Research Guides @ Fordham: Humanitarian Studies Programs: Operational Assistance Sectors

General Manuals

UNDAC - Field Handbook
The United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) Handbook is intended as an easily accessible reference guide for members of an UNDAC team before and during
a mission to a disaster or emergency.
UNHCR - Handbook for Emergencies
This handbook summarizes UNHCR’s mandate of international protection and the aim and principles of emergency
response, and covers the vital sectors and problem areas in refugee emergencies.
USAID - Field Operations Guide
The FOG contains information on general responsibilities for disaster responders, formats and reference material for assessing and reporting on populations at risk, DART position descriptions and duty checklists, sample tracking and accounting forms, descriptions of OFDA stockpile commodities, general information related to disaster activities, and information on working with the military in the field.
UNICEF - Emergency Field Handbook
UNICEF's thorough guide to ensuring the safety of children during humanitarian responses in emergency situations.
Camp Management Toolkit 2015
The Camp Management Toolkit represents the most comprehensive guidance for those engaged in camp responses to displacement. The Toolkit provides guidelines that serve as practical support for national authorities, national and international humanitarian actors, as well as internally displaced persons and refugees involved in camp management.

Camp Management

OXFAM - Transitional Settlement Displaced Populations
The guidelines in the handbook offer a common planning tool for developing and implementing settlement and shelter strategies for people affected by conflict or natural disaster.

Water and Sanitation

OXFAM - Emergency Sanitation for Refugees
Sanitation is the efficient disposal of excreta, urine, refuse, and sullage. As indiscriminate defecation is normally the initial health hazard in refugee camps, this Technical Brief outlines ways in which it can be controlled temporarily while long-term solutions are devised.
WHO Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage
The paper describes approaches described improve the microbial quality of water and significantly reduce episodes of diarrheal disease.
UNHCR - Water Manual for Refugee Situations
The purpose of this manual is to explain to those involved in the provision of refugee assistance the technical characteristics and functioning of components, structures or equipment that may form part of a refugee water supply system.
Oxfam Guidelines for Water Treatment in Emergencies
These guidelines are partly based upon the use of Oxfam equipment packages, which are devised bythe Oxfam Public Health Engineering Team to help provide a reliable water supply where mass displacement of people has occurred, e.g. as found in refugee camps and relief centres.

Health

WHO - Communicable Disease Control in Emergencies
This manual is intended to help health professionals and public health coordinators working in emergency situations prevent, detect and control the major communicable diseases encountered by affected populations.
WHO/UNHCR - Clinical Management of Survivors of Rape
This publication includes the most recent technical information on the various aspects of care for people who have been raped.
WHO - Essential Medicines
The document presents essential medicines for priority diseases, for which specialized diagnostic or monitoring facilities, and/or specialist medical care, and/or specialist training are needed.
WHO - Guidelines for Drug Donations
The Guidelines aim to improve the quality of drug donations. They are not an international regulation, but are intended to serve as a basis for national or institutional guidelines, to be reviewed, adapted and implemented by governments and organizations dealing with drug donations.
HPN - Public Health in Crisis Affected Populations
This paper attempts to present a bird’s eye view of the risks to health inherent in crises, and the potential for impact of health interventions, using the language of epidemiology.
Red Cross - Public Health Guide for Emergencies
The book is organized around issues that humanitarian aid workers from international organizations must face in the field. It seeks to provide guidance in practical terms toward the solution of the many technical and management issues that challenge aid workers following natural and man made disasters including complex humanitarian emergencies.
WHO - Malaria Control in Complex Emergencies
The handbook focuses on effective malaria control responses to complex emergencies, particularly during the acute phase when reliance on international humanitarian as- sistance is greatest. It provides policy-makers, planners, field programme managers and medical coordinators with practical guidance on designing and implementing measures to reduce malaria morbidity and mortality.
WHO - Manual for Health Care of Children in Humanitarian Emergencies
These guidelines are to assist in the care of children in emergencies. They are designed to serve as a reference manual for the evaluation and management of children in emergencies, and as the basis for the training of health care workers. The target audience is first level health workers who provide care to children under the age of 5 years.
WHO/UNHCR - TB Control in Refugees and Displaced Populations
This manual is intended to inform humanitarian agencies, including nongovernmental organizations, United Nations organizations and donors, of the issues relating to the care of patients with tuberculosis (TB) and controlling the spread of the disease in refugee and displaced populations. The manual will serve as a tool for health coordinators at the field level for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of TB programmes in these settings.

WHO - Logistics in Health
The manual is aimed at all those who work in emergency management, whether government officials or members of nongovernmental organizations.
UNICEF/WHO - Guidelines for the Storage of Essential Medicines
Guidelines for the Storage of Essential Medicines and Other Health Commodities is a practical reference for those managing or involved in setting up a storeroom or warehouse.

Mental Health in Complex Emergencies

IASC - MHPSS in Emergencies Guidelines

Published in 2007 by the Inter-agency Standing Committee and available in 14 languages, this is a seminal document in the field of humanitarian mental health and psychosocial work. While designed for emergencies, the guidelines can be extended to any program which could influence mental health and well-being.

MHPSS.net - Emergency Toolkit

A compilation of numerous multilingual resources that would be relevant to mental health and psychosocial programming in an emergency. Available in web page and PDF format in three parts: General Technical Guidelines & Resources, Assessment & Mapping Guides, and Programme Implementation.

IASC - MHPSS Monitoring & Evaluation Framework

This 2021 document builds on the IASC guidelines and offers guidance on the 'assessment, research, design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) programmes in emergency settings.'

MHPSS.net - Education in Emergencies (EiE) and MHPSS

This toolkit offers access to resources relevant to both EiE and MHPSS. Its express goal is to increase understanding between the two sectors, which must be in constant dialogue.

MHPSS - IASC MHPSS Monitoring & Evaluation MoV Toolkit

MHPSS.net developed the IASC MHPSS M&E Framework MoV toolkit to accompany the framework and serve as a resource to maintain and disseminate these tools in a single, easy to use format.

MHPSS.net - The Children & Families MHPSS Resource Collection

This resource collection offers access to a staggering amount of resources relevant to MHPSS for children and families. It disaggregates these resources by twelve sectors and nine programming areas.

IOM - Manual on Community-Based MHPSS in Emergencies and Displacement

An operational guideline which describes the design and implementation process for IOM MHPSS program managers. It is intended as guidance for all MHPSS experts in the field.

WHO - mhGAP Intervention Guide 2.0

This is the second version of the 2016 mhGAP intervention guide. It provides key guidance for the management of mental neurological, and substance (MSN) disorders. Its guidance is grounded in algorithms of clinical decision making.

Logistics

CMEP - Food Aid Logistics Operational Handbook
The information contained in this handbook is designed to provide logistics managers and NGO program staff with basic information and guidance in planning and establishing a supply chain to deliver food aid.
WFP - Emergency Field Operations Pocket Book
The WFP emergency field operations pocketbook is a quick-reference resource for all WFP staff engaged in the provision of humanitarian assis- tance in the field, whether in Emergency Operations (EMOPs), Protracted Relief and Recovery Operations (PRROs) or Special Operations (SOs).

Food and Nutrition

IFRC – Global Food Security Assessment Guidelines
This guide aims to assist National Society staff and volun-teers throughout the world in undertaking food security assessments. It is a practical tool related to the Food security and nutrition policy, adopted by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (International Federation) in 2003, which encourages National Societies to conduct food security assessments.
Relief and Rehab Network - Emergency Supplementary Feeding Programmes
The objective of this review is to provide a short, accessible overview of what may be considered `good practice' in designing and implementing emergency supplementary feeding programmes (SFPs).
SCF - Household Economy Approach
The Household Economy Approach (HEA) is a framework for analysing how people obtain food, non-food goods and services, and how they might respond to changes in their external environment, like a drought or a rise in food prices.
UNHCR/WFP - Selective Feeding Guidelines
These guidelines describe the basic principles and design elements concerning food and nutrition related aspects of Selective Feeding Programmes in Emergency and Relief situations. They are intended to provide guidance to WFP and UNHCR and other relief staff in the design, implementation and monitoring of Selective Feeding Programmes in both emergencies and protracted relief situations.
WHO - Field Guide on Rapid Nutritional Assessment in Emergencies
This field guide is intended for all those who are faced with the need to make rapid but reliable estimates of nutritional status in emergencies as a basis for subsequent action.
WHO - Food and Nutrition Needs in Emergencies
UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP and WHO have jointly developed these guidelines as a practical tool for assessing, estimating and monitoring the food and nutrition needs of populations in emergencies.
WHO - Ensuring Optimal Feeding of Infants and Young Children During Emergencies
A summary of the WHO's policy on feeding infants and children during emercengy situations.

ILO/FAO – Livelihood Assessment Toolkit
The toolkit contains information on the analysis and response to the impact of disasters on the livelihoods of people.
IFE - Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies
An operational guide to infant and young child feeding protocols during emergency relief response.

Education

INEE - Guidance Notes on Teaching and Learning
Building on the INEE Minimum Standards, the Guidance Notes on Teaching and Learning articulate good practice on critical issues related to curricula adaptation and development; teacher training, professional development and support; instruction and learning processes; and the assessment of learning outcomes.

UNICEF - Education Strategy
The Education Strategy defines the contribution of UNICEF to national efforts to fulfil children’s right to education and achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, within the context of the UNICEF medium-term strategic plan (SP) for 2006-2009.
INEE - Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies
The Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies (MSEE) are both a handbook and an expression of commitment, developed through a broad process of collaboration, that all individuals – children, youth and adults – have a right to education during emergencies. They echo the core beliefs of the Sphere Project: that all possible steps should be taken to alleviate human suffering arising out of calamity and conflict, and that people affected by disaster have a right to life with dignity.
INEE - Toolkit: Establishing a Safe Learning Facility
The following tools relate to ensuring a safe learning safe in terms of physical well-being and safe facilities.
INEE - Toolkit Disaster Risk reduction and Preparedness
The page provides sourscs on disaster prevention education
Monitoring Children’s Rights: A Toolkit for Community-Based Organizations
INEE - Toolkit: Protection and Well-Being
These tools contribute to providing access to education through a learning environment which is protective of learners' physical and emotional well-being.
INEE - Education in Situations of Displacement: Key Resources
The INEE Minimum Standards present a global framework for coordinated action to enhance the quality of educational preparedness and response, increase access to relevant learning opportunities, and ensure humanitarian accountability in providing these services. The following tools are a selection from the INEE Minimum Standards Toolkit, and relate to the provision of quality education in situations of displacement.
INEE - Minimum Standard Reference Tool
The INEE Minimum Standards Reference Tool accompanies and complements the INEE Minimum Standards Handbook. It is a useful training tool and can provide easy references to the INEE Minimum Standards for people working on application, institutionalisation and contextualisation of the Standards.

Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR)

GTZ - DDR: A Practical Field and Classroom Guide
This book is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of all aspects of DDR operations. It is a training book for upper and middle management staff in specialised organisations that are involved in DDR programmes.
Stockholm Initiative on DDR - Final Report
The report highlights dilemmas and provides some recommendations and food for thought to be used as tools by actors involved in DDR programmes.

DDR Overview
This chapter attempts to define terms and processes for DDR according to international norms, while demonstrating that women are affected differently than men and offer unique perspectives that can contribute to more successful peace-building.

Humanitarian Studies Programs: Operational Assistance Sectors