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Outcome Analysis Products
Decision maker briefs
A decision maker brief is a one- or two-page briefing paper designed to convey an important message to people with limited time. Its key features are that it is short, concise and delivers only necessary information. In contrast to academic papers, it starts with the conclusion and then provides the relevant supporting evidence.
FEWS NET Alerts are good examples of such briefing papers. When a food crisis begins to emerge, FEWS NET issues alerts to decision makers which provide specific information on causes and effects of the developing crisis, incorporating HEA analysis where it is available. This helps decision makers and planners prepare for and respond to these crises. Similarly, FEWS NET’s Executive Overview Briefs provide executive decision-makers with an overview of the food security situation in Africa, based on FEWS NET’s regular monitoring and reporting. They help decision makers prioritise areas where action is needed most urgently.
Reviews of vulnerability assessment practice in southern Africa have highlighted the importance of communicating VAC assessment results in a more accessible way, through “executive format bulletins, highly graphical in format that present bottom line answers or clearly articulated scenarios for decision makers.”
Thematic briefs and reports
Briefs on particular subjects and customised for specific audiences tend to be slightly longer. Good examples of this kind of product are the Limpopo Development Brief or the Limpopo Food Aid Brief, both of which drew on information obtained during a baseline assessment in Mozambique’s Limpopo Basin in 2001. Unlike the baseline report which was written to provide a repository of information about households in the livelihood zone, the briefs were written to address the concerns of specific target audiences. Click here to see just how different the sets of conclusions were for different audiences.
Other examples of thematic reports which present the results of a targeted HEA analysis are those commissioned by Save the Children UK in Singida, Tanzania. One outlined a number of possible social protection measures which HEA analysis had modelled, while the other looked at whether the poor were economically constrained in their access to health care
Annual projection reports
Where the HEA framework is integrated within an early warning monitoring system, projections of food access over the coming six to twelve months are presented in annual or seasonal projection reports. A good example of this is the food security monitoring report for Malawi , produced in May 2004 by the Malawi VAC using data from the monitoring system described on page 24. It provided:
- A national overview of projected food security in 2004, giving a national estimate of the missing food entitlement
- Details of the expected conditions in each affected livelihood zone
- An appendix detailing the missing food entitlements and income requirements for each zone
Assessment reports
Reports indicating how access to food and cash will be affected by one or more future hazards, or how an intervention might improve access to food and cash, are also products of one-off assessments commissioned by NGOs.
