Guidelines on Data Issues in Humanitarian Crisis Situations

These guidelines address key data issues related to the preparedness, acute, chronic and post-crisis phases of humanitarian emergencies. They provide an overview of the main data needs for each phase, challenges to obtaining reliable data and information, plausible approaches to data collection, management and use, and the strengths and weaknesses of the methods considered.

For each of the phases, the Guidelines provide a list of possible indicators and highlight a set of action points for UNFPA Country Offices data collection efforts, specifying the main stakeholders with whom they could collaborate to achieve desired results. The aim is to enhance the effective participation of UNFPA Country Offices during each phase of a humanitarian crisis by providing direction on what to do and with whom. Where possible, links to various information sources have been provided in the text and relevant references are available either as footnotes or at the end of each chapter.

Other stakeholders (humanitarian and development agencies and other NGOs) will find the Guidelines a useful working document to strengthen the capacity of their staff to collaborate with UNFPA in ensuring that timely and good quality data and information is produced, shared and used for decision-making during humanitarian crisis situations around the world. Teaching and research institutions could use this document as a training tool to enhance trainee capacity to more effectively participate in data collection, processing, management and use in crisis situations.