1. IN SUDDEN ONSET CONTEXTS
ASSESSMENT & ANALYSIS
IN SUDDEN ONSET CONTEXTS

2. What is specific to sudden-onset
or different from protracted crises…

3. What is specific to sudden-onset
or different from protracted crises:
Extreme timelines (earthquake window of survival)
Extremely dynamic
Delay in having capacity on the ground
Rotations
Government lead
Level of preparedness determining

4. DECISION SUPPORT
1 STEP IN YOUR STRATEGY – think about your internal set-up
2. coordination and harmonization of assessments, sharing of findings + data,
3. UNDAC data collection: Dir Obs, MIRA,

5. DECISION SUPPORT Surge decision Type of teams
Initial funding allocation
Priority areas
Priority groups
Blanket delivery
1 STEP IN YOUR STRATEGY – think about your internal set-up
2. coordination and harmonization of assessments, sharing of findings + data,
3. UNDAC data collection: Dir Obs, MIRA,

6. DECISION SUPPORT Strategic Programmatic Operational KEY OUTPUTS less
Strategic response planning, policies, goal settings, common situation overview, resource mobilisation
Government leaders
Humanitarian coordinators/ Resident coordinators
Humanitarian country teams
Policy-makers
Donors
Cluster lead agencies
NGOs (Regional/Country directors)
Strategic
Programmatic
Operational
Situation Analysis
(MIRA1)
Flash Appeal
Revised FA
MIRA2
(2nd+1ry data)
CERF
FocusedSituation Analyses
Programme planning, delivery methods, targeting and conditionality, etc.
National/local authorities
Cluster coordinators
Cluster member organisations
Inter Cluster Coordination Mechanism/OCHA
NGOs (Programme managers)
Structure, details, frequency
Decision support: Gov / HC / HCT
Programmatic + Operational Coordination: USAR / Clusters / Agencies / NGOs / EMT / other bilateral responders
Appeals / funding requests: Support building of evidence base for Flash Appeal, CERF etc
Situational awareness: Develop shared understanding of the situation:
Most urgent humanitarian problems
Most affected areas
Most affected groups
Decisions are normally made at three distinct decision-making levels, and it is important to know what information is needed at each level.
Strategic decision-makers do not need to know the details, but rather a summarised analysis, with key priorities and recommendations that will inform the direction of the response. They are concerned initially with the immediate needs for response and resource mobilisation (including the profile that the disaster event/emergency gets) and quickly become concerned with long-term planning and strategies, overall objectives, and strategic priorities. Their decisions have a large impact on the humanitarian community and cannot be reversed easily.
At the programmatic level (also called the tactical level), decision-makers are largely concerned with a higher level of detail and processes. They plan for large programmes, decide on allocation of resources, control budgets, and set sectoral policies. At this level, decisions will be made about the size of programmes: the time frame of the project cycle required to address needs, the number of beneficiaries, and geographic coverage. They will know it is likely that not all people in need and geographic regions will be covered and so they will be looking at what criteria can be used to inform targeting, including pre-existing vulnerabilities. Decisions taken at this level are used to form medium-term goals, which form stages in the accomplishment of strategic objectives.
A project manager on-site will be involved in operational decision-making and will have less use for just overarching information, but will need more detailed and specific data to make the necessary decisions at a more local level. As the project manager deals with short-term planning and day-to-day monitoring of activities, the primary interest is in detailed, more frequently updated, information. It is at this level that beneficiary selection processes may take place from a very early stage in a crisis, especially if development projects were ongoing and have an in-built buffer to deal with shocks. Therefore, household-level information is interesting to these decision-makers. Even if it is not representative, there is often a high degree of homogeneity across the area and knowing how households are impacted can help inform the micro-decisions of locally based organisations.
UNDAC
Situation Reports
Project implementation, local partnerships, monitoring, training, etc.
Project managers
Team leaders
Project staff
Functional specialists
more

7. DECISION SUPPORT KEY QUESTIONS OVER TIME ?
How ‘big’ is the disaster
What is being delivered
Coping strategies
Most affected areas
Who is delivering
Evolving needs
Which areas have been reached
Risks
#people affected
Beneficiary feedback
Most vulnerable
Who has received assistance
Recovery needs
#people in need of humanitarian assistance
Inaccessible areas
Recovery interventions
Most urgent initial needs
Geographic gaps
Population gaps
What type of assistance
Information gaps
BIG PICTURE
How do we get to the most affected areas
GRANULAR
PICTURE
TIME

8. ASSESSMENT & ANALYSIS STRATEGY
Internal coordination set-up (A&A cell)
External Coordination (AWG)
Data collection + analysis plan
1 STEP IN YOUR STRATEGY – think about your internal set-up
2. coordination and harmonization of assessments, sharing of findings + data,
3. UNDAC data collection: Dir Obs, MIRA,

9. 1. INTERNAL SET-UP RC / HC OCHA OSOCC FUNCTIONS Management IM Mapping
REMOTE SUPPORT
Joint Analysis Initiative
Coordinated Data Scramble
RC / HC
OCHA
OSOCC FUNCTIONS
Management IM Mapping
Civ-Mil Media EMT Cell
Hubs RDC USAR Cell

10. UN 2. EXTERNAL COORDINATION R-Cross GOV NGO
Civ
Soc
Private
Sector
Assessment contexts are typically crowded, dynamic and chaotic
Assessments are advocacy opportunities (“look here I am the first to help these poor people – pls fund us”)
Partners have different information needs (Gov want to estimate the cost of the impact, donors want to make their money be most effectively invested, operational partners need to plan and execute aid deliveries and programmes, )
Everything needs to move quick
More actors conducting remote analysis
Interconnectedness etc
Main actors: REACH, ACAPS, WFP,
NGO
R-Cross

11. 2. EXTERNAL COORDINATION: AWG
Assessment Working Group
Call for your assessment coordination meeting early
Main objectives of the meeting:
Explain your function
Find out who is doing what
Agree on information sharing
Decide on joint tools as required (identify if multi-sectoral assessment already exists)

12. 3. DATA COLLECTION + ANALYSIS PLAN

13. 3. PLAN: ANALYTICAL FOCUS
What, WHO and Where should be the main focus of the MIRA (and of our analysis focus during the first few days).
Analyses need always to be goal driven, so it can focus on answering the right question, at the right time, and for the right people.
Usual key questions in rapid humanitarian assessments/analysis are: what are the priorities? What are the most important problems, creating the most disruption or endangering the most the affected population? Subsequently, which group is the most in need and where interventions should focus first?
When conducting analysis, always keep in mind and refer to those research questions in order not to deviate from your objectives and waste time looking for or analyzing data that does not contribute directly to these answers.
WHERE?
Priority areas
WHO?
Priority groups
WHAT?
Priority sectors

14. 3. PLAN: TYPICAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Scope and scale of crisis
Most affected areas
Most affected population groups
Most acute problems / sectors
Underlying factors + drivers
Vulnerabilities and risks
Operational Constraints

15. FIRST PHASE ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK
Area
#affected
#displaced
Health
WASH
Shelter
Food
Logistics
Overall
District A
District B
District C
It is not important what model you use, but that you use one. In the first phase of a sudden onset emergency however, a simpler version may be more efficient to use. Variations of this model have been used on several occasions and proved successful.
This model can be replicated on a whiteboard or similar where you should summarise information in the various cells. This will quickly show you where the most affected population are, what sectorial needs exits, and what geographical areas are mostly impacted. It will also show you where you have gaps, where you need to go to find more information and what to look for once you’re there.
Please note that the model is generic and should be adapted to the situation and context. Models are useful to think with, but if not customised properly they could easily make you miss important information.

16. This is an example from a SIMEX in Korea in 2017 where this was used in one of the OSOCCs

17. ASSESSMENT SCENARIO Scenario Description Opportunities + challenges A
Emergency-wide joint assessment
(MIRA)
Initial multi-sectoral rapid assessment under the leadership of the RC/HC and agreed with cluster leads.
Level of preparedness
Buy-in vs speed
Expectations vs limitations
Timeliness of results B
Targeted MIRA + assessment coordination
A MIRA is conducted in areas with clear information gaps while coordination of sectoral assessment and secondary data analysis in ongoing
Assessment proliferation
Informing response continuously
More granular assessment C
No joint assessment instead focus on coordination+ harmonisation
Emphasis on secondary data analysis as well as assessment coordination and harmonisation
Dependence on data sharing willing + timeliness
Adherence to harmonised approach

18. COMPROMISES Speed vs. buy-in Speed vs. depth Experts vs. generalists
Independence vs supporting Gov + partners
Other vs …..