WHAT IS NEEDS ASSESSMENT?

This chapter looks at what a needs assessment is, and provides you with some basic principles of assessments.

Keywords: needs assessment, decision-making, disaster, coordination, principles

Needs assessment

Needs assessment is how organizations identify and measure the humanitarian needs of a disaster-affected community. Simply put, needs assessment is the best way to answer the question: 'What assistance do disaster-affected communities need?'

Needs assessments use various methods to collect and analyse information. These enable the organization to make good decisions about how to allocate resources and gather more resources to meet the needs of the disaster-affected community.

Decision-making

Organizations need to make decisions as they work out how to allocate their resources to meet their goals. The main goal of humanitarian organizations is to support disaster-affected communities. Decision-making happens at every level in an organization, for various reasons.

In emergencies, needs assessments make good decision-making possible. They do this by putting information together to build up a full picture of the needs of the disaster-affected community. Needs assessments provide the evidence that helps senior decision-makers in the field (such as project managers and country directors) to make good decisions.

A disaster-affected community

In this guide, 'disaster-affected communities' and/ or 'disaster-affected individuals' refer to all members of a community that has been affected by a natural disaster or complex emergency. It includes everyone in the community regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, HIV and AIDS status, religion, sexual orientation, social standing, or how much the disaster affects them.

Good enough

In this guide, being 'good enough' means choosing a simple solution rather than a complicated one. 'Good enough' does not mean second best. In an emergency response, a quick and simple approach to needs assessment may be the only practical possibility. When the situation changes, review your approach and change it to deal with the current situation.

Basic principles of needs assessment

Make the scope of the assessment reflect the size and nature of the crisis

• Do not overextend the assessment, especially in the early phases. Make it wide enough to indicate the full situation but narrow enough to be manageable.

• Consider all technical sectors: water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH), food security, health, shelter, protection, and so on.

• Consider the operating environment: environmental, social, economic, and security factors.

• Set baselines for measuring the impact of the disaster.

• When you set these baselines, note any chronic needs that existed before the disaster.

Produce timely and relevant analysis

• Do the first assessment as soon as possible after the disaster.

• Before you do the assessment, identify the specific decisions it must help with.

• Review existing data before you decide whether to collect new data.

• Check data against other sources.

• Present the minimum data needed to make the specific decisions you have identified.

• Distribute the findings and analysis quickly to support decision-making and further assessments.

Collect usable data

• Disaggregate your data to a level that will enable decision-makers to understand the different effects of the disaster on different groups.

• Disaggregate on a geographical basis, cross-check population figures against as many sources as possible, and disaggregate those figures by sex and age.

Use valid and transparent methods

• Use standardized data collection techniques and procedures for analysing data.

• Standardized procedures should lead to accurate data and sound conclusions, but always check your findings against other assessments and similar data from a variety of sources.

• Make your methodology public, including any assumptions you rely on in your analysis, limitations on the accuracy of your data, and the sources you have used. This lets others judge the quality of the data.

Be accountable

• Make sure disaster-affected communities are involved in planning, implementing, and judging the response.

• To do this you must set up processes that give communities and individuals a voice in the assessment.

Coordinate with others and share findings

• Talk with other organizations doing assessments.

• Make sure other stakeholders know that you are doing an assessment.

• Participate in coordinated needs assessments where possible – i.e. if there is a coordinated assessment that your organization is able to be part of, and if the focus of that assessment suits your organization's aims and activities.

Make sure you can get enough resources

You may need to form and train an assessment team and support them with logistics, transport, communications, accommodation, and so on. You need your organization to fully support the assessment (Tool 1).

Assess local capacities

• Consider how the local and national authorities and other groups are responding.

• Identify capacities and strategies the disaster-affected community and surrounding population are using to cope with the disaster.

• In particular, you must consider gender, age and specific vulnerabilities (such as disability). Your methods, analysis and selection of team members must take into account the different needs, vulnerabilities, capacities and perspectives of women and men, boys and girls.

Manage community expectations

• Avoid building unrealistic expectations in disaster-affected communities of what your assessment will lead to.

• Manage the expectations of other stakeholders, including local authorities and assessment partners.

• Avoid creating assessment fatigue in disaster-affected communities. Multiple visits without visible outcomes create assessment fatigue and unrealistic expectations.

• Be sensitive to cultural norms, individual privacy and the potential psychological impact of your assessment.

Remember that assessment is not just a one-off event

• Continue assessment throughout the emergency.

• Collect data in increasing detail.

• Refine the assessment and update your findings as the situation changes.

STEPS TO A GOOD ENOUGH NEEDS...