Since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, restrictions have limited the ability of humanitarian workers to collect primary data in crises-affected communities. The global humanitarian sector has relied on secondary data to analyze the pandemic’s effects on systems, impact on populations, coping capacities, operational environments, humanitarian conditions, and top-line priorities. However, local actors often lack the capacity to collate, organize, and structure data at the sectoral and intersectoral levels. This has resulted in duplications and non-comprehensive outcomes. Humanitarian country teams need support to improve their methodological approaches and strengthen analytical rigor to comply with the standards developed under the Grand Bargain Workstream 5 in preparation for the Humanitarian Needs Overviews (HNOs) and Humanitarian Response Planning (HRPs) 2021.
The Global Information Management, Assessment, and Analysis Cell (GIMAC) was created as a multi-stakeholder initiative to coordinate, structure, collate, manage, and analyze COVID-19 related information and provide technical support to prioritized countries’ global decision making based on request. DFS provided support to selected countries, in partnership with the Danish Refugee Council, by creating structured data repositories, data exploration modules, and an assessment registry in DEEP to support the humanitarian country teams’ strategic planning (Humanitarian Needs Overviews and Humanitarian Response Plans). DEEP has been integrated into the services provided by the GIMAC, granting selected countries access to centralized data across geographical areas, affected groups, and sectors/sub-sectors, improving the accountability and transparency of collective evidence.
