EP02 - Planning an Emergency Response     Download

Competency: 
Displays the ability to plan, set up and resource an emergency response so that the operation is up and running within very tight deadlines.

Course Content:
This course is divided into two units. Each unit has four chapters dealing with the themes relating to that unit.

Unit One - Planning Right From the Beginning provides an overview of planning concepts and definitions of planning terminology as used in UNHCR. It presents the background, context and approaches to planning currently in use within the organisation. It will take you through the initial conceptual steps of thinking about planning through assessing the situation being planned for, setting planning objectives, and developing activities to support those objectives.

Chapter 1: Planning in the Emergency Context - An introduction introduces the reader to basic planning concepts and definitions and explains their applicability to emergency situations.

Chapter 2: Starting Right - Review, Assess, Analyse describes ways to begin planning an emergency response based on assessment of the emergency situation, analysis of needs and resources, and maintenance of operational flexibility for dealing with uncertainty.

Chapter 3: Setting Objectives explains the central role of objectives in the formulation of emergency response plans and describes ways to design them in realistic terms that are achievable and measurable. 

Chapter 4: Work Planning provides guidance on designing and describing the activities that must be done to achieve the plan’s objectives. The crucial element of time and the divisibility of large tasks into smaller ones are discussed.

Unit Two - Realising the Plan discusses ways to develop the plan in more detail and document it in a way that promotes co-ordination and communication of the plan in an effective way. This unit will take you through the steps of identifying realistic inputs available to the response operation, co-ordinating the planning process (as well as planning for co-ordination), developing detailed timelines, diagrams, and flow charts to support and communicate the key points of the plan. The unit ends with a discussion of the necessity and means for monitoring and evaluating the planning process itself.

Chapter 5: Identifying Inputs provides guidelines on assessing and collecting information on the various types of emergency response inputs, particularly those resources available to the displaced population, programme funding/budgets and staff. 

Chapter 6: Co-ordination of Planning and Planning for Co-ordination provides useful tips on including provisions for co-ordination in the emergency response operation and for co-ordinating the planning process itself. 

Chapter 7: Developing and Documenting the Plan describes ways to further develop your plans and to document them in ways that facilitate both careful analysis of the plan and dissemination of the information to other stakeholders. It introduces the Logical Framework, Gantt charts, and network diagrams as specific planning tools for emergencies 

Chapter 8: Monitoring and Evaluation of the Plan completes this distance learning course with a discussion of the uses of monitoring and evaluation in the short and longer-term improvement of UNHCR’s planning processes, as well as individual emergency response plans.