Data Entry and Exploration Platform (DEEP)

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DEEP offers a suite of collaborative tools tailored towards humanitarian crisis responses. It includes common analysis workflows and frameworks for thinking using both structured and unstructured, quantitative and qualitative data. By using a customizable analysis frameworks, users can easily catalog information contained in large amounts of documents and export it to a variety of formats. Supporting this, DEEP has a long term vision of using text analysis techniques in order to streamline the process of sourcing information from online sources and semi-automating document information extraction. Although the platform is meant to be a collaborative space, it is open-source and available to be deployed in private server environments. Development of DEEP began in early 2016 and it is a collaborative project governed by UN OCHA, UNHCR, UNICEF, ACAPS, IFRC, IDMC, OHCHR, IDMC, JIPS and Data Friendly Space. The platform can support a variety of field or headquarters-based institutional workstreams requiring solutions for managing unstructured data such as: Secondary Data Review for informing specific research, context, sector or situational analysis or in support to needs assessments. Protection Monitoring: designed to identify violations of rights and protection risks for populations of concern. Participatory Assessments: informing country operations planning and programming. Risk Analysis: using media monitoring and collaborative analysis as a basis for detection of changes and early warning, early action. Assessment Registry: cataloguing existing assessments reports for easy retrieval and understanding of where needs related information is available.

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Problem

Over the past ten years, the humanitarian community has made significant efforts in approaching needs assessment and analysis. Under the Grand Bargain on Needs Assessments Workstream, a wide range of partners have come together and committed to improving cross-sectoral, methodologically sound and impartial assessments, including through shared and comparable data. Despite initiatives that demonstrate progress towards improving joint needs assessment and analysis practices, effective operationalization of such practices and initiatives in support of strategic decision-making remains limited. With such limitations, well informed and properly coordinated humanitarian responses remain difficult. Additionally, the data deluge faced by humanitarian analysts presented by large volumes and complexities of secondary data, make timely and accurate analysis difficult.

Solution

DEEP is an online platform which meets the need for common means to compile, store, interpret and share data and information, applying cutting-edge technologies and analytical workflows. The platform allows for analysts to ingest data of interest in both qualitative and quantitative formats then structure and analyze it in common analytical frameworks. DEEP was first initiated in 2015 and has gained significant momentum in the past couple of years. The platform has been used to support joint analysis in multiple humanitarian contexts, including sudden-onset emergencies in Mozambique, complex emergencies (Libya, Nigeria, Yemen) and more recent mixed flows, such as the Venezuela situation (Project R4V). In these countries, the DEEP has proven its value by directly informing Flash Appeals, Emergency Plans for Refugees and Migrants, Cluster/NGO Strategies and Humanitarian Needs Overviews.