Distribution by Region

Distribution by Organisation Type, Document Type, Region and Year

Needs assessment occurs mostly in documents published in Europe, followed by North America, Asia, MENA and Africa with comparatively smaller contributions. Overall, the top five contributors in terms of occurrences are NGO, IGO, RC, Net, and C/B organisations.

NGO documents provide the greatest number of occurrences, primarily from activity reports published in Asia. Occurrences from IGO and Net were mostly obtained from activity reports published in North America.

RC documents mostly generated occurrences in activity reports published in Europe. Occurrences from C/B were mostly found in general documents published in Europe.

Needs assessment ...

• is a/an

  • process for determining needs, especially those of populations affected by crisis

  • information product

  • activity

  • essential service

  • analysis

  • prerequisite (for training)

  • tool (for leveraging financing)

• is part of

  • the humanitarian programme/response cycle (the beginning)

  • assistance

  • disaster preparedness work

• has actors / participants

  • organisations

  • populations

• can be coordinated

  • joint

  • inter-agency

  • multi-cluster/-sector

• can be participatory

  • with collaboration from affected populations

• can be standardised with common assessments

• have geographic scopes

  • global, national

• can take place on-site/in the field

• is used in many areas

  • post-disaster

  • training

  • health

  • capacity

  • protection

  • post-conflict

• has varying depths of focus

  • rapid

  • initial

  • comprehensive

  • ongoing

• has objectives / results

  • identify, understand needs

  • determine activities

  • influence funding

  • build capacity

  • increase efficiency, effectiveness

• includes elements

  • studies

  • task forces

  • surveys

  • tools

  • frameworks

  • indicators, indexes

    • Global Needs Assessment Index

• can be equivalent to

  • damage and needs assessment

  • damage, loss, and needs assessment

  • needs analysis

  • baseline survey

• should be

  • impartial

  • independent

  • comparable

  • credible

  • accurate

• should improve

  • especially with joint efforts and standardisation

• has time & resource challenges

  • being delayed

  • access

  • teams lacking diversity, balance

  • knowledge management

  • proper training

• has quality & efficiency challenges

  • balancing scope, speed, complexity

  • data gaps

  • privacy

  • comparability

  • ad hoc methods

  • anecdotal evidence

• has participation challenges

  • inclusion of local populations

  • survey fatigue

  • local mistrust

  • follow-up, feedback

• has coordination challenges

  • sharing data publicly

  • lack of trust, competition

  • duplication, harmonisation

  • varying methodologies

  • impartiality

• has systemic & approach challenges

  • prioritising institutions over affected people

  • lack of monitoring

  • sectoral approaches

  • appeal inflation

  • politicisation

  • the CAP process

  • funding, donor concerns

  • combination with other processes

• has utilisation and end result challenges

  • link between assessment quality & funding, decision-making

  • lack of progress

  • fixation on assessments

  • assessments being ignored

• has debates

  • the value, extent of joint/common approaches

  • potential winners and losers of collaboration

  • one-size-fits all risks

  • the notion of "need" in humanitarian work, vs. "potential" & "dependency"

  • becoming distracted by needs assessment debates

Rapid Needs Assessments

In a humanitarian context, a needs assessment is a systematic process for determining the needs of populations affected by crisis. The purpose is to: Provide an estimate of the scale and severity of a crisis; Assess how the crisis is evolving and if there is risk of a worsening situation; Identify the affected and therefore target population of an emergency response; Identify the type of needs (by sector), scale and urgency/priority of needs of the affected population; Consider appropriate means of assistance delivery. Single-agency or separate assessment(s) can be considered by CHF members in the first 72 hours in the aftermath of a rapid onset disaster.

• humanitarian programme cycle

  • planning, financing, and monitoring and evaluation

• information product

  • situation reports, flash updates, press releases, funding appeals

• assistance

  • support, implementing activities, review of legislation and policies, advisory, training

• activity

  • awareness-raising; provision of technical content to seminars, workshops and conferences; and development of technical materials and training

  • research, recommendations, defining knowledge management and learning tools

• disaster preparedness work

  • planning, training

• prerequisite for training

• essential service

  • monitoring, disaster response

• analysis

  • feasibility studies, management reviews

• tool for leveraging financing

• beginning of project cycle

• programming cycle

  • planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation

• process

  • of response cycle

  • for determining needs

  • humanitarian process

    • data collection

• actors / participants

  • joint

  • coordinated

  • participatory

  • community

  • own

  • inter-agency

  • ICRC

  • multi-cluster

  • cluster

• feature

  • common

  • impartial

  • special

  • comparable

  • independent

• geographic scope

  • global

  • national

• location

  • field

  • on-site

• quality

  • improved

  • better

  • credible

  • effective

  • proper

  • accurate

• sector

  • multi-sector(al)

  • sectoral

• area

  • post-disaster

  • disaster

  • training

  • humanitarian

  • health

  • capacity

  • recovery

  • education

  • monitoring

  • psychosocial

  • protection

  • family-links

  • learning

  • post-conflict

  • information

  • damage

  • reconstruction

  • resources

  • drought

• depth

  • rapid

  • initial

  • emergency

  • comprehensive

  • detailed

  • preliminary

  • ongoing

  • systematic

  • thorough

Following severe floods in Nigeria in November 2012, GFDRR and the World Bank supported a post-disaster needs assessment that, in turn, is being used as the foundation of a $500 million IDA project on disaster risk and regional water use.

Poor information management means that comprehensive needs assessments and gap analysis are lacking, and monitoring and evaluation are inadequate to support strengthened accountability and evidence-based management. 2. Carry out joint needs assessments. An example of such a joint needs assessment is the Post Nargis Joint Assessment (PON ON JA) in Myanmar, which was led by the Tripartite Core Group (comprising the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the UN and the Myanmar government), with technical support from humanitarian and development agencies.

As an overarching priority for improving needs assessments, ACAPS recommended that actors work towards a more coordinated approach to humanitarian needs assessments and promote better information-sharing, building on existing coordination platforms in CAR such as the clusters and the Comité de Coordination des ONG Internationales (CCO).

Another interesting needs' assessment was conducted in late 2015 in the Central African Republic, where Action Against Hunger was a partner of the Rapid Response Mechanism3 coordinated by UNICEF. When conducting a rapid needs assessment as part of this mechanism, enough information must be provided to the humanitarian community in a short period of time after a shock has occurred. One of the keys to success has been the ability to use simple and standardized assessment forms across sectors of intervention and partner organisations. This approach allowed for the humanitarian community to be timely informed of local basic needs for the emergency response planning.

In the year 2006, Sungi gradually shifted its focus from relief operations towards rehabilitation work. In this regard, as a first step, several detailed damage needs assessments were carried in select areas affected by earthquake 2005. These assessments covered various aspects of the disaster affects on livelihood, education, water & sanitation, households' damages etc.

In Yemen, a gender specialist participated in a post-conflict needs assessment that resulted in a new national roadmap with special provisions for women's health, employment and education.

• identify, understand needs

• document conditions, practices

• offer perspective from populations

• supply data for project design

• determine activities

• guide planning

• influence funding

• find gaps in humanitarian action

• add credibility to responses

• capacity building

• increase efficiency, effectiveness

They also facilitated joint multi-agency needs assessment missions in flood-affected areas to identify gaps and new humanitarian priorities, such as the need for logistics and communication in South Omo zone.

As a result of the needs assessments missions, many centres received grants and the IRCT acquired two new members, one in Chad and one in Liberia.

Credible needs assessments are essential to improve the effectiveness and accuracy of aid delivery to beneficiaries and of accountability to stakeholders.

The Mission completed a needs assessment study into the economic infrastructure in the zone of conflict and adjacent areas and subsequently launched a large OSCE-led international Economic Rehabilitation Programme .

In supporting efforts for quality needs assessments GHD donors have closely followed the work of the IASC Needs Assessment Task Force (NATF) over the year, attending workshops, stakeholder meetings and regular NATF meetings .

The project is thus divided into 3 phases that include a Needs Assessment Survey (NAS) of 3 months , followed by two batches of 4-month courses of MCH training .

The needs assessment system consists of eight areas: communication skills, social skills, family life, recreation activities, community life, practical subjects, health care, working personality. The system enables the organization to understand the status and demand of its students in a comprehensive way and thus allows customized services for the need of each student.

DFID increased its share of un-earmarked humanitarian financing and more countries used the UN Needs Assessment Methodology, but the financing for and quality of UN appeals continues to be off-target.

Regarding access criteria, the GHD Needs Assessment Framework used for the preparation of the CAP and the CHAP in Burundi does not explicitly address financial obstacles to access, though it does mention other access problems, such as social and cultural hindrances.

As a result, the Task Force on Needs Assessment has produced a guidance package with a set of key indicators for assessments; a web-based toolbox that consolidates more than 100 needs assessment tools and guidance documents to facilitate easy access for practitioners at the field level; and a multisectoral tool that consolidates core humanitarian information for humanitarian country teams in a consistent and accessible manner, referred to as the "humanitarian dashboard".

Water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion initial needs assessment checklist This list of questions is primarily for use to assess needs, identify indigenous resources and describe local conditions. It does not include questions to deter- mine external resources needed in addition to those immediately and locally available.

1 General

How many people are affected and where are they? Disaggregate the data as far as possible by sex, age, disability, etc.

What are people’s likely movements? What are the security factors for the affected population and for potential relief responses?

The need to engage women in Damage and Need Assessments, Hazard Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments (HVCA), Humanitarian Aid assessment and distribution , planning and decision making process recognised as a necessary condition for gender sensitive DRR outcomes .

After a series of hurricanes in 2008 , the experience with a Post Disaster Damage and Needs Assessment (PDNA) created a unique opportunity to mainstream a disaster risk management agenda into national , sectoral , and local development strategies and programs .

The knowledge and learning team of GFDRR developed new resources such as the Damage, Loss and Needs Assessment (DaLA) Guidance Notes, translated these guidance notes into Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish, and systemized and consolidated training materials and publicly available self-paced online DaLA courses for high risk countries .

GLOBAL NEEDS ASSESSMENT (GNA) INDEX Moving beyond a simple headcount of disaster affected people, the EU has developed a comparable index of 139 crisis and vulnerable- affected states that aggregates data from a wide range of sources with indicators spanning development, poverty, natural and man-made disasters, population displacement, under-nourishment, mortality rates and levels of donor funding. This GNA index identifies the most vulnerable countries, which are most likely to be worst affected by disasters and then assesses the extent to which these countries are affected by crises and humanitarian needs remain unmet. These combined indices, plus a further ‘Forgotten Crises Assessment’ inform ECHO’s funding prioritisation.

The GNA is based on a robust set of indices of vulnerability and crisis but it has its own limitations if we use it to try and understand whether funding is proportionate to need [....] The GNA, whilst providing a set of affected countries based on a comprehensive use of indicators, is not designed to supply an accurate picture of the number of people affected, the scale of a country’s needs, or the severity of those needs.

The chart below represents the distribution of needs assessment between 2005 and 2019 in terms of the number of occurrences and relative frequency of occurrences. It also allows you to view the distribution across Regions, Organisations and Document types.

• time & resources

  • delaying assessments due to pressure to act first

  • access

• violence, insecurity

• • lack of resources

  • logistical, operational constraints

  • assessment teams

    • gender imbalance

    • multidisciplinary groups

  • knowledge/information management

  • reliance on digital technology, electricity

  • taking advantage of new technology

  • proper training, manuals

• quality & efficiency

  • balancing scope, speed, complexity

  • narrow focus

  • quality, accuracy

    • including regional disparities

  • data gaps

    • missing populations (women, elderly, indirectly affected)

    • gender blindness

    • population diversity, range of circumstances

    • disaggregation

  • privacy, sensitive information

  • comparability

  • ad hoc, anecdotal

  • not comprehensive

  • poor contextual analysis

• local participation

  • inclusion of local populations

  • survey fatigue

  • follow-up, feedback

  • local mistrust

• joint & shared efforts

  • sharing data, information platforms, public domain

  • lack of trust

  • competition

  • disconnected

  • needless duplication

  • lack of commonly accepted methodologies

  • not taking advantage of outside resources

  • overreliance on other organisations

  • openness, transparency

  • impartial assessments

  • credibility

  • lack of coordination, harmonisation

  • roles by donor type

• approaches & systemic issues

  • prioritising affected people, not institutions

  • lack of systematic monitoring for assessments

  • sectoral approach

  • intersectoral analysis model

  • appeal inflation

  • politicisation

  • CAP process, requirements

  • donor concerns, roles

  • funding

  • according to type of disasters, organisations involved

  • combination with other assessments/processes

    • capacity, skills assessments

    • CRA, pre-disaster, post-disaster damage

    • triangulating various data sources

  • UN role with improving assessments

• utilisation & end results

  • reliance on media instead of assessments

  • how assessment quality impacts funds distribution

  • lack of progress

  • uncoordinated

  • fixation too much on assessments

  • agencies ignoring assessments

  • disconnect between assessments and decision-making

To meet the programming needs of individual humanitarian agencies, the majority of needs assessments continue to be undertaken in ways that are ad hoc and uncoordinated across sectors (ACAPS, 2013a). Complicating matters further, the numbers may carry political weight, with pressure from various actors and agendas to come up with the ‘right’ estimates. Some global reports have consolidated need numbers in opaque and inconsistent ways, adding to the confusion. The lack of solid data on people in need remains a major obstacle to understanding the success or failure of a humanitarian response. Without being able to measure the proportion of people who needed aid who actually received it, coverage rates cannot be estimated. Errors or confusion in this regard can harm the credibility of appeals; donor governments have been known to complain about ‘appeal inflation’, suspecting that agencies, knowing they were unlikely to get 100 per cent of what they were requesting, were overstating the requirements, hoping to maximise their returns.

Needs assessment remains a key weakness within the system, as successive ALNAP and other independent evaluations and reviews have identified (Cosgrave and Herson 2008; UN Secretary-General 2009b; Vaux 2006). However, evidence from this review points to progress in both quality and quantity of assessments, and in the development of new tools and methodologies to improve their usefulness [....] However, nearly a third of respondents indicated that no joint needs assessment had taken place in their setting, and 10% said that the needs assessment was of poor quality (i.e. it did not result in an accurate reflection or prioritisation of needs).

Although there are examples of large, sector-wide and relatively comprehensive needs assessments on a country or crisis basis (especially in support of recovery, like the postdisaster needs assessment (PDNA)), the motivation for the overwhelming majority of assessments conducted is to gather information to plan and fundraise for specific humanitarian programming interventions - not to build a comprehensive comparable picture of all humanitarian needs.

Overall, needs assessment emerged in the study as an area that EU donors are challenged by, but where they are not necessarily making as much practical progress as would be desirable. There is consensus that better needs assessment is required, and some donors see the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Needs Assessment Framework and Matrix as a step in the right direction, but few specific initiatives are in evidence. In particular, donors could do more to support the principle of impartiality by funding the development of needs assessment methodologies, and looking at ways to fund independent needs assessments for specific crises. They could also do more to develop clear criteria for allocating resources according to need. In addition, while beneficiary involvement is widely cited as a priority, few donors have examined existing tools or developed new approaches to ensure that this occurs.

The humanitarian reform agenda recognises the need for evidence-based decision-making in emergencies. However, current approaches to humanitarian needs assessment often do not provide a sufficiently coherent picture of humanitarian requirements and, therefore, are unable to effectively inform decisions. Multiple, independent, uncoordinated assessments often represent significant duplication of time, effort and funds, provide a fragmented picture of need and risk neglecting certain beneficiary groups and leaving gaps in information. These efforts may not meet commonly promoted humanitarian standards of accountability to vulnerable groups affected by crises. For all these reasons, coordinated needs assessments are increasingly seen as crucial for the more efficient use of resources, to obtain a more comprehensive picture of needs and to promote a shared understanding of needs and priorities, laying a good foundation for a wellcoordinated response. However, conducting coordinated needs assessments is not an easy process, and convincing partners of the added value of such an approach is a key challenge. Diverse mandates and sector-specific approaches make it difficult for agencies to allocate the time, staff and resources required to participate in a coordinated exercise.

But participation remains contentious in needs-assessment practice. Often organizations simply consult people to extract information rather than truly engage them in the assessment process and its conclusions. Once assessed, affected people are rarely informed of the results, which can have a negative impact since they may rely on assistance that doesn’t come. Also damaging are repeated assessments by different organizations of the same population, particularly if they receive no assistance or explanation. One solution could be joint assessments. These have advantages beyond reducing ‘assessment fatigue’, such as removing agency bias and improving the consistency of results through a pre-agreed methodology. Joint assessments may also improve coordination in plan- ning and implementing projects, as well as enabling staff and logistical resources to be shared during the assessment. They can be organized along sectoral or geographical lines. However, such collaboration is only feasible if organizations share common values and operational principles and if they use the same, or compatible, assessment methodologies. Collaboration won’t work if assessments are mandate-specific or if organizations’ principles are not compatible. Some organizations won’t risk losing their neutrality and independence by conducting joint assessments with actors perceived as prejudiced or politically tainted. And joint assessments can lead to a ‘false consensus’ where dissenting voices are diluted, a point made by Darcy and Hofmann in their 2003 study on measuring needs. Nevertheless, if collaboration is not feasible it is still essential to know who else is making assessments and where. The debate on needs assessment has progressed well, with the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative, the revised Sphere hand- book, the UN’s consolidated appeals process and the International Federation’s forthcoming Guidelines for emergency assessment all committed to improving the theory and practice of assessments.

Essentially, IASC member organisations had previously agreed an approach that, whilst aspiring to a single methodology, recognises that there will be a need to ensure the methodology is appropriate for the specific context, and that a joint needs assessment is not always possible or appropriate (see for example IASC, 2012). In respect of the latter, some INGOs highlighted fears that joint needs assessments may silence dissenting voices and force them into a single narrative.

After much discussion in the NATF and in the IASC, it seems that there is finally the recognition that needs assessments should be shared and better coordinated instead of seeking the elusive "common" needs assessments for all. Perhaps more worryingly in 2009, the push to have a humanitarian dashboard took up considerable time and debate. The idea of the dashboard was to put information about a humanitarian situation on one page that would have pictorial representations with dials, similar to those on a car's dashboard. While the one page would have underlying layers with more information, the risk of a one page document is that decision-makers would not look at the supporting information. By reducing humanitarian needs and response to quantitative data, as the original dashboard was doing, the protection side of humanitarian response was getting lost. In addition, despite many suggestions made by NGOs and UN agencies to improve the dashboard, it took until 2010 for those concerns to be taken on board. Fortunately, many of the suggestions are finally being taken on board in the renamed "SHARE" (Strategic Humanitarian Assessment and Response Exercise).

We believe there is much to be gained by all humanitarian organisations from agreeing to conduct joint needs assessments. This has been carried out in northern Syria and during the Nepal earthquake. Reducing the number of duplicate assessments reduces the number of times the same affected people have to repeat their needs to different surveyors. A common needs assessment would increase donors’ trust in the figures provided to them, figures which are used for making critical funding decisions. Organisations should move from individual to joint needs assessments, pooling existing expertise and openly share needs assessment data and analysis.

Lead donors have focused on technical improvements, such as needs assessment, thereby avoiding some of the difficult larger questions, such as whether the funding available is in proportion to need. The lack of a common needs assessment format is cited as an impediment to decision-making, but on the other hand the humanitarian priorities in DRC are generally well known. While improvements in effectiveness, efficiency and accountability can still be made, the time and energy it takes to gather comprehensive up-to-date information in a constantly changing situation should be measured against whether enough information for decision-making already exists. Are we debating the size of the bandage while the patient is losing blood?

On this topic, Makonen Getu argues that there needs to be a shift from needs assessment to a focus on potentials. He argues that such an approach would frame internal factors as primary and external factors as complimentary.5 Africa is not a homogenous territory. Its nations, ethnic and cultural groups represent diverse and unique histories, which should be factored into each project design and the configuration of technical support.

'Need' too is a disputed idea: anyone who has done a needs assessment will know that 'need' is hard to use in a practical way. In itself, need or dependency are not on/off or single-level, but vary in both intensity and over time. This article suggests a new terminology and a new framework. It seeks to add to the discussion on dependency by borrowing a concept from a field unrelated to humanitarianism, namely 'dispersed dependencies', an idea formulated by the psychologist George Kelly.1 In 2005, Paul Harvey and Jeremy Lind put the case that 'the focus should be, not how to avoid dependency, but how to provide ... assistance so that those who most need it understand what they are entitled to, and can rely on it as part of their own efforts to survive and recover from crisis'.2

The MNCH conducted a baseline survey at the beginning of the year after the initial assessment was conducted in 2012, which, among other things, will allow them to pinpoint the extent of the problems on which it intervenes, as well as enable them measure progress over time.

During Phase I, a baseline survey was used to clarify the needs of the agricultural and fishing community, as well as the development potential of pelagic fish resources and aquaculture.

Some ongoing programs at branch level are: Sewing classes and First Aid training Disaster preparedness for Members Provision of identification cards for the volunteers DANA (Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis) training facilitated by HQ's DM Focal Point.

They also rely on parallel reforms within the humanitarian system such as the development of a consistent needs analysis (formerly assessment) framework (NAF), which will be applied in around three-quarters of countries that are the subject of a UN consolidated appeal in 2006, and the establishment of the cluster approach in 2005 to improve sectoral coordination.