Thematic Guidance
In addition to materials hosted across the Design, Collect, Analyze, and Use phases of the UNHCR Assessment and Monitoring Resource Centre, the following links contain materials related to assessments and monitoring for specific sectoral or thematic purposes.
A participatory assessment is a process of engaging with displaced and stateless people of all ages, genders and diverse backgrounds and characteristics by organizing a set of structured consultations on one or more UNHCR programmatic and operational areas.
This typically involves organizing separate discussions with different groups of the population, ideally with women, men, boys, girls, older persons, persons with disabilities, persons of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expressions and sex characteristics, as well persons belonging to minority groups and indigenous peoples.
The primary aim of a participatory assessment exercise is to collaboratively identify protection risks faced by the various groups within a community, understand their underlying causes, the existing capacities of communities to mitigate these risks and the communities’ proposed solutions, with the view to inform UNHCR’s decision-making on the design and implementation of programmes and activities.
UNHCR colleagues can access the Participatory Assessment Toolkit, that provides resources to assist operations to conduct participatory assessments and systematically make use of the findings for operational decision making.
UNHCR colleagues can access resources on the UNHCR Data Community Hub relating to information management tools, systems and processes. They can also access Data Academy courses, many of which pertain to these topics.
The UNHCR Multi-Sectoral Monitoring (MSM) Framework generates figures for multiple UNHCR global-level publications and reports. The reporting cycles are timed to optimize data availability for multiple purposes and thereby to minimize requests to field operations and regional bureau. The purpose of these indicators is mainly for external relations/donor reporting. UNHCR colleagues can access the multisectoral monitoring guidance here.
The UNHCR Evaluation Office regularly analyzes and interprets UNHCR’s work, to help us deliver better services and results for forcibly displaced and stateless people. UNHCR colleagues can access more information on evaluations in UNHCR, via the UNHCR Evaluation Intranet Page.
Standardized Expanded Nutrition Survey (SENS)
The UNHCR SENS guidelines are aimed at UNHCR health and nutrition coordinators and partners to standardize the way annual nutrition surveys are conducted. The SENS Guidelines includes standardized methods for collecting, analysing and presenting household-based data on nutrition, health, food security and WASH, whilst maintaining quality standards for the measurement of nutrition indicators
The Integrated Refugee Health Information System (iRHIS)
The (iRHIS) is an interactive digital system designed to collate and analyse a comprehensive set of health, nutrition, and WASH data that visualizes trends over time and generates a range of multisectoral reports. iRHIS provides country and global updates on standard indicators to inform programming and on comparative analysis with host communities across all subsections of public health.
Surveys on Inclusion of Refugees in National Systems
The inclusion of refugees into national health systems is a fundamental priority. To track progress towards the goal of inclusion, UNHCR has designed a detailed country-level inclusion survey to assess the extent to which refugees are included in host country’s health policies, plans and systems. Conducted every two years, the survey provides detailed information on the extent of inclusion and integration of refugees in national system, tracks progress over time and identifies areas where inclusion could be strengthened.
Health Access and Utilization Survey (HAUS)
UNHCR’s HAUS monitors trends in how refugees outside of camps access and utilize health services over time. HAUS measures the health needs, health seeking behaviour, health expenditure, and access to key health services in a representative sample of the population.
As part of an ongoing effort to provide UNHCR managers and field staff, as well as key operational partners, with appropriate tools that will enable them to look into the issues of environmental assessment, monitoring and evaluation, UNHCR, together with a range of organisations and specialist individuals, has prepared this collection of tools and guidance under a project knows as FRAME - Framework for Assessing, Monitoring and Evaluating the Environment in Refugee-related Operations.
Shelter Cluster Assessment Guidelines
The Shelter Cluster Assessment Guidelines provides guidance on how to conduct assessments, as well as on the analysis and dissemination of assessment findings and promote the use of relevant and timely information to facilitate cluster-wide planning, targeting and coordination.
WASH is the collective term for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. While each is a separate field of work, they are interdependent and help keep refugees healthy. When government monitoring systems do not exist or do not cover refugees, UNHCR's WASH monitoring system collects data on households and communities (including schools and healthcare facilities). A list of WASH resources on WASH program guidance and monitoring can be found on the UNHCR WASH webpage.
UNHCR Livelihoods Information System
The Livelihoods Information System is UNHCR’s livelihoods and economic inclusion monitoring system designed to measure the impact of UNHCR and funded partners livelihoods programs. This multilingual and tailored system fully aligned with COMPASS Core and Good Practices Indicators. It offers a comprehensive toolkit and assistance through household-level surveys tailored for forcibly displaced and stateless populations.
CBI Post-Distribution Monitoring
Post Distribution Monitoring for UNHCR CBI is mandatory, and UNHCR has a comprehensive toolkit for CBI PDM. It includes guidance as well as a standard household questionnaire. The questionnaire directly available in the Kobo Public Collections Library, in the Cash-based Intervention collection (https://kobo.unhcr.org/#/library/public-collections) and is available in English, French, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, and Spanish. Key data is summarised in the global CBI PDM dashboard. All guidance documents are available to UNHCR colleagues here.
Multi-sector Market Assessments
Markets play a vital role in the lives of displaced persons and their host communities. Not only do they provide people with the essential goods and services needed to survive, but they also create and protect livelihoods. Humanitarian actors therefore increasingly rely on market-based programme responses, such as Cash-Based Interventions to help crisis affected populations meet their needs through local markets. To improve market assessments, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and UNHCR jointly updated the Multi-sector Market Assessment (MSMA) Guidance and Toolkit, available in English, Spanish, French and Arabic. Additional information related to market assessments for UNHCR colleagues can be found here.
Access to Formal Financial Services
This document provides information to humanitarian practitioners on how to assess regulations relating to “Know Your Customer” (KYC) requirements, in view of delivering cash assistance and promoting forcibly displaced and stateless persons digital financial inclusion.
Upcoming Resources
Intention Surveys
Intention surveys are conducted to understand the intentions and preferences of refugees and other forcibly displaced people. These surveys aim to gather information about their future plans, including whether they intend to return to their home country, integrate into the host community, or seek resettlement elsewhere. By collecting data directly from affected individuals, these surveys inform humanitarian responses and policies, ensuring that the voices and perspectives of forcibly displaced people are integral to decision-making processes. Guidance on conducting intention surveys is also forthcoming, and will be made available on this site once published.
Protection Monitoring
Protection monitoring is a key activity for UNHCR. It is routinely conducted to generate essential information to understand the protection environment of the forcibly displaced, stateless persons, and returnees to enable UNHCR and other stakeholder to properly and efficiently respond to their needs and address risks. Guidance on protection monitoring, including a toolkit containing resources and examples from different country operations, will be posted on the site on publication.
Flow Monitoring
Forthcoming Flow Monitoring Guidance will highlight key methodological aspects of measuring new displaced population flows. It can be used by UNHCR operations to implement flow monitoring systems to measure sudden or protracted internal or international population flows due to conflict or insecurity. The guidance is currently under review and will soon be available to UNHCR colleagues. For more information, UNHCR colleagues are encouraged to reach out to Edgar Scrase or Juliette Hallaire.