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Joint Needs Assessment (JNA) / Coordinated Needs Assessment

What is it?

A collaborative multi-agency approach to capturing emergency needs assessment data. A questionnaire and analysis approach enables rapid assessment data to be shared on-line within 72 hours of an emergency.

Why is it useful?

More accurate data and less duplication of effort should result in better, faster assessments and INGO response programs.

Duplication of assessments is a persistent problem in the humanitarian sector, identified frequently by evaluations as an important constraint on the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian response. To tackle this challenge, the ECB Project is working with the ACAPs project to train staff on data capture and analysis that can inform strategic decision-making. The learning is being shared widely with networks including the and the UN Needs Assessment task Force (NATF).

What happens in reality?

Communities affected by emergencies are often on the receiving end of assessment visits by many separate agencies, providing information to needs assessments that by no means guarantee that those needs will be met. This is both a waste of scarce resources and a source of resentment within communities. The current approach falls short of the primary goal of assessing needs: ensuring that the right assistance reaches the right people at the right time.

In the early stages of an emergency, responsibility for collecting data and acting on it lies with field staff in the affected country. The ECB's approach is therefore focussed on the crucial step of consensus building around data standards and operating procedures, as well training on how to interpret this data and use it to inform decision-making.

After several years of working together on the ECB project, critical trust and mutual understanding has evolved between ECB partners in Indonesia. Over the past year or more Coordinated Needs Assessments pilot programs have developed in Bangladesh (water-logging), Niger (drought) and Bolivia (landslides). A short case study summarizes the learning in Indonesia. Workshops during the ECB inter-active learning conferences also summarized this learning. Contact us to find out more.

Joint Initial Rapid Assessment Tool Template

The first assessment template was developed in Indonesia by a team of accountability experts. The team identified a core set of assessment fields that were common to all agencies and useful across a range of sectors – including critical issues such as shelter, sanitation and food security. The questionnaire captures a summary of the priority sector-specific needs after 72 hours rather than longer term programming requirements.

This first template Joint Initial Rapid Assessment tool template was tested in Indonesia during several disasters in West Sumatra and West Papua (2009), and in the Merapi volcano eruptions and the Mentawi tsunami responses (2010). Bolivia also tested the template during flooding in Trinidad – comparing this questionnaire with other government tools.

Working with ACAPs, ECB Project teams continue to develop the assessment data fields and the skills of national staff to lead further coordinated assessments. In addition, Secondary Data Reviews are being developed with ECB Project support. These data reviews provide key information required about a country context, including trends related to the emergency situation e.g. climatic conditions and pastoralist community activity. See the Horn of Africa and Niger secondary data and assessment samples.

Harnessing technology for assessments

The JNA data dashboard is an online technology platform designed specifically to enable easy entry, storage and retrieval of assessment data. The aim is to develop a platform that is robust enough to operate reliably under challenging field conditions and when there is poor connectivity. When fully operational, the data dashboard will be open access and therefore available in ‘real time’ to anyone with an internet connection via a web interface. Critically, the next step in skills development will focus on improving national staff capacity to analyse the data and use this to inform senior-level program decision-making.

Sector Partners & Support?

Though still at the pilot stage, this coordinated approach, working with ACAPs technical experts, is supported by UN and government stakeholders in Indonesia and Bangldesh. In Indonesia, recent meetings in 2012 reviewed the different tools and teams available (MIRA, RAT), and how best to make these work in the Indonesia context working with the national government (BNBP). Testing and refinement of the tool will continue in all five ECB consortia.

In ECB Phase II we also plan to introduce the methodology in other disaster vulnerable countries, and work closely with UNOCHA to develop our shared learning. Secondary data reviews are being supported by ECB agency staff in countries including Mali and Syria.

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