established financial planning authorities. While such ministries possess the potential for providing the necessary vision and interministerial oversight, the reality appears to be that other routine national planning responsibilities or subsequently altered national economic policy priorities limit a sustained attention to post-disaster recovery functions. This limitation is compounded by the frequent division of responsibilities within ministries that persists between disaster-related actions and the ministries' routine annual planning and budgetary practices.
As national disaster management agencies become more conversant with the advocacy of disaster risk management policies and risk reduction principles that are implemented by technical ministries, there is often an additional gap in designated planning and implementation responsibilities. Similar discussions in Malawi between representatives of both the disaster management agency (DODMA) and the Ministry of Economic Planning and Finance also referred to administrative challenges when a government transitions from emergency response to implementing extended recovery actions through technical ministries.
After the earthquake in Nepal in 2015, the Government created a national recovery authority with supporting legislation and operational procedures tailored to meet specific recovery needs. The creation of such a purpose-designed authority, staffed with senior technical directors from implementing ministries working under the direction of the ministry of national planning, is well placed to make effective use of PDNA outputs.
A similar initiative was realized in Serbia following the floods in 2015 and associated with the completion of the PDNA. The Government initially created an Office for Assistance and Recovery of Flooded Areas, which was followed by the adoption of a special law to create procedures for reconstruction and recovery of the flooded areas. The law elaborated the responsibilities of the interim "Flood Office," and it became recognized officially as the Public Investment Management Office to manage the country's recovery and reconstruction projects and assistance allocations following natural disasters. However, the creation of a recovery authority is not the norm nor should it be required for less severe disasters.
Elsewhere, subsequent national elections or a dramatic change in government following a disaster has adversely affected the intended translation of PDNA outputs and recommendations into effective recovery outcomes. This occurred in Haiti, Myanmar, and Vanuatu. However, Vanuatu later drew on the PDNA analysis to upgrade some of its national disaster preparedness policies.
The positive experience with the relevance and improved data of an initial PDNA has led some countries to continue the use of the methodology for subsequent disasters. This was the case in Fiji which undertook its first PDNA in 2012 after cyclone Evan and later requested in 2016 a second PDNA after cyclone Winston. Fiji also extended the use of the 2016 PDNA data beyond immediate recovery planning when the government used the information to finalize a multiyear strategic national development plan that was being prepared when the disaster occurred.
In another country, a disappointing outcome from a previous PDNA adversely affected later efforts to conduct an assessment under different disaster conditions in the same country. In the latter case, there were locally disputed interpretations about the justification for the second assessment, and different institutions attributed mixed motivations to other partners including the Government. Wider political, economic, and organizational dynamics became dominant factors in a mutually disappointing effort.
Krupanj, effects of landslides and flooding . Photo from the Serbia Floods PDNA report, 2014 .
In most countries, benefits were realized from the PDNA process even if they may not have directly influenced systematic recovery activities. In Sri Lanka, both PDNA partners and the Government recognized that baseline data collection and public access to the information needed to be improved throughout the country, particularly at household and local administrative levels. A nationwide and multiyear data management program involving the WB, the UN, and government institutions is presently under way with the additional intention of expanding access to locally relevant national development data. It addresses both official government administration and development objectives on a continuous basis that extends beyond only disaster events. The PDNA output information also has been used by the WB to revise a long-term flood management program for the country that had reportedly been under prior development for projected implementation in 2018.
The correlation between PDNA reports and eventual recovery activities, as well as specifically designated resources mobilized or allocated through domestic budgetary procedures, requires further study and country-specific documentation. A reference to "building back better" during recovery in a national PDNA report, a government directive, or a policy statement is different from a documented budgetary line allocating funds for the reconstruction of seismic resistant schools. With recovery typically extending beyond single budgetary cycles in most countries, the potential for changed governments or altered policies either for more or less beneficial recovery practices highlight the need for the effectiveness of PDNAs to be judged from a longer perspective. Explicit monitoring and evaluation procedures should be instituted for the PDNA process for these reasons, which would provide an opportunity for governments to mold their PDNA strategy to the country's particular recovery procedures at the inception of the exercise.
These requirements illustrate the prior relevance and mutual reinforcing compatibilities of anticipating PDNAS and developing recovery framework initiatives in disaster-affected countries. While these programmatic considerations may promote a closer bond between post-disaster assessment of comprehensive needs and the resulting national recovery program, they also demonstrate longer term commitments by the tripartite institutions and government preparedness for disaster occurrence. For lasting benefits, caution is required if "greater efficiencies" (of disaster losses and recovery resource requirements) or "simplified streamlining" are to become the driving motivations alone for better PDNAs. More effective, resilient, and socially inclusive recovery informed by a comprehensive PDNA may well require more time, participation, and deliberation among the people primarily affected in the country. These consequential possibilities can only be suggested by this initial review of the selected cases that a later body of rigorous PDNA outcome evaluations should pursue.

Financial allocation for recovery
There is a common recognition among all participants that comprehensive and validated PDNA information is a contributing factor for mobilizing external resources for recovery. This view is shared by some commentators who also have emphasized the need for greater efficiency and streamlined assessment methods in order to hasten the availability of largely financial assessments for recovery. The PDNAs also serve beneficial services for governments by determining priority recovery requirements across multiple sectors and building related planning, national assessment, and data analysis capacities within countries.
Other factors, besides clear government objectives and strong direction, influence the mobilization and allocation of recovery resources. The comprehensive, timely, and validated information provided by PDNAs to many stakeholders is a necessary but not sufficient basis alone for obtaining them. The review indicated that PDNA outputs resulted in grants, loans, or other types of financial and technical assistance associated with principal institutional actors to advance government recovery strategies. The table in Annex 4 lists resources mobilized for reported recovery needs from selected PDNAs conducted between 2014 and 2016. The table illustrates that the recovery resources that are generated can be considerable, but they represent a modest percentage of total recovery needs.
Depending on a government's needs and recovery strategies, the PDNA outputs frequently are disseminated to solicit external resource commitments. This often occurs through donors' conferences following major national disasters, although the information also may be used more selectively to advance bilateral negotiations for extended recovery financing or technical assistance beyond initial emergency relief contributions. Donor conferences have been effective in mobilizing funding Findings of the Review 31 based on PDNA findings, as was the case for Nepal and the Balkans, or in cases of major needs such as in Haiti and Fiji among the countries reviewed.
The cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia provide a useful comparison to see the effectiveness of donor conferences and how they can exceed expectations for mobilizing pledges. Bosnia and Herzegovina received €809.2 million in pledges to address its 2014 recovery needs of €650 million. Serbia obtained €995.2 million in anticipated donor commitments against its estimated recovery needs of €830 million. 14 Following the EU-sponsored conference, the EU Solidarity Fund committed an additional €60.2 million to Serbia to support the recovery of uninsured public assets, including education and health facilities. It was provided as a post-completion financing tool under national procurement legislation. The EU Pre-Accession Instrument (IPA) financing instrument allocated a further €92 million to Serbia for continued reconstruction needs.
The Fiji government required the 2016 PDNA to be conducted rapidly and provided considerable staff and operational support to ensure that it was. The entire PDNA exercise and official adoption of the assessment report was completed within little more than a month in order to inform a donor's pledging conference. The strategy was calculated as the Government's appeal was presented to donors attending the World Humanitarian Summit held in Istanbul in May 2016. This timely arrangement succeeded in raising more than $150 million from nearly 20 countries and four international or intergovernmental organizations.
In cases of highly vulnerable and low capacity countries, institutional partners were able to mobilize substantial financial advantage. Despite occasions of difficult coordination, as occurred in Haiti during multiple delays caused by an electoral transition and duplicate assessments, the PDNA principals jointly organized a productive donor roundtable. It provided more than $340 million in new commitments for recovery financing particularly provided by the World Bank ($130 million), the European Union ($85 million) and the Inter-American Development Bank ($20 million) in sectors including agriculture, infrastructure, and transportation. Canada, the United States, Switzerland, France, Spain, Japan, Brazil, and Taiwan China also contributed to Haitian recovery projects. Although many pledges have been made over the past years, it is difficult today to measure if the commitments have been served, constituting yet another reason for developing a monitoring mechanism.
There are additional influences that support a Government's recovery needs and initiatives following a disaster; therefore, PDNAs are only one contributing mechanism. The timing required to finalize and circulate PDNA documents or other Photo from the Haiti Cyclone Matthew PDNA report, 2016 .
Findings of the Review 33 official procedural circumstances that delay the completion of a PDNA can impede the usefulness of the assessment methodology, at least for mobilizing capital resources. By contrast, and under different national circumstances, other countries that conducted post-disaster assessments provided most of their own recovery costs, since they made the choice of not requesting an international appeal from donors. The $128 million allocated for flood and landslide recovery in Sri Lanka in 2016 was sourced from the national budget, domestic insurance programs, and catastrophe or similar risk financing instruments. Ecuador financed almost a third of its estimated $3.4 billion recovery needs from contingent loans obtained from four international financial institutions, including the World Bank. The incumbent Government raised an additional $1 billion from a national "solidarity" tax for reconstruction purposes, and allocated almost $200 million more from the national budget. The Government of Serbia allocated €40.3 million for recovery in the housing sector and an additional €4.8 million for commercial recovery from its national budget.
The PDNA partner institutions routinely use PDNA data to expedite or authorize their organization's own contingent recovery or medium-term resilient development programs for the countries concerned. The EU or European Commission, UNDP, and/or the World Bank Group contributed technical or financial resources to address national recovery needs in nearly every country that conducted a PDNA. Comments of some institutional participants in PDNAs suggest that the success of the joint exercise should be determined by more than only material or financial returns. Other resulting motivational, institutional, or political advantages can provide opportunities for collaboration and new productive relationships, better policy decisions, or improved public awareness that benefit a resilient society.
These distinctions between national budgetary allocations for recovery and the different material, technical, or financial contributions provided through institutional agreements make it challenging to provide a complete record of all resources allocated following PDNAs. The PDNA partners should consider devising a reporting procedure by governments to enable some measures to evaluate the cumulative financial resources mobilized or allocated for recovery activities resulting from the PDNA assessments. about the implementation of PDNAs, including the systematic means of benefiting from countries' accumulated experiences. Governments' expected ownership of the national assessment process should be more widely utilized by institutional partners for the evolution of future PDNA system modifications or designs.
Time requirements for conducting PDNAs and disseminating outputs by governments remain uncertain variables in arranging timely and effective assessments and for contributing to beneficial outcomes. The timeliness and effectiveness of PDNAs depend on the often disrupted conditions under which assessments are carried out. Despite the use of an agreed framework and standard templates, implementation time can vary considerably under various country circumstances. Some operational limitations have altered original expectations for the most efficient assessment. During the initial planning for a PDNA, the government should determine the optimal schedule to complete an assessment in the prevailing country contexts. Directing officials need to equally ensure that stringent time constraints do not compromise opportunities for personal field evaluation of disaster impacts, and that the collection of data or dialogue required for public contributions about social and human development needs are possible, particularly in outlying areas or local communities.
The accountability to affected people and how their interests are served by PDNAs remain unclear in what is predominantly an institutional process directed by government officials. The PDNA Guidelines Volume A highlights the importance of disaster effects and impacts on the affected population, yet the necessary means and practices to involve affected communities and local population inputs into the assessment remain limited. Relevant issues are discussed and analyzed by specialists in analytical or theoretical terms, but direct participation by civil society interests and local community organizations, and the views of affected populations are poorly represented in many of the case examples.
Means to ensure greater inclusion of the most vulnerable, socially marginalized groups or people with special needs remain challenging in the PDNA process. More attention should be directed to expand localized and community engagement in such matters as livelihood issues, community infrastructure and facilities, and social safety mechanisms. Focus groups or other forms of public dialogue and participation in the assessment may be explored in culturally or socially relevant environments, ideally through existing community organizations or relationships established prior to the occurrence of the disaster.
Damages to railways . Photo from the Mozambique Damage Assessment report, 2015 .
There is limited evidence of private sector involvement in conducting PDNA activities in the case examples or from respondents. The subject is referred to rhetorically, except where the phrase "private sector" appears in PDNA reports to designate the ownership of assets lost or damaged by disaster effects, primarily related to productive sectors and privately managed health facilities. Otherwise, only two examples of private sector entities, (commercial chambers of commerce in Nepal and Sri Lanka), and two academic centers (in Sri Lanka) were officially acknowledged as contributing to the conduct of the five largest disaster PDNAs reviewed.

Conclusions
The PDNAs are highly valued and relevant, particularly for governments, main partners, international organizations, and donors. The timely mobilization of resources for national recovery is one obvious motivation; the demonstration of national leadership and expanding collaboration between disaster and development practitioners within a country is another. Building national capacities is a third and lasting benefit. The collaborative process will continue to be endorsed, supported, and utilized for its ability to provide value to international disaster and development communities as they create beneficial opportunities for resilient recovery in disaster-affected countries.
The PDNAs represent a valuable legacy for convening many contributors, who work across all productive and social sectors toward a common national purpose. Timely and mutually validated assessments elevate the role of recovery to stimulate productive endeavors and transcend disaster losses; they focus public attention on forward looking objectives of demonstrative and lasting value. The comprehensive assessment process recognizes and relates the interdependent roles of productive economic endeavors, inclusive social dynamics, and human development objectives that should strive to involve all segments of the population.
Government ownership and leadership in implementing PDNAs are critical for achieving the harmonized management and productive outputs of the exercise. By requesting a PDNA, a national government is obligated to establish its primary objectives that reflect local conditions, cultural and political contexts, and realistic needs to ensure a successful enterprise. The example set by the government demonstrates political confidence and invites opportunities for wider public participation and local community engagement to "build back better, together." Government efforts to foster clear communication among all parties associated with a PDNA and to encourage widespread public awareness about the activities are important success factors.
The sustainability and effectiveness of PDNAs will be determined by embedding their purpose and principles within a country's governance structures and wider national development objectives. As joint processes, they motivate growing interest and further commitments through participants' continuing involvement beyond singular crisis events. The scope and developed procedures of PDNAs need to be attentive to emerging disaster risks and preliminary national readiness for recovery prior to the occurrence of a disaster if their continuing relevance is to be sustained.
Governments consider multiple interests when requesting PDNAs depending on the needs of the country. Experience demonstrates that repeated association with PDNA activities enables a progressive refinement of national assessment and recovery initiatives, encouraging possibilities for customizing future activities. A commitment to continuity encourages beneficial intermediate activities, such as improving baseline information, creating local community focus groups, or forging local disaster assessment relationships with institutions measuring human development indicators. The return to a vital, confident, and productive society through anticipated recovery roles can produce lasting benefits throughout a society.
The institutional expertise and technical competencies provided by PDNA partners are an operational strength, but also represent future opportunities. Many respondents and particularly government participants value continuing opportunities for extended training initiatives and joint technical activities with PDNA partners after the conclusion of an assessment. Extended relationships contribute to building capacities, while also shaping PDNA features to conform to a country's specific needs, or to augment different skill sets required for implementing recovery strategies within individual technical fields. These cooperative measures will sustain PDNA interests, build national capacities, and encourage added government ownership of future, nationally defined PDNA initiatives.
PDNAs serve different interests among primary partners and participating organizations, multiplying potential benefits. Beyond reflecting a common rationale and purpose, the PDNA process is a catalyst for forging new professional opportunities and commitments across national sectors. The collaboration that drives the joint process cements relationships and multiplies the value of their combined contributions to resilient recovery and national development. Harmonious multiagency participation in PDNAs demonstrates confidence in national initiatives and invites further external support. The joint efforts promote wider domestic interests through the partners' various counterpart relationships in the country.
Representatives of PDNA partners sometimes identify with or favor only one feature of the overall PDNA process, minimizing the intended adherence to agreed operational guidelines and principles. A recognition of common purpose and balanced inputs can be encouraged at the beginning of a PDNA by a clear definition of its purpose, the distribution of responsibilities among participating parties, and mutually understood time frames by everyone involved. The government's ownership and leadership in implementing a PDNA is critical for ensuring the effective management and well-integrated contributions of all participants in a productive PDNA.
indicators would most beneficially be determined by the government's priority objectives for the assessment and reflect measures of achievement against recommended recovery needs by sector, resource mobilization, and national allocation after appropriate duration or budgetary cycles, depending on the extent of necessary recovery. The use of such monitoring and evaluation procedures can additionally serve to ensure the inclusion of progressive disaster risk management (DRM) and resilient recovery practices over an extended period. Moreover, a rigorous structured evaluation of intended outcomes could provide improved and mutual understanding of PDNA effectiveness in fulfilling its objectives.
Similar to other suggested templates used by PDNA procedures, standard formats or outlined documentation protocols will provide a basis for the accumulation and consolidation of data to record the effectiveness of the PDNA by its beneficial contributions to realizing the government's originally intended recovery parameters.
Abbreviated joint monitoring should be conducted about a year after the disaster by the principle partners and government. Support should be earmarked and budgeted for an evaluation of data utilization, resource mobilization, or commitments and recovery accomplishments by sectors and applicable sources after a longer duration suited to the fulfillment of definitive recovery.
It could be beneficial to solicit government views and those of other knowledgeable institutional collaborators about their experiences in implementing PDNAs and their use of resulting outputs.

The tripartite institutions and national governments should collaborate to develop strategies
for adapting the "next generation" of PDNA expectations to address a larger risk context with technical capabilities, human resources, and operational requirements.
Volume A of the PDNA Guidelines identifies 19 core principles that emphasize joint and collaborative national efforts to foster greater involvement of the society and the encouragement of public participation. These defining principles seek to enhance social inclusion and the promotion of human development. They also extend the PDNA process beyond only the institutional recovery policy to address capacity building and the crucial linkages between post-disaster recovery and resilient development of affected populations and the country as a whole.
Public risk contexts will be manifested in slow onset disaster conditions or progressive impacts identified with climate change. These can include conditions of food insecurity, altered weather patterns, irregular cropping systems, or other geophysical conditions that affect livelihoods. Unprecedented risks such as rising sea levels are threatening existing settlements and means of existence and will require distinctive assessment methodologies used over extended periods. The potential for PDNAs' developed experience in supporting future recovery planning and contingent resilient development decisions should explore integrating these risks into the current PDNA techniques.
Contemporary development concepts are embedded in PDNAs in such functions as measuring human development impacts, "building back better" for resilient communities, and employing greater awareness of conflict sensitivity throughout a society. There is a continuing need to realize these features in an assessment process that goes beyond advocacy. Partner institutions and governments need to refine and develop methodologies to address these social dimensions and human impacts that are crucial to both successful disaster recovery and resilient development. Additional considerations should be given to expand the scope of the PDNAs to address the impacts of climate change and its links to disaster risks and socioeconomic conditions of the country. Ideally, a resulting strategy should be designed and implemented with significant PDNA experienced country inputs from senior policy makers, public risk advocates, educators, public information media and telecom service providers, the private sector, and civil society organizations that can be motivated to identify with future PDNA interests and risk sensitive opportunities. 5. Invest in additional or innovative techniques for collecting and analyzing qualitative, household, or localized data and social impact indicators with greater community and civil society engagement.
Countries conducting PDNAs will need to assess the availability of existing databases and strengthen social data requirements. Government management and technical procedures will be required for this purpose, but the need also reflects opportunities for civil society participation and local community engagement. Gaps in baseline data or sequenced information of social or demographic changes in a country should guide institutional, technical, and national training and capacity development activities specific to country circumstances. Viable strategies that are technically sustained and managed for public use and easy accessibility should be integrated into needs assessments, while also reflecting development indicators that contribute to resilient recovery planning.
Countries should become less reliant on short-term institutional advisors or external technical consultants, while still being able to access previously identified or specialized institutional rosters when required. A technical assistance program supported through regional institutions or intergovernmental bodies, or a structured "apprentice" training activity within countries can be explored as a means to expand national government capacities for assessment and improve local level participation. Academic institutions and private sector enterprises are other untapped resources that can provide technical services to undertake national PDNA functions while progressively developing locally available professional resources.
6. The tripartite institutions should adopt agreed norms and broad criteria relating to natural disaster types and conditions, including their various scales or defining parameters before initiating either PDNAs or alternative forms of assessments for unique purposes.
The tripartite institutions should consider all government requests for PDNAs, but there needs to be a prior and consistently shared understanding among all participating institutions about what constitutes a disaster from a government's perspective, its related needs, and primary objectives. As PDNAs become more widely sought as beneficial opportunities, they need to be "fit for purpose," modifying or customizing to address a country's particular objectives. Existing practice has varied widely and the evaluation procedures employed have been very limited, unclear, or poorly communicated.
Justifiable criteria can provide better confidence in the intentions for joint collaboration and demonstrate a fully shared sense of common purpose among principal institutions and the government in conducting a PDNA. The increasing number of potential disasters that may be associated with climate change, food insecurity, uncontrolled public health epidemics, significant population displacements, or similarly uncertain circumstances requires better contingent clarity than presently exists. Other emergent disasters with ambiguous characteristics or an uncertain duration, such as a drought, should also be evaluated by previously agreed standards or measurable impacts before a PDNA is undertaken. 7. PDNAs should be flexible and need to be modified to suit a variety of disaster scales, but without sacrificing the integrity of the methodology.
Multiple suggestions were made by respondents for implementing parties to consider developing a partial or modular form(s) of PDNA methods that remain consistent with existing methodology, definition, and principles, but scaled for alternative use as required. There are various views about what elements are essential, supplemental, or of less relevance. Rather than only "efficiency," other jointly agreed standards or "thresholds" for different assessments should be considered. They should relate to disaster magnitudes, recovery requirements, countries' capacities, or national purposes and guide a collective process to design modular elements for variable PDNAs.
Assessments may be scaled or modified to address disaster impacts in limited areas of a country (e.g., droughts) or effects that impact distinctive environments or smaller isolated communities such as those in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) (e.g., for recurrent storms or localized flooding). Governments may be encouraged to shape PDNA applications for a country's geography, disaster profile, cultural conditions, or development priorities prior to the occurrence of a major disaster. 8. When feasible, conduct advanced or exploratory joint partner scoping missions with government planning and disaster officials prior to approving or undertaking a PDNA.
Advance preparedness for assessment and recovery planning provides a basis for the deliberate introduction of initial arrangements, relevant technical training, and multiagency advocacy for PDNA interests. Existing PDNA guidelines provide for a planning mission and consultations between partners and governments, but field observations suggest that neither of these conditions have been conducted routinely nor in a uniform or consistent manner. Initial arrangements often have been rushed or conducted by a specialist of a leading partner organization. The intense two-day orientation and procedural training at the beginning of PDNAs were frequently judged by respondents as being inadequate. Moreover, respondents found a discrepancy between the familiarity of the facilitators with the subject and the expectations of the national participants. The tripartite institutions have the responsibility to enhance capabilities and build future capacities by equipping national staff with necessary skills and technical knowledge understood by all.
The expected preliminary arrangements and initiating activities to conduct a PDNA may beneficially be expanded as an essential function of the process. They should be conducted in advance of immediate needs as a promotional and training function with government and wider national participation in order to emphasize published PDNA guidelines. This coincides with the lesson of all crucial disaster preparations: they should be anticipated and planned before they are required if the critical activities are to be effective and efficient when needed. At the time of initiating a PDNA, it is essential that the assessment's objectives, expected outcomes, partner responsibilities, directing procedures, and timelines are clearly communicated to all stakeholders.

Some preparatory work and prior establishment of implementation procedures to conduct a PDNA could be expedited in countries that have recurrent or annual natural disasters.
Organizational and procedural needs for PDNAs should be anticipated and pursued in advance as standard disaster preparedness measures. The same readiness could be undertaken by the tripartite institutions for expediting their responsiveness to PDNA requests by maintaining current rosters of available specialists, identifying supplemental regional technical resources, and conducting preparatory training for PDNAs in disaster-prone countries. While a series of country and regional training has been initiated, a common view was expressed that there was little prior familiarity with the concept, much less the procedures and expectations involved in countries beyond a few key ministerial offices in national capitals.
10. The tripartite institutions should be more transparent in either determining criteria for committing resources to conduct a PDNA, or otherwise being prepared to consider alternative forms of need assessments to address variable circumstances by requesting countries.
The prevalence of ambiguity about when to conduct a PDNA suggests that there is a need for the institutions to be more transparent in either determining criteria for committing resources to conduct a PDNA, or otherwise being prepared to consider alternative forms of need assessments to address variable circumstances by requesting countries. Despite the difficulties involved in modifying special approaches for countries with particular circumstances, such as SIDS or particularly "low-capacity" countries, there is a need for some commonly agreed a priori parameters or impact criteria to justify PDNA activities. This is a key policy matter that should be addressed through high-level dialogue among the tripartite institutions with some guidance adopted to avoid potentially ad hoc decisions for each "atypical" request. 11. Rigorous "risk analysis" or scoping should be undertaken by the tripartite institutions before commencing a joint exercise in a fluid or unsure political environment.
Influential political and economic features or national contexts beyond the control of principal actors can either encourage or impede a mutually beneficial assessment. It is important that these potentially defining forces be considered by the principals when evaluating a request for a PDNA. Contentious or troubled political environments or motivated economic considerations within a country can potentially affect a government's role or jeopardize an assessment's outcome.
12. Once the government has issued a PDNA request to the tripartite institutions, it has the responsibility to ensure that no duplicate assessments are being undertaken.

Introduction
In 2008, the European Union (EU), the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), and the World Bank (WB) signed a joint declaration to collaborate on enhancing coordination for recovery planning and harmonizing post-disaster needs assessments (PDNAs) and recovery frameworks to better support governments and affected populations. In line with the tripartite agreement, the members developed assessment methodologies for conducting PDNAs and Post-Conflict Needs Assessments (PCNAs).
Since the development of the PDNA methodology, over 40 assessments have been undertaken jointly by UN agencies, the European Union, and the World Bank. The use of the tool and the process for conducting the assessments has varied in different countries. Despite its frequent use in many countries, no systematic evaluation on the effectiveness of the PDNA process as a tool to assist national governments in assessing disasters and developing recovery plans has been undertaken.
On 24 November 2015, in a EU/World Bank joint steering committee, a review of the PDNA process was proposed. It was noted that such a PDNA review could complement the recent PCNA review, and that quick lessons learnt exercises from recent PDNAs such as Nepal, Malawi, and Vanuatu would support the endeavor.

Objectives
The PDNA review should be done by a team of two consultants under the guidance of the European Union, the World Bank's Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery, and the UNDG partners. UNDP will contract one consultant and World Bank will contract the other consultant. The consultants are expected to work as a team with similar deliverables. Objectives of the PDNA review would be:

1.
To assess the relevance, impact, effectiveness, sustainability, and value of the PDNA as a mechanism and tool to support national governments in developing practical and useful post-disaster recovery plans; and 2. Based on the above mentioned assessment, to propose recommendations for the improvement of the PDNA methodology and its implementation with an objective to better respond to the needs of the clients.

Scope of work/duties and responsibilities
In order to achieve those two objectives, the two consultants should review PDNAs conducted in the last three years in order to: 1. Assess the quality of coordination among partners (UN agencies, EU, and the World Bank);

2.
Assess flexibility and timeliness of partners' response to national government needs;