12. Communicating, reporting and other outputs

Checklist

  • Communicate preliminary findings throughout the assessment process.
  • Ensure a completed assessment report is finalised and circulated to key stakeholders.
  • Include an indicative budget in the assessment report.
  • Prepare necessary outputs to accompany the assessment report.

Preliminary updates on the humanitarian situation and initial assessment observations should be shared with key stakeholders as quickly and regularly as possible, considering the following:

  • Provide basic updates to the head office of the CO (or CEG in non-presence situations) on a daily basis during an initial emergency assessment. The CO should include this information in sitreps to share with the broader CARE membership (refer to Chapter 42 Information management).
  • Updates can be either brief written communications or verbal phone briefings.
  • In some cases, such as non-presence situations, the assessment team may be requested to prepare sitreps directly.
  • Preliminary assessment reports and summary recommendations may be requested at any point in the assessment process.
  • The assessment team may be requested to provide updates to CCG or ERWG conference calls.

For safety and security purposes, the assessment team must keep regular contact with the head office, and the whereabouts of assessment team members must be known at all times. A communications schedule should be agreed with the head office before deployment (refer to Chapter 20 – Telecommunications and IT, and Chapter 14 – Safety and security) for more details.

The assessment team should prepare and finalise a formal assessment report detailing the findings and recommendations.

The assessment report should be approved by the Country Director (or Humanitarian and Operations Director in non-presence countries) then shared with the Emergency Information List (refer to Chapter 42 Information management) and other key stakeholders such as peer NGOs, donors and other partners.

In sensitive situations, it may be necessary to prepare two versions of the assessment report: the complete assessment report for internal use only; and a second report to share with external stakeholders. The external version would usually exclude sections relating to the set-up of operations or other internal considerations. The reports must be approved for public use by the Country Director (or HOD in non-presence countries) before sharing with others.

Annex 4.17 Assessment report format

Annex 4.18 Sample assessment report

The assessment report should include an indicative budget showing the programme and operational costs of the recommendations put forward by the assessment team.

A simple budget format for inclusion with assessment reports is available at Annex 4.19 Budget format.

The terms of reference may also request a number of other outputs to be produced by the assessment team. Other outputs common for an assessment team to produce include:

  • initial programme documents, including
  • proposed programme strategy document
  • brief project descriptions
  • concept papers
  • project proposals
  • operational plans, including
  • proposed security management plans
  • logistic system plans
  • telecommunications plan
  • proposed staffing structure for initial operations
  • schedule of required staffing
  • initial procurement schedule of immediate supply requirements
  • materials for media and communications, including
  • press releases
  • key messages and talking points
  • human interest stories
  • photos.