A mother and daughter stand with their herd of goats in El Baraf, Somalia

The international community has made major progress in the warning and assessment of crises but continues to struggle to ensure the linkage between information, analysis, and action.

This umbrella project includes studies on specific aspects of this problem: the challenges of real-time monitoring; the constraints to linking diagnostic information to anticipatory action and response; the political constraints to the independence and objectivity of data collection and analysis; and technical and conceptual constraints and the validity of indicators.

To date this research program includes six different studies, multiple partners, and multiple donors:

  • The most recent study is Transforming the Humanitarian Information System, funded by USAID/Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (2023-2025). This project focuses on improving the real time monitoring of crisis (in between major assessment activities such as IPC analyses) and reducing the gap between humanitarian evidence and decision-making. Alternative models of humanitarian information systems and linkages to resource-prioritization and decision-making systems within country contexts will be developed and pilots tested in two crisis contexts.
  • FCDO Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Help Desk (2020-2024). Funded by the East Africa Research Fund/Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, this is primarily a short-term technical assistance project offering analytical support to FCDO offices, and also “deep dive” analysis on selected topics.
  • Early Warning-Early Action for Resilience in the IGAD Region (2020-2022). Funded by FAO, this study reviewed early warning systems in the IGAD region and its links to early or anticipatory action.
  • Constraints and Complexities of Information and Analysis (2017-2021), funded by ECHO/Action Against Hunger, the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, the Office of Swiss Development Cooperation, and the East Africa Research Fund/Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the UK. This study analyzed the political interference or manipulation of data collection and analysis, focusing primarily on six famine risk countries.
  • Improving the Analysis of Food Security, Nutrition and Famine (2019-2020). Funded by Action Against Hunger, FAO, and REACH. This study reviewed the validity of food security indicators and conducted a pilot study of early warning systems in East Africa.
  • Comparing Household Food Consumption Indicators to Inform Acute Food Insecurity Phase Classification (2015), funded by FEWS NET and FANTA.

 

Action Against Hunger:

  • Imelda Awino
  • Lilian Kaindi
  • James Njiru
  • Ellyn Yakowenko

 

Centre for Humanitarian Change:

  • Guhad Adan
  • Linsday Baker 
  • Peter Hailey
  • Stephen Odhiambo

 

IMPACT Initiatives, Geneva Switzerland:

  • Jeremy Binz
  • Nanki Chawla
  • Margot Fortin
  • Katie Rickard

 

Mercy Corps:

  • Jeeyon Kim  

 

REACH South Sudan:

  • Dut Akuei
  • Matthew Day
  • Khemis Moses
  • Katie Rickard
  • William Yak

 

University of Texas-Austin:

  • Erin Lentz

 

Multiple calls have been issued for better preparedness, early warning, and, above all, early action to prevent hunger and malnutrition, reduce the scale of food insecurity, improve resilience, and reduce...

Daniel Maxwell, Erin Lentz, Cori Simmons, Gregory Gottlieb

• June 2021
Report cover thumbnail

This study examines the links between early warning and early action (EW-EA) in East Africa. The report describes existing regional and national EW-EA systems.

Daniel Maxwell, Erin Lentz, Cori Simmons, Gregory Gottlieb

• June 2021
Report cover thumbnail

This study examines the links between early warning and early action in East Africa. The report provides the background to the study, a brief conceptual overview, the main findings of the study, and the recommendations to FAO and IGAD.

Daniel Maxwell, Erin Lentz, Cori Simmons, Gregory Gottlieb

• June 2021
Report cover thumbnail

This study examines the links between early warning and early action (EW-EA) in East Africa. The report deals specifically with new technology in predictive analytics and machine learning to enhance approaches to EW-EA.

Erin Lentz, Cori Simmons, Gregory Gottlieb, Daniel Maxwell

• June 2021

This paper reviews real-time monitoring (RTM), how it fits into a humanitarian information system, how systems quickly adjusted toward RTM in 2020, and provides a series of case studies of RTM systems, their objectives, and their outcomes. 

Daniel Maxwell, Erin Lentz, Kamau Wanjohi, Daniel Molla, Matthew Day, Peter Hailey, Christopher Newton, Anna Colom

• March 2021

The nature of humanitarian crises has changed over the past two decades. These changes demand increased anticipatory humanitarian action and improved information to guide that action. The COVID 19 pandemic...

Erin Lentz, Gregory Gottlieb, Cori Simmons, Daniel Maxwell

• December 2020
coronavirus

This brief lays out lessons from our study of famine information systems and considers how they may be applicable to the coronavirus pandemic response.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Anne Radday

• May 2020

This is a brief on the full report of the study that synthesized findings from six different country case studies, noting influences on data collection and analysis processes during emergencies.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey

• June 2020
emergencies

This study synthesized findings from six different country case studies, noting influences on data collection and analysis processes during emergencies.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey

• May 2020

The humanitarian situation in Somalia is among the world’s most enduring current crises. As a result of conflict and a very weak central state, the country ran for two decades...

Peter Hailey, Jeeyon Janet Kim, Erin McCloskey, Maria Wrabel, Daniel Maxwell

• November 2018

This study employed an active case identification approach to identifying the worst affected households in communities and make recommendations for how classification could be further improved.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Matthew Day, Guhad Adan, Joyce Maxwell, Stephen Odhiambo, Aishwarya Venkat, Lilian Kaindi, James Njiru

• June 2020
Towards Anticipatory Info Systems Cover

This paper reviews issues with contemporary humanitarian information and early warning systems. While the cases focus on the East Africa region, they have broader implications as well.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey

• January 2020
Politics of Information

This study examines the politics of information and its influences on humanitarian information systems in Ethiopia today.

Daniel Maxwell, Lindsay Spainhour Baker, Peter Hailey

• April 2020
politics of information and analysis

This report provides recommendations related to managing the political influences and improving the technical quality of the data and analysis in Kenya.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Lindsay Spainhour Baker, Stephen Odhiambo

• April 2020
famine early warning

Attention to the growing number of people caught in crises characterized by extreme and often protracted levels of food insecurity, malnutrition, and mortality is increasing. The information systems that track...

Daniel Maxwell

• November 2019

A study of the effectiveness of the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system, as it is used to identify famine and levels of food insecurity in Yemen.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Lindsay Spainhour Baker, Jeeyon Janet Kim

• June 2019

A study of the effectiveness of the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system, as it is used to identify famine and levels of food insecurity in Yemen.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Lindsay Spainhour Baker, Jeeyon Janet Kim

• June 2019
identify famine

A study of the effectiveness of the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system, used to identify famine and levels of food insecurity, in South Sudan.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Jeeyon Janet Kim, Erin McCloskey, Maria Wrabel

• July 2018
Integrated Phase Classification

The briefing paper about a study of the effectiveness of the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system, used to identify famine and levels of food insecurity, in South Sudan.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Jeeyon Janet Kim, Erin McCloskey, Maria Wrabel

• July 2018

Ce rapport examine le Cadre Harmonisé pour mieux comprendre les contraintes techniques et politiques à l'analyse des famines et des urgences extrêmes.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Jeeyon Janet Kim, Erin McCloskey, Maria Wrabel

• July 2018
humanitarianism in Nigeria

This report examines the Cadre Harmonisé in Nigeria to better understand the technical and political constrains to analyzing famines and extreme emergencies.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Jeeyon Janet Kim, Erin McCloskey, Maria Wrabel

• May 2018
analyzing famine in Nigeria

This brief examines the Cadre Harmonisé in Nigeria to better understand the technical and political constrains to analyzing famines and extreme emergencies.

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Jeeyon Janet Kim, Erin McCloskey, Maria Wrabel

• May 2018
famine in Nigeria

Dans le but d’identifier et de classifier la sévérité de l’insécurité alimentaire, y compris la famine, le Nigeria utilise l’approche du Cadre Harmonisé (CH), un processus analytique semblable au Cadre...

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Jeeyon Janet Kim, Erin McCloskey, Maria Wrabel

• July 2018
data planning in famine

The humanitarian community has technical definitions of famine and food security or nutrition emergencies: the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). The classification requires good quality and coverage of food...

Jeeyon Janet Kim, Erin McCloskey, Peter Hailey, Daniel Maxwell

• June 2018

One important component of analysis of food insecurity in emergencies is the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Food Insecurity Reference Table. This table provides a graduated description of...

Bapu Vaitla, Jennifer Coates, Daniel Maxwell

• December 2015

Daniel Maxwell, Guhad Adan, Peter Hailey, Matthew Day, Stephen B.J. Odhiambo, Lilian Kaindi, James Njiru, Aishwarya Venkat, and Anastasia Marshak. 2023. “Using the Household Hunger Scale to Improve Analysis and Classification of Severe Food Insecurity in Famine-Risk Conditions: Evidence from Three Countries.” Food Policy.  Vol. 118 (2023) 102449 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102449

Erin Lentz and Daniel Maxwell. 2022. “Anticipating, Mitigating, and Responding to Crises: How Do Information Problems Constrain Action?” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Vol. 81. 103242 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103242

Daniel Maxwell and Peter Hailey. 2021.  “Analyzing Famine: The Politics of Information and Analysis in Food Security Crises.” Journal of Humanitarian Affairs Vol. 3 (1), pp. 16-27 http://dx.doi.org/10.7227/JHA.055

Daniel Maxwell, Peter Hailey, Abdullahi Khalif and Francesco Checchi. 2020. “Determining Famine: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis for the 21st Century.” Food Policy. Vol. 92 (April)  Article 101832. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.101832

Bapu Vaitla, Jennifer Cisse, Joanna Upton, Girmay Tesfaye, Nigussie Abadi, and Daniel Maxwell. 2020. “How the choice of food security indicators affects the assessment of resilience—an example from northern Ethiopia.” Food Security. Vol. 12(1), pp.137–150. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-019-00989-w

Bapu Vaitla, Jennifer Coates, Laura Glaeser, Christopher Hillbruner, Preetish Biswas, and Daniel Maxwell. 2017. “The measurement of household food security: Correlation and latent variable analysis of alternative indicators in a large multi-country dataset.” Food Policy. Vol. 68 (April) pp. 193-205.

Early Warning Early Action for Increased Resilience of Livelihoods in IGAD Region
April 2021

In this first installment of the series, Key Findings and Recommendations from “Early Warning and Early Action for Increased Resilience of Livelihoods in IGAD Region,” Dan Maxwell and Erin Lentz...

Webinar: The Politics of Information and Analysis in Famine and Extreme Emergencies
June 2020

The ability to predict and analyze famine has improved sharply in the past 15 years. However, the political influences on data collection and analysis in famine and extreme emergencies continue...