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Global Shelter Cluster Information Management and Assessment Toolkit

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1B. IM Generic Tools

Organizing and presenting essential information in a way that is accessible, digestible and straightforward allows for information management tasks and activities to be conducted more smoothly.

This section proposes a series of tools to enable the set-up of a cluster identity:

1Bi & 1Bii. First and foremost, it links to visibility templates (including InDesign, PowerBI and QGIS templates) and the shelter cluster website cheatsheet
These example developed in response to the typhoon Goni (which uses both the ArcGIS Esri online platform and Power BI) in the Philippines provides an example of a webpage set-up in response to a sudden onset disaster, while this one from Iraq is an example for one set-up in the context of a protracted crisis in later stages of a cluster lifecycle, with a dashboard containing several pages to visualize granular information on the response.

Meanwhile, the inclusion of documents in this toolkit such as templates (1Biii) for contact lists, minutes of meeting, handover notes, etc. serve as a reminder of the importance of consistently keeping these documents updated and filing them properly.

The toolkit also links to the OCHA IM toolbox to highlight the importance for clusters to use common operational datasets (COD), available through HDX (1Biv), and particularly established P-codes, when conducting IM and assessments activities in country. This will allow for better harmonization and coordination within the overall humanitarian response. In addition to the OCHA toolbox and for more information, this story map (1Bv) introduces COD. Furthermore, Shelter Cluster should work in collaboration with the CCCM Cluster to ensure that camps have p-codes to ensure effective coverage of shelter gaps in camps.

Finally, this section also includes the link to several external tools and platforms that can be useful for a variety of IM tasks, including: survey tools (kobo UNHCR server, kobo OCHA server, survey monkey, google forms, Activity Info, Maps.me (which provides offline maps useful during data collection), ArcGis/Esri training catalogue and QGIS training material, Humanitarian data exchange (HDX), etc.