Humanitarian needs assessment: key concepts and practices

By subscribing to this course, you will have access to a dedicated page on the PuntoSud Academy Learning Platform. From here, you can join the live sessions, download the course materials and complete all the assignments.

The course is structured in 2 days of interactive online sessions combined with self-learning. The total estimated time for completion of the course is approximately 10 hours.

• Preliminary tasks – approx. 1 hour. You will be asked to share your expectations through a short survey, review selected preparatory materials and complete an entry test that will serve as a baseline for the course.

• Live sessions – 8 hours (2 sessions of 4 hours each). The core learning experience will take place during live, highly interactive sessions facilitated by experienced PuntoSud practitioners. Across 6 modules, you will explore all phases of a rapid needs assessment—from preparedness and secondary data review to primary data collection, analysis, and dissemination of findings. Activities will include lectures, plenary and small-group discussions, simulations, quizzes, and collaborative exercises inspired by real-life field challenges. All sessions will be recorded and made available on the learning platform for later review.

• Additional learning material – approx. 30 minutes, you will have at your disposal additional readings and documents that you can study at your own pace.

• Forum discussion. You will be able to exchange ideas, ask questions, and share relevant experiences with trainers and other participants through the course discussion forum on the PuntoSud Academy learning platform.

• Final tasks – approx. 30 minutes. At the end of the course, you will complete an exit test to appraise your knowledge acquisition and fill out an evaluation form to reflect on your learning journey and provide feedback to PuntoSud Academy for future improvements.

This course is intended for junior humanitarian practitioners with one to three years of experience, working in international and local NGOs, UN agencies, or Red Cross/Red Crescent societies. It is particularly relevant for staff engaged in programme design, monitoring and evaluation or field coordination functions where rapid needs assessments are an essential task. A basic understanding of humanitarian principles, project cycle management and field-level data collection is recommended for participants to fully benefit from the training.

All the material will be available 7 calendar days before the starting date and until 30 calendar days after the end of the last training session.

Once you have completed all the training material and passed the exit test, your certificate of attendance for each specific course will be available to download from the learning platform. The certificates are always available in your profile page with historical data of all PuntoSud Academy courses you’ve attended.

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