Yaoundé, 18-19 July 2024 - A workshop to harmonise the questionnaire for collecting data from crisis-affected populations in the Far North, Northwest and Southwest regions was held under the leadership of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in collaboration with the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM). The aim of the workshop was to revise the questionnaire used for multi-sectoral needs assessments of crisis-affected populations. The event brought together those responsible for the various humanitarian sectors, such as shelter, non-food household items, water, hygiene and sanitation, education, health, protection, food security and livelihoods, nutrition, accountability and humanitarian assistance.

During these two days, the participants carefully considered the questions to ask to head of households and resource persons in the targeted regions. This process is essential in order to identify and understand precisely the multi-sectoral needs of the families concerned, to enable the humanitarian community to provide tailored responses during their interventions and to guide policy decision-making.

Benedetta Di Cintio, Head of the Coordination Unit at OCHA, underlined the importance of this meeting: ‘It was essential to bring together all those responsible for the sectors so that, at the end of the data collection, reliable data would be available to the humanitarian community, enabling an effective response. For this data collection session, each sector must be able to identify itself in the data that will be produced by IOM’.

The Multisectoral Assessment is a method of data collection that provides a general overview of sectoral trends and household needs in a specific region. This fifth assessment will focus on the needs of displaced, returnee, refugee and host households. To better understand these needs, two methodologies will be used: a household-based approach and another based on the testimonies of key informants. The combination of these methods will provide the different sectors with a reference for more in-depth assessments, which will serve as a basis for their actions.

The North-West, South-West and Far-North regions will be subject to this data collection from August 2024. This operation will be carried out with the help of an implementation partner, under the coordination of OCHA and the National Institute of Statistics. The data collected will then be reviewed at a workshop attended by the heads of the various sectors.

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For more information, please contact:    

• Tafsirou BOCOUM, IOM Cameroon, Tel: +237 697654332 e-mail: tbocoum@iom.int 
• Pascale ESSAMA, IOM Cameroon, Tel : +237 657103074 e-mail: pessama@iom.int