Humanitarian Needs Assessment: The Good Enough Guide

What assistance do disaster-affected communities need? This book guides humanitarian field staff in answering this vital question during the early days and weeks following a disaster, when timely and competent assessment is crucial for enabling informed decision making. Needs assessment is essential for programme planning, monitoring and evaluation. In an emergency response, however, a quick and simple approach to needs assessment may be the only practical possibility - in other words, it needs to be 'good enough'. This guide does not explain every activity needed to carry out an assessment, but it describes the assessment process, and provides a step-by-step guide through the process. It also contains a number of tools and resources that may be helpful when planning or carrying out humanitarian needs assessments. This guide is essential reading for field staff carrying out assessments after a humanitarian crisis; it should also be read by humanitarian policy makers, students, lecturers and researchers.

Table of Contents:
Prelims [Acknowledgements |Preface: Why and how to use Humanitarian Needs| Assessment - the Good Enough Guide 1. What is needs assessment? Needs assessment Decision-making A disaster-affected community Good enough Basic principles of needs assessment 2. Steps to a 'good enough' needs assessment Step 1 Preparing for an assessment Step 2 Designing your assessment Step 3 Implementing your assessment Step 4 Analysing your data Step 5 Sharing your findings 3. Tools Tool 1 How do I prepare my organization for an assessment? Tool 2 How do I develop an assessment plan? Tool 3 What skills and characteristics do my assessment team/working group need? Tool 4 How do I train my assessment team? Tool 5 How can I give disaster-affected communities a voice? Tool 6 How do I collect secondary data? Tool 7 How do I collect primary data? Tool 8 How do I select affected sites and vulnerable groups? Tool 9 How do I organize a field visit? Tool 10 What support does my assessment team need? Tool 11 What equipment does my assessment team need? Tool 12 What technology should I use? Tool 13 How can I ensure a high-quality assessment? Tool 14 How should I share my assessment findings? Tool 15 What should I put in my assessment report? Back Matter [Resources |Key resources| Standards and guidance|Initiatives |Glossary |For your notes]

About the Author :
ACAPS support and strengthen humanitarian capacities to carry out better coordinated assessments before, during and after crises. Through development and provision of innovative tools, know-how, training and deployment of assessment specialists, the project aims to contribute towards a change in the humanitarian system's current practice with respect to needs assessments.

Review :
"When crisis, strife and misery is at its worst we need to know what is needed to start saving lives and help people help themselves. Based on the advice of so many who have lived through these worst of circumstances we now have this guideline for those who need it the most: field-based staff and national responders. They are the first to respond in their own communities and this guideline will enable them to provide the critical information needed to inform the wider humanitarian community."--Jan Egeland, Secretary General "Humanitarian Needs Assessments -The Good Enough Guide is a very welcome addition to the needs assessment support literature that is available, and gives humanitarian practitioners a step-by-step tool with clear and practical recommendations to help them carry out assessments in the field."--Claus Sørensen, Director-General, Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection