The Big Why
Humanitarian assessments are expensive and episodic. Routine national data systems are fragile or absent, limiting anticipatory action and targeting.
What will change?
Stabilises decision-quality data; reduces assessment duplication; enables earlier, fairer targeting.
What the idea involves
Core Systems: Strengthen HMIS/LMIS/statistics units (e.g., DHIS2-based) with modular add‑ons for crises; offline-first collection; redundancy for connectivity outages.
Interoperability: National data exchange standards; APIs to humanitarian platforms (e.g., HDX); data stewardship roles.
Quality & Protection: Data quality audits, bias checks, privacy-by-design, governance committees with civil society oversight.
Capability Building: Embedded advisors, training academies, and peer exchanges; maintenance funding lines.
Use Cases: Early warning dashboards, targeting registries, and service coverage maps co-designed with line ministries.
What would it take to deliver it?
Delivery process: Multi-year programme grants co-signed with governments; pooled partner support.
Structure: Public–philanthropic partnership with technical consortium.
Scope & timeline: 5 -10 year horizons with phased milestones.
Staffing needs: Enterprise architects, data governance leads, ministry liaisons, trainers.
Partnerships required: Gov ministries, universities, HDX partners, implementers.
Key capacities: GovTech, data standards, privacy, change management.
Where it stands and what's next?
Stage: Ongoing in places, but under-resourced as the undertaking is enormous.
Next steps: Identify what is the need for additional actors with the profile and resources that ELHRA’s partners can bring into what is already a crowded space.
Opportunities to get involved
Governments to co-lead; donors to fund multi-year compacts; NGOs/tech orgs to provide TA.