Attachments
1. Introduction to The Companion Guide
and Toolkit Markets play a vital role in the lives of refugees and displaced people. They provide displaced people and host communities with the goods and services needed to ensure survival and protect livelihoods, both in the immediate aftermath of a disaster and in the longer term. Market-based responses such as cash-based interventions (CBIs) can help people to meet their basic needs through local markets that may ordinarily be inaccessible to them because they do not have the means to shop there or because of other economic or social vulnerability. Persons with specific needs may also be in this category because they may look to the market to provide them with specific services and products.1 Doing a market assessment is an essential step in determining if a CBI is an appropriate response option.
The Multi-sector Market Assessment: Companion Guide and Toolkit provides step-by-step guidance and ready-to-use tools to enable non-specialist staff to conduct market assessments and undertake market monitoring. The purpose of this Companion Guide and Toolkit is to enable Multi-Functional Teams to include findings of market assessment analyses in their analysis and decision making related to CBIs. The guidance and tools will determine whether markets could support cash-based interventions for the multiple sectors in which UNHCR responds and is in line with UNHCR’s basic needs approach.
The Companion Guide and Toolkit should be used in conjunction with UNHCR’s Operational Guidelines for Cash-Based-Interventions in Displacement Settings, which highlights the importance of undertaking market assessments as a vital precondition for implementing cash-based interventions. The Companion Guide and Toolkit provides more details on how to conduct these market assessments.
The Companion Guide and Toolkit is divided into three components that should be read together:
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Multi-sector Market Assessment Companion Guide
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Market Assessment Toolkit
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Annex A: Additional Guidance
The first component, the Companion Guide introduces the Companion Guide and Toolkit and outlines its target audience, assessment timeline, team roles, protection considerations and market assessment rationale. The Companion Guide is framed by the Market Assessment Framework (MAF). The MAF outlines the seven steps of the assessment, demonstrating which data must be collected and how the tools and methodology should be utilized in each step to answer critical questions before moving to the next step.
A supplementary step on market monitoring for CBIs ensures that data are updated for ongoing analysis during the operations management cycle.
The second component, the Toolkit (section 5), consists of 12 easy-to-use tools including questionnaires, checklists, mapping instructions and worksheets. Machine readable questionnaires and other accompanying Information Management tools will also be made available.
In addition, Humanitarian Exchange Language (HXL) will be applied, where possible, so that data collected can be shared easily across the humanitarian community. Teams should tailor the tools to the operational context in which the assessment is being carried out, implementing the tools according to the step-by-step process introduced in the Companion Guide.
The third component, Annex A, provides the assessment team with additional guidance, resources and supplementary technical support that may be required during the assessment. This additional guidance is for assessment team leaders and should be read before the assessment starts. The Annex gives a more detailed understanding of assessment methodology and available solutions to some of the challenges that may be encountered. It shows, for example, how to apply a protection lens to the assessment process, how to work in different contexts and how to understand data collection methodologies.
The Companion Guide and Toolkit has been developed for staff with limited or no technical skills in market data collection. Since UNHCR works globally and in varied contexts, this process will support decision making in all operational contexts. These include protracted and emergency settings, camp and non-camp settings, in low- and middle-income countries and in urban and rural areas.