What This Covers
This page is a map for staff at national and international NGOs who are new to a humanitarian response, or who are moving over from development work. Humanitarian response is guided by four humanitarian principles and shared standards. In non-refugee emergencies it is coordinated through clusters. Refugee responses use the Refugee Coordination Model instead.
Below you will find guidance on needs assessment, coordination, cash and voucher assistance, and accountability to the people affected.
Start Here
Most people arrive with one of these jobs to do.
- Understand and apply the humanitarian principles, so your organization keeps access to affected people.
- Join and work through the cluster system, or find out whether one applies at all.
- Run or contribute to a rapid needs assessment in the first days of a disaster.
- Decide whether cash, vouchers or in-kind assistance fits the situation.
- Set up feedback and complaints channels so affected people can be heard and can push back.
- Report on the response with the situation report template, and read about country-based pooled funds.
If you are unsure where to begin, begin with the principles, explained under Key Concepts. They are central to establishing and keeping access to affected people, and the CHS builds on them.
Key Concepts
- Humanitarian principles. Humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. Aid goes where suffering is, on the basis of need alone, without taking sides and free from any actor's political, economic or military aims.
- Sphere. Universal minimum standards for life-saving sectors: water, sanitation and hygiene; food security and nutrition; shelter, settlement and non-food items; and health.
- The CHS. The Core Humanitarian Standard, nine commitments on quality and accountability, so where Sphere sets minimums by sector, the CHS sets how you treat people.
- The cluster approach. Temporary coordination structures, activated with the government's agreement when existing mechanisms are overwhelmed. The cluster system page covers how it works.
- Needs assessment. Essential for planning, monitoring and accountability, yet still a critical weakness of humanitarian response. The multi-sector initial rapid assessment (MIRA) is an inter-agency process carried out within the first three days of a disaster, with a report within two weeks, drawing on secondary data first. The rapid needs assessment how-to covers secondary data, primary data and key informants.
- Cash and voucher assistance. Transfers made directly to recipients. Restricted limits what or where people can buy; conditional requires an activity in return.
- Accountability to affected people. Using power responsibly: taking account of, giving account to, and being held to account by the people you assist.
Templates
- Humanitarian situation report template. Use it for each update to partners and funders; the situation report prompt drafts one from field notes.
- Rapid needs assessment planning. When a disaster starts, the rapid needs assessment how-to covers secondary data, primary data, and key informants from every group of interest.
- Cash and voucher feasibility. Before choosing cash, compare cash, vouchers and in-kind against people's needs and preferences, feasibility in the context, your capacity, and what others are doing.
- Cluster coordination check. Before engaging, find out whether a cluster is active and who leads it (the cluster system). Clusters are usually co-led by a UN agency and an NGO.