Umar Yusuf, Head of the Information Management Unit in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan, explains how his?team developed?the new Planning Bridge Tool.
As the humanitarian situation in Sudan remains catastrophic, understanding the complex environment in which humanitarian partners operate - and the scope of their intervention - is critical.
As part of OCHA¡¯s Humanitarian Programme Cycle suite of tools, which help with?identifying needs,?strategic planning, cluster-level coordination, and project monitoring, the Planning Bridge Tool?is used to connect needs, activities, and projects, so that there is?no overlap?or surpluse?in the response.
The Planning Bridge Tool was first developed in 2022 by our colleagues at OCHA Nigeria. It has helped cluster coordinators?visualize all draft response projects in an easy-to-use dashboard, including how many people they intended to reach, to better plan their respective response activities.
Building on this, my team has just developed our own Planning Bridge Tool, which integrates a wide range of datasets into a dashboard that facilitates the verification of cluster and partner-level project targets, financial requirements estimated through unit-based costing, and the submissions provided by each cluster.
In the context of Sudan, priority was given to the Famine Prevention Plan.
The team behind the work
Building on the excellent work done by our OCHA Nigeria colleagues is a true testament to the importance that we attach to teamwork, learning from one another, and replicating strong, innovative practices.
An important feature of the tool is that it can be modified and customized for specific purposes without requiring the creation of entirely new tools. This flexibility enables partners to address new developments, such as the risk of famine, while still working with a familiar platform.
The success of this tool was truly a team effort (see the team photo?above) and the result everyone¡¯s strategic vision and unwavering efforts, particularly amidst the challenging context in which we?operate.
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