session 3.4 emergency needs assessment

Emergency Needs Assessment

• There has been a flood in the Kathmandu valley in Nepal.

• Aid workers have arrived to distribute relief to the cyclone-affected families in the valley.

• A single family relief kit consists of a bucket, a mug, tarpaulin sheet, some bamboo poles & pegs.

• International observers are also on the scene to report the activities to the UN, the media, and the Government of Nepal.

Group Activity

Few questions on the same…• Did you consult the affected population, before

starting the aid distribution?• Did you assess their capacities?• Did you prioritize their needs?• How did you ensure that the aid is being given

to the most needy… or most vulnerable?• Did the Aid Workers possess appropriate

technical qualifications, attitude & experience to carry out an assessment?

Did you use any Core Standards?

• Participation• Initial

Assessment• Response• Targeting• Aid Worker

Competencies & Responsibilities

To someone with a hammer in his hands, every

problem looks like a nail.

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• Ninth Outline LevelClick to edit Master text styles

– Second level• Third level

– Fourth level

» Fifth level

What is Assessment?

• A continuous process of understanding the risks faced by the disaster affected communities and the resources they have to tackle the same.

Discuss (in groups): What do you understand by post disaster needs assessment? Time: 3 minutes

Why to assess? It helps in understanding

the status of affected people and define their immediate needs

Allows information gathering for analysis

Assists in determining whether there is an emergency

Provides a basis for emergency response, programme planning and implementation

An Emergency Situation…

• “is any situation where there is an exceptional and widespread threat to life, health or basic subsistence which is beyond the coping capacity of individuals and the community.”

Oxfam definition of a Humanitarian Emergency










– Fourth level

» Fifth level

An Emergency Situation…• Follows from a disaster, and

– Puts large number of lives at risk– Demands immediate action– Calls for exceptional measures

What to assess?

• Is it an emergency or not?• What type of emergency is it?• Which groups are affected? • Who needs help? • Which groups are worst affected?• What is their situation now?• What resources do they have?• What resources do they need? • How soon?

No. of lives saved

Trade-off between Speed and Accuracy

Time

Accuracy



Level Fourth

Outline Level− Fifth

Outline Level





– Second level

• Third level

– Fourth level

» Fifth level

Assessments should…• Provide a demographic

profile of the people affected.

• Determine their immediate priorities.

• Identify the vulnerabilities and coping capacities



Level Fourth


Outline Level





– Second level

• Third level

– Fourth level

» Fifth level

Assessments should…• Answer the question: what

is the main problem?• Provide sufficient

information to enable decisions

• Be an interagency, multi-sectoral initiative

• Be carried out quickly



Level Fourth


Outline Level





– Second level

• Third level

– Fourth level

» Fifth level

Assessments should…

• Provide a comprehensive picture of the scope of emergency rather than a blinkered sector specific detail…

• “Half details of the whole picture are better than whole details of half the picture”










– Fourth level

» Fifth level

Assessments should…

Use agreed upon and appropriate Standards

Use samples rather than generating too much data that could not be analyzed

Assessments would be useless, if they…• do not generate recommendations for

immediate action• do not indicate the resources needed for

immediate action• are not able to ‘trigger’ effective response• are not shared

BiasOrganisational

mandate or speciality

Biased Report

Agency Resources

Real Needs

Reducing Bias

Monitoring: continuous assessment

Continued monitoring helps in learning, identifying new problems & applying midcourse corrections

General criteria for good assessment practice• Timeliness – providing information and analysis in

time to inform key decisions about response

• Relevance – providing the information and analysis most relevant to those decisions

• Coverage – adequate to the scale of the problem

• Continuity – providing relevant information throughout the course of a crisis

• Validity – using methods that can be expected to lead to sound conclusions

• Transparency – being explicit about the assumptions made, methods used and information relied on to reach conclusions, and limits of accuracy of the data relied on.

• Now let us see what Sphere has to say about needs assessments.

session 3.4 emergency needs assessment

Health & Medicine