Meeting information needs? A review of ten years of multisector coordinated needs assessment reports

In 2015, ACAPS undertook a review of 105 multisectoral coordinated needs assessment (CNA) reports released over the previous ten years. The objective of the review was to determine trends in reporting relevance and methods, and to identify factors that influence the completeness and speed of reporting.

The amount of useful information increased considerably over the years. More recent reports more often include essential information, such as the total number of people affected by a crisis event.

However, few reports provide an estimation of the number of people affected per sector. Sex and age disaggregated data, as well as information on data collection techniques, are largely missing.

Three factors are closely associated with completeness of the reports and/or the speed with which they are produced: preparedness before the event, use of a secondary data review, and support from assessment experts such as the Coordinated Assessment Support Section in OCHA or ACAPS.