1. Encouraging a more
coordinated approach to
needs assessments
through the JNA
Alex, Wahed & Sandie
29 February, 2012
www.ecbproject.org
2. OBJECTIVES
•Identify value of coordinated assessment
approach
•Outline rationale for the global ideas on advancing
coordinated assessments
•Qualitative and quantitative aspects of
assessment
•Overview of ECB/NGO CNA lessons learned
•Introduction to Assessment Working Group
initiative
•Sources of more information
3. SCENARIO
• Cyclone and tidal surge hit SW
Bangladesh yesterday
•Reports of substantial damage and
major flooding
•Some reports of fatalities
•At least 3 districts (pop. 6,543,210
people) hit
4. Encouraging a more
coordinated approach to
needs assessments
through the JNA
Alex, Wahed & Sandie
29 February, 2012
www.ecbproject.org
6. The problem
Lack of
timely,
Pressure credible
on Information
humanitaria
n actors to
respond
Pressure
on Donors
to allocate
funds
Poorly Informed Decision Making
10. Online research Phone someone in the
field
Find out what
happened last
time
11. 1 2 3 4
Disaster
Disaster First 3 First 2 Second 2
Onwards
days weeks weeks
Qualitative Quantitative
Rice Rice Rice
m₂
12. “If you don’t know where
you’re going, any road will
get you there.”
The Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland
13. Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
formation Information Information Information Information Information Informa
Information Information Information Information Information Information Information
25. “The Bangladesh report is really super. Look at
how far we've come in a year from the Pakistan
flood report! Summary good, graphics clear,
methods not hard to understand, you have it all.
Kudos.”
Richard Garfield
Professor, Columbia University
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36. REFLECTIONS
• What are the benefits of a coordinated approach?
• What are the limitations?
•What is needed to make it work?
•What should we consider as we move this forward?
•Any Questions?
37. MORE INFORMATION...
www.ecbproject.org
www.acaps.org
Assessment Working Group
swe@acaps.org
Dha.hom@solidarites-bangladesh.org
Alex@bd.care.org
Editor's Notes
WAHED: Helloeveryone,My name is AbdulWahed, I am the Emergency Response and Preparedness Coordinator for CARE Bangladesh; in ECB Bangladesh CARE has been the ECB agency leading the work we have done on post disaster needs assessments….what ECB calls JNA.I would like to introduce my colleagues to you, Alex Maclean from CARE and Sandie Walton-Ellery from ACAPS.ALEX: In 2011 ECB provided the perfect platform to initiate the work on coordinated assessments that is ongoing in Bangladesh… as we got started it was quickly clear that the broader the participation, the stronger the work and the greater its impact in support of communities affected by disasters. The ECB work on JNA quickly became a broad based collaborative effort from many organizations….so, right at the start of this presentation I would like to acknowledge the many non-ECB member agencies who have contributed to this work as well as our ECB partners.SANDIE: ACAPS has as its sole focus improving capacity for assessments that are multi-sector and inter-agency.ACAPS supports to work of ECB to this goal in all of the countries where ECB is working.
WAHED: Helloeveryone,My name is AbdulWahed, I am the Emergency Response and Preparedness Coordinator for CARE Bangladesh; in ECB Bangladesh CARE has been the ECB agency leading the work we have done on post disaster needs assessments….what ECB calls JNA.I would like to introduce my colleagues to you, Alex Maclean from CARE and Sandie Walton-Ellery from ACAPS.ALEX: In 2011 ECB provided the perfect platform to initiate the work on coordinated assessments that is ongoing in Bangladesh… as we got started it was quickly clear that the broader the participation, the stronger the work and the greater its impact in support of communities affected by disasters. The ECB work on JNA quickly became a broad based collaborative effort from many organizations….so, right at the start of this presentation I would like to acknowledge the many non-ECB member agencies who have contributed to this work as well as our ECB partners.SANDIE: ACAPS has as its sole focus improving capacity for assessments that are multi-sector and inter-agency.ACAPS supports to work of ECB to this goal in all of the countries where ECB is working.
SANDIE: for some people assessments are often seen in technical terms… about sampling frame, questionnaires, new mobile technology, something called multi-variate analysis…..To others, assessments are about telling often tragic narrative stories about the impact of a disaster on individuals….WAHED: We all agree that what we do after a disaster, our interventions, our responses, what we distribute… should be based on needs…Understanding those needs is what assessments are all about - assessments are at the heart of the humanitarian agenda.ALEX: Knowing that our work should be based on evidence, that we should give voice to affected populations and give them an opportunity to tell us their priorities….is what better assessments is all about.We know that we, collectively as the humanitarian community, don’t do this as well as we could.SANDIE: We need to find the right balance between rigorous assessments and the narrative stories of a few individuals…the balance that is right for the initial days and weeks after a disaster.
SANDIE: This is the problem assessments are trying to solve….The lack of good quality information combined with pressure for humanitarian actors to respond quickly results in poorly informed decision making.This has been identified as one of the major obstacles to providing high quality responses to people affected by disasters.
ALEX: Ultimately this is what we hope for…that better assessments will result in better aid…more appropriate, more timely, more effective ways of addressing the needs of people affected by disasters….Of course we have no guarantees that a better assessment will result in better aid….assessments are not a silver bullet to solve all our humanitarian response issues….WAHED: A good assessment does not guarantee a good response, but we can be pretty sure that a bad assessment will result in a bad response.
SANDIE: So, based on the work of recent years; What do we know now about doing good quality assessments in the initial days and weeks after a disaster?…and how have we applied this in Bangladesh?
WAHED:Sometimes we forget to ask ourselves this one, key, important question.What are the DECISIONS that need to be made NOW?If the information we are collecting doesn’t relate to decisions that will help people….why are we collecting it?
SANDIE: one of the things that we know is that in terms of information after a disaster, we don’t start from zero.In most countries, particularly one like Bangladesh, the first information we will want about the impact of a disaster will be the information we already should know…pre-crisis information.information such as baseline population figures, demographic breakdown, and other information about people living in affected areas combined with secondary information from the media, ngos working in the field, weather reports and satellite information can tell us a lot about the impact of a disaster….
ALEX: …over time the balance of information shifts to more primary data we collect ourselves and this becomes more detailed and more sector specific.But in the first days and weeks, the information we collect from the field is qualitative; it is about how people have been affected.At this time the important information about the numbers of people affected will be based on secondary data sources; local government estimates and approximations of the population based on the known extent of the disaster and the vulnerability of the people living in affected areas….it will not be about counting people in individual sites.
SANDIE:Just like Alice, when she was down the rabbit hole, asking for directions when she didn’t know where she wanted to go, we could potentially collect a whole lot of information that will not be of much use to us unless we are very clear on what we need to know.
ALEX: In fact this is what we often do; collect a mountain of information we do not analyse…this is one of the key lessons learned globally on assessments in recent years……the problem is often not that there is not enough information available….rather it is the opposite, that there is so much information available and we just don’t know what to do with it.WAHED: Knowing exactly what we need to know will help us avoid this information trap….
WAHED: Often we are tempted to rush straight to the affected areas, sending as many people as we can spare to as many sites as we can to “assess”….…We won’t get all of the information we need to understand the impact of a disaster from running to the field and talking to the affected people….
ALEX:A big part of the information we need is Pre-crisis information… there are advantages to collecting this information in advance, especially if we know which areas are vulnerable to disasters….some of this pre-crisis data will be online, some will be stored with local authorities, some will be the key lessons learned by our own programs and partners about what worked and what didn’t work last time…and how the post disaster situation unfolded.WAHED: The point is, we should know a lot before we even step foot in the land-cruiser, helicopter, sea plane or boat!
SANIE:When we do run out to the field, we have a tendency to try to get to as many places as we can and fill up as many long and detailed assessment forms as we can….
ALEX: Actually, we now know that even if we try and cover “lots” of sites…our sampling will not be representative….we will learn as much from covering 30-50 well chosen sites….sites that cover the different groups that have been affected by the disaster and the different kind of locations that have been affected…….and this will mean we have a volume of data that is manageable in a short time frame and the kind of information to tell us the key things we need to know about how people have been impacted.This is exactly what we did in Bangladesh…limited our number of sites to about 50 and selected them based on key characteristics…People living on embankmentsIn collective centersIn damaged housesMarooned in their own housesAnd those in houses physically not affected
SANDIE: We need to keep remembering there is not a prize for the most information! Many long narrative, descriptive reports can’t be analyzed within the initial day of a disaster.
WAHED: What we actually want is information that can be usefully summarized and put into a format that people can easily understand so that they can see an overview of the situation.
SANDIE:So when we analyze, we compare…Between regions (different parts of the affected area)Between sectors (which things are the most urgent? Which will become a priority soon?)Between different groups (e.g. people who remain in their houses and people who have been displaced from their homes, minorities, elderly…)Over time (how are things evolving)And we relate it to what we knew about the situation before the disaster.
ALEX: We can break analysis down into 3 steps:We first need to summarize the information we have and relate it to the overall population size…are we talking 10% of the population affected or 50% of the population….in Bangladesh it is useful to see things in proportions as well as absolute numbers (because the numbers are so large!)SANDIE:The next step is to compare that information in terms of groups of people ( minorities, livelihood groups, displaced and non-displaced…)In terms of locations within the affected areaAnd in terms of sectors…wash, food, health, shelter…ALEX: the last part of analysis is interpretation….working out what all this means…This is when we need to identify what is important and why
WAHED: The JNA carried out last year after the water logging is an example of learning by doing…we were not well prepared…but we saw the need to understand the situation better and the opportunity to learn what our weaknesses and our strengths were in this area.
WAHED: There was a clear methodologyThat included quantitative as well as qualitative information That is both pre-crisis information and community level assessmentFrom the day we began training the field teams until the day the report was shared was 15days in total (hold up the report)There was joint analysis across sectors and with multiple agencies. 20 different agencies participated in the assessment.
ALEX: There have been lessons learned…We know our assessment work is not perfect…We need a better way to trigger an assessment (challenging in the Bangladesh disaster environment where disasters are often creeping and unclear in their initial impact)we need to work on being more clear about our information needs, i.e. our questionnaire (and how this links to decisions)We need to have a quick format for providing a 72 hour reportAnd a more detailed report that follows after about 2-3 weeksWe need to focus on training and capacity buildingWe need to improve our cross sector analysis
SANDIE: But at the same time,we are pretty proud of what we achieved….not just because of it as a “one off” assessment…but more importantly because it highlighted what could be done…we used it to learn lessons, we shared those lessons and we were able to follow the first assessment up with a recovery assessment some months later.…we believe this has got stakeholders in Bangladesh again talking about improving joint assessment capacity…we want to broaden the base of agencies involved, including the UN and the government…and work in support of the developing humanitarian coordination structures in Bangladesh
SANDIE: Collectively we are working on better ways to understand shelter needs, water needs, hygiene needs, sanitation needs, food needs, nutrition needs, health needs in the early days of a disaster.
WAHED: A way of understanding these needs in terms of the elderly,
WAHED: of boys
WAHED: girls
WAHED: The very young
WAHED: Men, families
WAHED: women
WAHED: The very vulnerable
ALEX: What began with a conversation within ECB has resulted in a broad range of organizations committed to moving the agenda of better initial multi-sector, multi-agency assessments forward in Bangladesh.We have a way forward…we have formed an assessment working group through which we are mapping out a specific plan of engagement on assessments for the coming 12 months.
ALEX: Ultimately, the collective aim (of ECB and the agencies that have been interested and actively involved in assessments so far) is for a coordinated approach to assessments to cover the humanitarian community in Bangladesh….so that UN, government, donors and us (the NGOs) have a joint platform to share information, plans, best practice on assessments…to reduce duplication, to use our resources better…to capitalize on each others strengthsTo stop reinventing the wheelTo reduce the assessment fatigue of beneficiaries To speak collectively on the impact of disastersAnd ultimately to respond better and faster to disasters in Bangladesh so that the lives of those affected return to normal and continue to develop as quickly as possible.
