Better evidence in the first 14 days can shape an entire operation

Revolutionising Rapid Assessments: Introducing the IFRC Survey Designer

In the critical early hours and days following a disaster, timely and accurate information is crucial for effective humanitarian response. Yet traditional survey processes often struggle to keep pace with an unfolding crisis — needs assessment questionnaires can take days (or weeks) to design, often include overlapping, unclear or biased questions, while missing critical ones, and commonly lack comparability across sectors, delaying analysis by days.

The IFRC Survey Designer changes that. Built into GO and powered by a question bank aligned with the IFRC analysis framework, it lets response teams create high-quality needs assessment surveys in hours, not days — so decisions are guided by evidence while it still matters. The Survey Designer, available as a standalone service and linked directly from the GO platform, will significantly enhance our emergency needs assessment capabilities.

The Challenge: Bridging the Information Gap in Crisis Response

Traditionally, conducting comprehensive household-level needs assessments is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. While invaluable for detailed planning, these surveys take too long to inform key operational decisions in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.

Following a sudden-onset disaster, the initial 14 days are crucial. During this period, key operational decisions are made, emergency appeals are launched, and operational strategies are defined. However, due to the complexities of survey design, team deployment, and data analysis, traditional household survey findings are often unavailable until 50 days or more after the disaster strikes. This delay means that initial critical decisions are frequently made without the benefit of detailed, on-the-ground assessment data.

Uganda Red Cross volunteers using Kobo near the border of DRC

The Solution: Faster, Indicative Insights with the Survey Designer

The IFRC Survey Designer addresses this challenge by using key informant interviews to champion community-level surveys. This approach allows for the rapid collection of indicative, rather than statistically representative, information about the scope and scale of a disaster and the immediate needs, priorities, and preferences of the affected population.

These types of surveys offer significant advantages:

• Speed: They are significantly faster to design and deploy, requiring fewer resources.
• Efficiency: Focusing often on quantitative data at this stage allows for much quicker analysis.
• Timeliness: Initial findings can be available within days of starting the assessment, feeding directly into the crucial early stages of operational planning.

Even while operational decisions are being formulated, we can incorporate valuable, timely insights from affected communities, leading to more targeted and effective operations.

🔧 A Walkthrough of the IFRC Survey Designer

Designed with simplicity and power in mind, the Survey Designer streamlines the process of creating emergency needs assessments into four straightforward steps:

1. Define the Scope: Users begin by providing a title for their survey. While currently focused on IFRC emergency needs assessments at the community and key informant level, the tool is built with future expansion in mind.
2. Select Questions (Modules): Leveraging a pre-defined question bank, users can select from various modules covering essential areas like basic needs and specific sectors such as Shelter and WASH. The tool allows easy reordering of these modules to suit the specific contexts. Users can also delve into the administrative view to see the exact questions within each module.
3. Define Languages: While initially launching with English, thanks to the generous support of the Netherlands Red Cross, the community-level assessment questions will soon be available in Arabic, French, and Spanish, enhancing the tool’s global applicability.
4. Generate and Publish: In the final step, users have multiple options:

• Download as Excel (XLSForm): For users familiar with Kobo and XLSForm syntax, this allows for further customisation before uploading to the IFRC Kobo Toolbox.
• Download as Word: Ideal for sharing the survey with sectoral experts and other stakeholders for feedback before deployment.
• Push Directly to Kobo: For users with their Kobo API keys configured, the survey can be sent directly to the IFRC Kobo Toolbox with a single click.

Integration with IFRC GO’s single sign-on ensures seamless access for users with GO credentials. Additionally, a Help section provides further guidance on the tool’s functionalities.

Screenshot of the Survey Designer

📋Powered by the IFRC KoboToolbox: A Proven Platform for Global Data Collection

Being able to send a survey straight to the IFRC KoboToolbox helps speed up the new rapid assessment process. The IFRC’s dedicated KoboToolbox server, established in December 2020, provides free and unlimited access to National Societies, IFRC, and ICRC. It has become an essential, trusted tool for data collection across the network, removing technical and financial barriers and enabling National Societies to gather evidence for their operations and programs.

The adoption of the platform has been both rapid and vast. As of June 2025, the server supports over 8,100 users across 180 National Societies. This extensive user base has created nearly 50,000 data collection projects and collectively submitted over 8.1 million forms. The sheer scale of its use demonstrates the platform’s establishment as a core component of the IFRC network’s information management ecosystem. The Survey Designer leverages this widely adopted infrastructure, ensuring that the surveys created can be deployed and managed on a proven, globally accessible platform.

🧠 Supporting a Smarter, Faster Response

The IFRC Survey Designer represents a significant step forward in our commitment to data-driven decision-making in humanitarian response. By providing a tool that enables faster and more efficient emergency needs assessments, the National Societies and IFRC can:

• Gain quicker insights into the needs of affected populations.
• Inform operational strategies with timely, indicative data.
• Optimise the allocation of resources in the critical early stages of a response.

📬 Stay Connected

As always, the GO team welcomes your input and ideas. For support or collaboration, reach out to us at im@ifrc.org. Watch a brief rationale and walkthrough of the tool and log in to Survey Designer with your GO credentials.