Workstream 5 (Improve joint and impartial needs assessments): Capacity building for joint needs analysis and further development of Joint Intersectoral Analysis Framework - March 2020 update
Capacity Building for Joint Needs Analysis
Workstream 5 identified ensuring the availability of predictable, timely and appropriate human and financial resources for coordinated needs assessment and analysis as being of critical importance to advancing the quality of coordinated needs assessments and joint needs analysis. To this end, ACAPS, in collaboration with partners, and OCHA have developed complementary needs analysis training programmes.
This year, the ACAPS Humanitarian Analysis Programme (HAP) welcomed 19 participants from 12 organisations. Its vision is to create a network of highly skilled humanitarian analysts who can act as catalysts for change to drive a more robust and consistent approach to analysis within their own agency and the sector in general. This will lead to better communication and analysis between agencies and an increase in the quality of joint analysis used for coordination and strategic planning. More precisely, the programme begins with an intensive two-week face-to-face training in Geneva that includes foundational advanced analysis techniques and strategies for building analytical capacity within organizations. A subsequent six months of distance learning aims to ensure learning is sustained through structured practical and theoretical assignments to strengthen analytical skills and knowledge, tailored content and mentoring support.
OCHA hosted its Coordinated Assessment and Information Management (CAIM) training in Berlin in February 2020, co-facilitated by IFRC. The CAIM is an intermediate-level training programme of online activities coupled with face-to-face training for humanitarian actors. The CAIM training is continuously evolving and focusing on translating guidance, tools, field practices, innovative concepts and practical solutions to implement needs assessment life cycle. This intense training simulates practical application of Coordinated Needs Assessment life cycle and basic analysis by bringing coordination and information profiles in a diverse learning environment.
Furthering development of Joint Intersectoral Analysis Framework (JIAF)
The Joint Intersectoral Analysis Group (JIAG) met at the end of January 2020 for a two-day working session in Geneva. The group used the time to strengthen consensus on technical and theoretical aspects of the Joint Intersectoral Analysis Framework currently under development, and to chart the path to its completion.
The JIAG short-term workplan developed and endorsed during the workshop focuses on strengthening the guidance, tools and methods to support intersectoral needs analysis and is timed to support refinements on the 2021 Humanitarian Programme Cycle. The work is now well underway, despite significant challenges of resource availability and more recently the COVID-19 outbreak and the additional pressures that this has introduced.
In parallel to the JIAG activities at the working level, the JIAF Steering Committee (formed in late 2019) has been actively engaged in advocacy and resource mobilization efforts to ensure the sustainability of the JIAG in the long term.