The defunding of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), along with reductions in aid from the UK and elsewhere, raises questions about the continued collection of data that helps inform humanitarian efforts.
Humanitarian response plans rely on accurate, accessible and up-to-date data. Aid organisations use this to review needs, monitor health and famine risks, and ensure security and access for humanitarian operations.
The reliance on data – and in particular large-scale digitalised data – has intensified in the humanitarian sector over the past few decades. Major donors all proclaim a commitment to evidence-based decision making. The International Organization for Migration’s Displacement Tracking Matrix and the REACH impact initiative are two examples designed to improve operational and strategic awareness of key needs and risks.
Humanitarian data streams have already been affected by USAID cuts. For example, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network was abruptly closed, while the Demographic and Health Surveys programme was “paused”. The latter informed global health policies in areas ranging from maternal health and domestic violence to anaemia and HIV prevalence.
The loss of reliable, accessible and up-to-date data threatens monitoring capacity and early warning systems, while reducing humanitarian access and rendering security failures more likely.
I am a researcher and lead author of the Data and Displacement project report, which is based on research by a multi-disciplinary team of international academics and practitioners. I have written articles on how data is used in humanitarian work and the problems associated with data collection. A central problem is that power inequalities are embedded within humanitarian systems.
As data has proliferated over the past two decades, humanitarians have failed to grapple with what has been described within the sector as “the inherent power imbalance that comes from demanding sensitive data from some of the world’s most vulnerable people”.
Our research with people living in camp-like settings across north-eastern Nigeria and South Sudan has highlighted the need for change. We found that displaced people rarely understood why their data was being collected and how it would be used. This disempowers affected communities and reaffirms power differentials.
The aid cuts are devastating. Yet, they also provide opportunities to dismantle the power imbalances of data-driven humanitarianism. The demand for evidence-based humanitarian decision making will not go away, because accurate data remains more necessary than ever in a context of aid scarcity. But affected communities need to be at the core, to ensure data processes are based on solidarity and care rather than on extractive paternalism. This is crucial in devolving money, power and voice to those who feel the greatest impact of the defunding crisis.
Flaws in the system
For our research during 2021-2022, we interviewed 100 internally displaced persons and 40 local stakeholders in Nigeria and South Sudan to find out what data-driven humanitarianism is like on the ground.
When asked about what happens to the data provided by affected communities, an internally displaced woman in South Sudan said:
We don’t ask because we don’t know the system. They didn’t explain it to us.
An internally displaced man in Nigeria similarly said:
No, they are not telling us, just that when they collected information from us, they are going and that we would not see them again.
A lack of feedback from the data collection process was common. An internally displaced woman in Nigeria said:
We don’t know the place where they used to share our information, they just said they take our data to take to their organisation.
An internally displaced man in South Sudan also said:
… the humanitarians take the information to the funder but … they don’t give feedback to us and explain to us that this is what happened … to the data we have given.
Experiences of being asked for information by aid agencies were often described as disempowering. An internally displaced man in South Sudan said:
… organisations can come and take information and do not return and sometimes people can come and take the information and we do not know what they will do with the information.
Some described situations in which they had anticipated assistance that was never received. One woman from Nigeria even accused humanitarians of “telling lies”.
We also interviewed 42 data experts working in international and donor organisations, asking them about the development of data processes within the sector. Many suggested the need for a new approach. A UN agency representative said:
The numbers without the story behind them and without that richness really don’t tell us much at all.
An NGO representative agreed:
… we need to move from a place of data to a place of analysis and more information, useful information rather than pure data.
Another NGO representative said:
Data collection doesn’t necessarily equal a better or more efficient or more accountable decision being made.
One international NGO representative even suggested that the lack of accountability to affected communities is an inevitable outcome of a system that is “not structured to be listening”.
Overall, we found data collection was often driven by competition between aid agencies while the immediate needs of displaced people remained unmet.
A new approach
A recent report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs identifies resource intensive in-person data collection and community feedback as most at risk from cuts. This is concerning, because community-based data processes can challenge power imbalances within the sector.
Nevertheless, reducing the frequency of these would be welcome. During a project workshop in Nigeria in 2022, one displaced man told me he was asked for data up to “five times a day”. In-person data collection can also be extractive, especially when it is designed for donors and agencies rather than by and for people on the ground.
The following improvements are needed:
Crucially, displaced people should be involved in making decisions about the data processes that affect them. Data collection can provide opportunities for humanitarians to transform power imbalances in the sector.
Our free training tool enables reflection on how extractive data practices can be dismantled. Even in the most challenging situations, affected communities want to have a say. It is now time to listen.
Vicki Squire receives funding from University of Warwick ESRC Impact Acceleration Account funding, grant number ES/T502054/1. She previously received funding from the AHRC-FCDO Collaborative Humanitarian Protection Programme, grant number AH/T007516/1
By Vicki Squire, Professor of International Politics, University of Warwick
