Formative evaluation of the Global Health Cluster: Report

Overview

Growing humanitarian needs and increasingly complex emergencies require effective coordination mechanisms to ensure timely, equitable and high-quality health responses. This report presents a formative evaluation of the Global Health Cluster (GHC), assessing its performance, relevance and added value as the World Health Organization’s Cluster Lead Agency for health coordination in humanitarian settings.

The evaluation examines the GHC’s contribution at global, regional and country levels over the period 2014–2025, with particular focus on recent years, and serves both accountability and organizational learning purposes. Using a theory-based and utilization-focused approach, it draws on document review, stakeholder interviews, surveys and case studies to assess performance against criteria including relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and connectedness. The report analyses the implementation of strategic priorities and core cluster functions, including coordination, information management, intersectoral collaboration and support to country-level health clusters. Findings highlight the GHC’s critical role in strengthening coordinated health responses under resource constraints, while identifying challenges related to funding limitations, monitoring and evaluation, strategic coherence and integration with national systems. The report provides recommendations to inform future strategy and adaptation to evolving humanitarian contexts.