Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs Overview 2015 - Overall Need and Vulnerability Index Guidance Note

Introduction

The methodology of the Overall Need and Vulnerability Index (ONVI) for the Afghanistan 2015 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) remains consistent with the approach adopted for the Afghanistan 2014 HNO. A number of improvements were made to the analysis framework that provided greater transparency and strengthened the cross-sector interpretation of the contributing factors to humanitarian need and vulnerability. The analysis ultimately supported a more integrated humanitarian response strategy.

The ONVI provides an objective basis for assessing the severity of need at the sub-national level for prioritizing humanitarian intervention. This analysis cannot fully reflect all the complex and local factors that might influence the humanitarian situation. It is necessary to further interpret findings together with other available data, including field-based cluster reviews, situational analyses, and localised assessments to capture humanitarian needs at a sub-provincial level.

Analysis Framework

The overall need and vulnerability index (ONVI) is a simple multi-criteria analysis that combines a standardized set of related indicators to create an overall index of severity. The index is province based and applies to all 34 provinces. Indicators were selected based on merit for articulating the severity of the humanitarian situation, and to provide a baseline to evaluate the impact of the response. The currency and accuracy of each data source was also carefully considered to safeguard the reliability of the analysis. It was critical that each data source provide complete (or near to) national coverage, i.e. surveys and assessments were statistically representative of all 34 provinces. For each province, indicators were standardized to a severity scale ranging from one (very low need and vulnerability) to five (very high need and vulnerability), allowing all indicators to be combined into an overall index. Several of the indicators selected for this analysis are composite indicators, which were constructed from multiple data sources. Indicators were also weighted to moderate their influence on the overall need and vulnerability index, such that indicators considered more significant to the humanitarian situation were assigned a higher weighting.

The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance is linked to the indicators used for the need and vulnerability analysis. Therefore, the overall humanitarian need and those in need of critical life-saving intervention were determined by the recent scale of the relevant morbidity, mortality and vulnerability indicators.

Indicator Summary

Consensus was achieved through the Inter-Cluster Coordination Team on the most appropriate indicators needed to represent morbidity, mortality and vulnerability. In the absence of accurate crude and under-5 mortality rates relating to the protracted crisis, eight morbidity and mortality proxy indictors were selected. These indicators were complimented by twelve vulnerability indicators relating to food insecurity, the availability of basic health services, conflict related violence, displacement due to conflict, existing unmet shelter needs, and exposure to natural disasters. The availability of accurate and current data was also a determining factor for indicator selection.