Emergency priorities and related indicators

Emergency standard

Favourable protection environment.

Ensuring safe access to territory, asylum protection, and protection against return.

• Establish presence in border areas; undertake border monitoring and protection monitoring.
• Establish links with law enforcement agencies.
• Ensure access to territory.
• Establish links with government entities on asylum.
• Ensure coordination on protection.
• Define protection strategies (for UNHCR, the response or a protection cluster, depending on context)

Basic Needs and services.

Reducing mortality and contributing to the fulfilment of international standards for shelter, nutrition, water, sanitation, health and education.

• Ensure access to primary health care
• Provide health care services if needed (identify needs, partner, resources)
• Ensure access to maternal and newborn care are part of essential health care
• Ensure timely referral and access to confidential and private medical care including PEP treatment
• Implement appropriate screening and programming for the treatment and prevention of malnutrition
• Establish WASH infrastructure to provide sufficient quantity and quality of water and sanitation facilities
• Conduct proper site assessment and site planning and set up shelter priorities and strategies.

Key considerations

Emergency priorities
Emergency priorities set overall priorities for the response framework that UNHCR applies in an emergency. They can be operationalized via processes associated with needs assessment, planning, programming and monitoring.

• Needs assessment. Emergency priorities can be set on the basis of needs assessments. Needs assessments may also be shaped by response priorities where evident priorities have been defined before a full needs assessment can occur.
• Strategic planning. Emergency priorities should be guided by an initial protection and solutions strategy developed within two weeks of an emergency. (See Protection and solutions strategy.) They are confirmed in a protection and solutions strategy produced 3 to 6 months later, which lays out the overall protection priorities of the emergency response and forms the foundation of key inter-agency planning documents (such as the Strategic Response Plan or Refugee Response Plan).
• Programming. Emergency priorities should be included in UNHCR's programming cycle and reflected practically in objectives, outputs and allocation of resources.
• Monitoring. Emergency priority indicators should be used to monitor the progress of emergency response priorities, over time and in different areas of the response.
• Evaluation. Emergency priorities, as reflected in strategic planning documents, are evaluated during UNHCR or inter-agency evaluations.

Emergency priority indicators
Emergency priority indicators are the primary measurement tool used to identify and track progress towards achieving protection and assistance priorities. They also indicate the scope and gravity of displacement and the situation in specific sectoral areas. To the extent possible, emergency priority indicators should always be used to measure both the gravity of an emergency and the response to it, reflecting UNHCR's focus on response and results.

Priority indicators in an emergency should be directly linked to response priorities, to ensure that data collection and analysis inform response planning and implementation. When selecting from among the list of suggested indicators below (see table), take account of your context and your response priorities. Emergency priority indicators should be linked to your performance and impact monitoring, in order to facilitate data collection and reporting and ensure that data collection and performance measurement are consistent.

Indicators in the table may also need to be contextualised to take account of the specific urban or IDP situations in which you are working.


Priority interventions
The priority interventions listed in the table are complemented by technical guidance elsewhere in the Emergency Handbook. They focus on actions that should be taken by UNHCR in the first six months of a humanitarian response, should be adapted to the specific context, and developed in accordance with key programme principles.

• Programme design, implementation and monitoring should take into account age, gender and diversity, and address specific inequalities and vulnerabilities.
• Men, women, girls and boys of concern should participate throughout the programme cycle.
• Programmes should complement and build on the capacities of Government authorities at central and local level, as well as those of local NGOs and community-based organizations.

Centrality of protection
Priorities and priority indicators in an emergency response need to reflect the centrality of protection. This commitment can be operationalised by:

• Programming and resourcing specific protection interventions and services.
• Mainstreaming protection in all sectors.
• Ensuring that programmes do not harm inadvertently.
• Ensuring that the overall vision and purpose of the response is based on and guided by clear protection and solutions outcomes.

If protection priorities and priority indicators need to be context-specific, the overarching emergency priorities help guide the response of UNHCR and partners towards core areas of protection and support in the course of coordinating sectors and clusters. They recognize that the rights of refugees and other persons of concern can only be met by well-integrated action in a range of operational areas, including shelter, nutrition, health, water and sanitation, education, and protection.

Priority emergency indicators therefore include protection-specific indicators, while sectoral indicators are used as proxies to measure overall protection outcomes.

Ownership and partnership
While emergency priorities are designed to assist UNHCR operations to take reliable and prompt action to further the protection and wellbeing of refugees and others of concern, their realization can only be achieved by collaborating and engaging with a wide range of actors, and depends on many factors including the availability of resources and the operating environment. UNHCR's engagement is developed taking these external realities into account, notably the capacities of others, including Government, other local actors, civil society, UN agencies, NGOs, and persons of concern themselves, in line with UNHCR's responsibilities for leadership, coordination and partnership.

Responsibilities
UNHCR Representatives are responsible for putting in place a framework for developing UNHCR's engagement in priority areas, from the onset of an emergency and in collaboration with partners. Representatives must also ensure that data collection and monitoring systems are established early on in an emergency, to facilitate tracking and reporting on UNHCR's progress towards its priorities, including the collection of age- and gender-disaggregated data.