This project aims at supporting the humanitarian sector in adapting its Information Management and Monitoring & Evaluation response to the Covid-19 crisis. As part of the project, CartONG will provide direct support to NGOs through (webinars, coaching sessions, and a hotline) as well as support to the sector through technical and methodological guidance (technical briefs, tutorials, tech watch findings), & feedback resources (case studies and lessons learned).

This project is run with the support of Groupe URD for the M&E component. We are also coordinating our action with MapAction, HOT and Translators without Borders in particular, as well as other H2H organizations to avoid duplicating our efforts.

The RESILAC (Inclusive Economic and Social Recovery of Lake Chad) project and consortium identified during its start-up phase the need to improve the management of its information (also called Information Management or IM). CartONG is supporting Groupe URD in charge of the operational M&E system (système de suivi et d'évaluation des réalisations) on the information management component.

To this end, CartONG :

1. is carrying out an information management diagnosis (all technologies combined) in order to formalize the needs of stakeholders, identify existing constraints and opportunities and propose solution scenarios
2. will implement some of the recommendations made at the end of the diagnosis (and subsequently formalized in the form of an action and reinforcement plan) on one or two pilot sites to test their relevance, before considering their possible deployment at the project level.
3. will ensure the skills development of the teams concerned in the pilot site(s).

In 2018, CartONG conducted two challenging Information Management (IM) needs assessment missions, during which we evaluated the IM policies, processes, practices and tools implemented by the Solidarités International’s teams in response to the refugee crisis in Bangladesh as well as the Syrian crisis.

For these rapid assessments of information management needs, CartONG interviewed the key players to evaluate their expectations, fears and difficulties, and reviewed the existing documentation and processes in place for the IM tools used by the local Solidarités’ teams as well as the available IM products. As part of these missions, we also facilitated workshops and conducted a review of the key existing project documents to identify the IM needs per activity and the potential constraints related to donor requirements. The deliverables of these two needs assessments missions were a report and a list of recommendations and suggested priorities. The support provided by CartONG in the Middle East had the particularity of taking place following the launch of a new  consortium (therefore still in its infancy), and was thus mostly focused on strategic aspects; whereas the mission in Bangladesh was an opportunity to identify the capacity-building needs of the local IM team which then led to a two-week training mission on various topics such as MDC, mapping and data protection.

In June 2016, following a second bidding process,  CartONG was one of the organizations (including iMMAP and MapAction) to be retained by the UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office, setting the framework to be deployed in the WCARO region to support UNICEF country operations in Information Management and Mapping.