Overview
INFORM’s Global Risk Index is used by donors, multilateral organisations and others to support decision-making and resource allocation. INFORM’s Subnational Risk models are used at regional and national level to support humanitarian and development planning and preparedness. INFORM is developing a new model of crisis severity to support decisions on response. INFORM’s shared, open products provide a common analysis for all partners to work from, increasing the effectiveness and coordination of our joint work to prevent, prepare for and respond to crises.
Process
The INFORM Global Risk Index is essentially a risk profile for every country, which can help you compare risks between countries and understand the most important drivers of risks in each country. This is updated twice a year by the global INFORM initiative.
An INFORM Subnational risk model is a detailed picture of risk covering a single country or region and allows you to compare risks across that country or region. It can be used to support humanitarian and development planning processes. An INFORM Subnational model is a locally owned process (OCHA, RC Office, other agency or network), which is supported by the global INFORM initiative.
Outputs/Resources
Introduction to INFORM Subnational Risk Assessment
INFORM has developed an open source risk assessment methodology for humanitarian crises and disasters. An INFORM Subnational Risk Assessment shows a detailed picture of risk and its components that is comparable across a single region or country. It can be used by decision-makers to analyse and visualise risk. The model can support decisions on crisis and disaster response, preparedness, and resilience, as well as sustainable development.
How it works
An INFORM Subnational Risk Model combines and simplifies a lot of information about crisis and disaster risk using a composite risk index. It includes data on hazards and exposure, vulnerability and coping capacity and allows you to compare the level of risk and all of its components across a region or country. The geographical resolution of the model will vary depending on data availability, but it is at least Admin Level 1 (province) and can be higher (municipality, village).
An INFORM Subnational Risk Model can help you identify at-risk areas and determine the major driving factors of risk, which can help you decide how to manage it. The results are therefore a valuable input into any analysis that will support planning or resource allocation processes. Because the development is collaborative and the results are open, it is particularly useful in supporting any decision-making process that involves a wide range or large number of actors, for example strategic humanitarian, development or government planning.
Development process
The development of an INFORM Subnational model is initiated and lead by local or regional actors. In other words, by one or a coalition of actors working to manage the risk of humanitarian crises and disasters, or to plan for risk-informed development. They could be from government, intergovernmental organisations, non-governmental organisations or any other relevant group. For example, the development of INFORM Subnational models so far has been led by regional organisations, OCHA, UN Resident Coordinators and UN agencies.
A key part of the development process is consultation and collaboration with many different actors, so many organisations can contribute to the process and benefit from the outcomes. The basic process involves taking the conceptual framework used to measure risk in the INFORM Global Risk Index, adapting it to the local context and identifying existing subnational level data to measure risk.
Resources and support
INFORM has developed a guidance and online training package for those interested in developing an INFORM Subnational Risk Model.
For more info: contact@inform-index.org; Andy Thow, OCHA FIS thow@un.org