Drought Contingency Planning with Pastoral Communities - celep

utilization and the facilities’ ability to absorb the pressure. Thus, needs assessment and
the identification of targeting levels, require a multi-stakeholder participation with clear
objective of determining the hazard and vulnerability levels comparing them against the
local coping capacities. Generated PDRA information in combination with the emergency
needs assessment instruments shall be developed and used to guide the assessment. A
checklist to guide and ensure the assessment is focused shall be developed upfront before
embarking on the assessment.
Frequently, emergency needs assessment and targeting levels assessments have been driven
by external forces, especially political influences. But if the objectives and frameworks are
developed in advance, then such isolated incidences may be overcome. The assessment
should therefore take advantage of the available primary and secondary data sources
with clear instruments to collect the relevant data. Data collection, collation and analysis
should be thorough and the assessment report developed prior to emergency response
implementation such that the needs assessment and targeting levels are clear and agreed
upon across all the stakeholders.
2.8.2 Partnerships in the response plans
While planning for emergency response, it is important to take stock of the kind of
partnership required to operationalize the response plan. Identification of partners and
aligning each partner’s roles and responsibility in the emergency response plan is an
important undertaking. Stakeholder’s analysis that should have been done during the PDRA
process informs the stakeholders or partners for the community. Review and update of the
same is crucial with an update on each partner’s current roles and the actual expected roles
in the emergency response. Determining roles ensures agreements on specific tasks that
may be assigned to the partner, and this is where leadership of the emergency response
plan also takes shape with the support of the rest of partners. Clear communication needs
to be instituted across the identified partners to ensure that the latest information in regard
to the emergency response is accessible to all partners.
It is from the identified partnership that the coordination roles during the implementation
of response plan are shared across the partners with specific roles being defined. Local
leadership especially at the community level should be instrumental in strengthening
local community institutions by empowering them in decision making. Administration
representation at the local level for example is key in providing link between the community
institutions and other partners especially the Government agencies. While at the district
level, the experience has shown that it’s important for the leadership of emergency
response to be entrusted on the local administration available for purposes of facilitating
a lead role in decision making as well as providing link with high Government authorities.
Other partners thus play facilitatory roles with communities and their leaders being at the
forefront in implementation of emergency response plan.
2.8.3 Reporting in the response plans
In the process of designing emergency response plan, analysis should be able to outline the
emerging sectors as per the defined objective of the emergency response. Having done the
needs and targeting levels assessments, thematic areas of intervention will be defined and
the relevant data collected in terms of baseline. Baseline information guides the process of
identifying the reporting needs or subsequent reports that will be necessary to be generated
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