The purpose of this chapter is to provide Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) staff and others who participate on OFDA Assessment Teams with a guide to conducting an initial assessment for sudden or slow onset disasters. It includes information on the purpose, types, and elements of an assessment; collecting and analyzing data; preparing recommendations for
U.S. Government (USG) response; and submitting assessment reports to OFDA Washington (OFDA/W). It also provides basic assessment checklists by sector.
In addition to providing a guide to conducting an initial assessment, this chapter identifies broad categories of information to gather for specific sectors. The Field Operations Guide (FOG), however, is not intended as a complete reference for comprehensive assessments conducted by sector experts. When sector experts—epidemiologists and water/sanitation specialists, for example—are deployed as members of an Assessment Team, they provide additional assessment methods and tools to undertake a comprehensive sector analysis.
TOC: Assessments