Humanitarian and Development Research

Research supporting understanding of needs, priorities, aid access, response quality, recovery, resilience, and program outcomes.

• Assess multisector needs.
• Understand affected people’s experience, access, and barriers.
• Establish baselines or track changing conditions.
• Study relevance, equity, and accountability.
• Support program or recovery-strategy design.

• Surveys of households, communities, or service providers.
• Interviews, focus groups, and feedback mechanisms.
• Needs, services, and risk analysis.
• Document and operational-data review.
• Rapid or repeated monitoring.
• Protection and access research with heightened safeguards.

• Rapid design with explicit limits.
• Multistage or purposive samples for rare groups.
• Remote monitoring where access is impossible.
• Participatory methods that do not transfer burden to participants.
• Integration of operational data with people’s accounts.

The study population, unit of analysis, and access frame are defined before implementation. Sampling is selected according to purpose, inference needs, resources, and risk. “Representative” is used only where the design supports it, and exclusions, nonresponse, and adjustments are documented.

• Review the question and instrument before fieldwork.
• Pilot or pretest where the assignment permits.
• Train researchers and standardize instructions.
• Monitor completion and apply consistency, duration, and location checks where appropriate.
• Use clear consent, voluntary participation, and harm minimization.
• Separate identifying information and restrict access.
• Document deviations, problems, and corrective action.

• Needs or access report.
• Priority and gap profile.
• Monitoring dashboard or periodic brief.
• Complaint and participant-experience analysis.
• Design, implementation, and accountability recommendations.

• Do not collect information that cannot be protected or usefully applied.
• Participation must not be understood as a promise of assistance.
• Person-level lists are not shared without clear purpose and rights.
• Trauma, risk, and safe referral needs are considered.
• Findings are interpreted in light of displacement, access constraints, and population change.

Work begins with the question, intended audience, decision to be supported, relevant areas and groups, schedule, and budget. The Center then proposes a feasible scope, methodology, and deliverables.

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