Background

For several years, it has broadly been agreed by the humanitarian community and donors alike that the insufficient coordination of humanitarian needs assessment practices has weakened evidence based decision making and effective humanitarian response. The need for better coordination of needs assessment practices, raised by the Humanitarian Response Review and the Tsunami Evaluation Report, was discussed at the IASC Working Group’s 68th meeting in June 2007. To ensure clear leadership and identify the best way forward, the IASC Working Group stressed OCHA’s role in facilitating the development of an agreed framework for needs assessments, and requested OCHA to (i) undertake a mapping of existing initiatives and (ii) establish synergies among these initiatives.

At the 72nd IASC Working Group meeting in November 2008, OCHA presented the results of its initial mapping, which identified following areas of concern: (i) Lack of essential minimum information needed at the early on-set of a crisis; (ii) Overlap in a significant percentage of the data to be collected through the various initiatives, which could be more efficiently collected through multi-sectoral needs assessment tool(s), (iii) Need for a core set of indicators that would be collected more consistently to improve comparability in measuring needs; (iv) Need for better sharing of lessons learned and best practices on needs assessments, including on their design among agencies; and (v) Importance of contingency planning and pre-crisis information as basis for assessment. The mapping report was subsequently submitted for comments and finalised in February 2009 (‘Mapping of Key Emergency and Needs Assessment and Analysis Initiatives’).

The IASC Taskforce on Needs Assessment

In March 2009, humanitarian stakeholders, including NGOs, Cluster representatives, UN agencies, other international organizations, and donors, met in Geneva to discuss how best to improve the coordination of cross-sector needs assessment in a collaborative and consultative manner. Based on these discussions, it was decided to establish the inter-organisation Needs Assessment Group (NAG).

From March to May 2009, the NAG convened on six occasions to discuss key challenges within the area of needs assessment and to identify the overall objective and activities to be undertaken in support of regional and country level initiatives.

The Terms of Reference were circulated to the IASC Working Group on 22 May 2009 for endorsement by non-objection, and after incorporation of minor comments were finalized by the NAG on 29 June (‘Terms of Reference for the IASC Task Force on Needs Assessment’).

At the 74th IASC Working Group meeting in July 2009, the now former NAG was officially endorsed as an IASC Needs Assessment Task Force (NATF).

»Objective

The purpose of the NATF is to harmonise and promote cross-sector needs assessment initiatives for consistent, reliable and timely data on humanitarian needs in sudden-onset crises to strengthen informed decision making and improve humanitarian response.

»Composition and Membership

The Task Force is co-chaired by IFRC and OCHA, with OCHA providing the Secretariat function.

Members include NGOs, UN agencies, other international organisations, and cluster/sector representatives. Experts and donors (academia) are invited as observers to provide technical input.

»Problem Statement

The NATF has identified that while there are many examples of good needs assessment practice, there is in general a lack of sufficiently coordinated, timely, credible and comparable cross-sector needs assessments and related capacities. These factors hinder informed cross-sectoral humanitarian decision making and reduce the effectiveness of the humanitarian response, with potentially negative consequences for vulnerable populations.

IASC Task Force Work Plan and Expected Outcomes

The Task Force has established a first work plan to implement in an initial set of concrete measures to improve the credibility, consensus and timeliness of multi-sectoral needs assessment

1. Operational guidance on leading and coordinating needs assessment
2. Strengthened needs assessment capacity, including (i) incorporation of needs assessment in preparedness planning, (ii) establishment of a needs assessment roster and (iii) needs assessment training
3. Enhanced information and data management, including development of a needs assessment website
4. Effective management of the NATF, including resource mobilisation and establishment of synergies with relevant initiatives

»Guiding Principle

The work of the Task Force is guided by a few key tenets:

• the Task Force will initially focus on the preparedness phase (Phase 0) and the first 72 hours (Phase I) and the first two weeks (Phase II) after the onset of a crisis
• all activities will be based on already existing guidance, tools and methodologies developed by NGOs, clusters and agencies
• synergies will be established with relevant working groups and activities to avoid overlap and benefit from mutual support
• all activities undertaken by the Task Force will consider the needs of vulnerable groups, including children, elderly and disabled, and address cross-cutting issues such as gender, HIV and age