So you’ve read our blog on common needs assessments and our blog on joint evaluations. Like any coordinated multi-agency activity, joint evaluations and joint needs assessments provide an opportunity for agencies to work together, to avoid duplication of efforts, to share perspectives and to build trust for future cooperation.
Duplication of assessments is a persistent problem in the humanitarian sector, identified frequently by evaluations as an important constraint on the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian response. Communities affected by emergencies are often on the receiving end of assessment visits by many separate agencies, providing information about their needs that by no means guarantees that those needs will be met. Both a waste of scarce resources and a source of resentment, the current approach falls short of the primary goal of assessing needs: ensuring that the right assistance reaches the right people at the right time. Because agencies try to avoid duplication, a joint needs assessment can lead to a faster assessment and therefore a faster response.
Two useful ECB tools:
- Joint Initial Rapid Assessment Data Collection Tool
The ECB consortium in Indonesia developed a rapid Joint Needs Assessment (JNA) methodology
and tool (also available in Bahasa Indonesian) in consultation with the Government of Indonesia and the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Country Team. This methodology includes pre-agreements between actors to deploy a common approach, a standard data collection template, and a database for the management and analysis of data. The Joint Initial Rapid Assessment tool is designed to improve information exchange among Consortium members in the first 72 hours following a disaster. UNOCHA currently recommends that the tool be used as a model for the development of an Integrated Needs Assessment tool for Indonesia.
The joint initial rapid assessment data collection tool is similar to a survey and asks for information on a core set of assessment fields that are common to all agencies and useful across a range of sectors. The tool asks for information on the location of the area being assessed, the demographics of the population, health conditions of the people, issues of child protection, and access to shelter, non-food items, water and sanitation facilities, health services, food and education.
The six primary ECB agencies and several partner agencies used the Joint Initial Rapid Assessment tool template to respond to the earthquakes that struck Indonesia in 2009. Data was collected into one excel spreadsheet. This data was then incorporated into an OCHA report on all the assessments in the affected area. Click here to learn more about their active engagement at the field level in Indonesia.
The JNA tool has also been used in Bolivia and Bangladesh in 2011 after flooding, and the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) and ECB conducted a JNA in Niger in March 2012.
- Shared Assessment online tool
The ECB team has also developed a simple online platform designed specifically to enable easy entry, storage and retrieval of assessment data. It is robust enough to operate reliably even under challenging field conditions and poor connectivity. Since it is online, it will allow agencies to share and exchange data in real-time.
This prototype tool enables users to:
- Enter data either offline or online
- Complete immediate, local analysis of data
- Use a system of data validation
- Generate pre-formatted, aggregated reports
- Export data for additional, user-specific analysis
Though still in the pilot stage, the ECB Shared Assessment tool has been enthusiastically received by stakeholders in Indonesia, including the UN Country Team and the government. Testing and refinement of the tool will continue in Indonesia. The online tool is not accessible to the public yet (so no link is provided), but be on the lookout for more information as the tool goes public!
AIM Standing Team 