Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions (SMART) is a U.S. inter-agency global initiative to improve the reporting, monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian assistance interventions. This initiative aims to provide implementing partners and the broader humanitarian community with a range of tools to support humanitarian program assessment.

In July 2002, the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project (FANTA), with funding from USAID, organized and conducted a workshop on Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transition -- the SMART Technical Working Sessions. For the first time, U.S., Canadian, and European private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations, academia and donors met to review and resolve problems of using assessment tools and methodologies in emergency situations. Workshop participants included representatives from 45 institutions, including twenty non-governmental organizations (NGOs), seven UN agencies and other donors, universities, and government institutions.

The working session was sponsored by the American Red Cross (ARC), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United States Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (State/PRM). The technical sessions were supported and coordinated by the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA) Project/Academy for Educational Development (AED) with assistance from Food Aid Management (FAM).

The SMART Initiative

The goal of the SMART initiative is to pilot an approach to routinely collect, analyze and disseminate nutrition and mortality of populations in crisis, emphasizing the importance of interpreting data in context to facilitate more effective decision-making. The SMART initiative plans to develop information management tools for field reporting, a web-based forum for posting survey reports, and a listserve for field staff to have direct, immediate access to a pool of experts drawn from various organizations. A workshop agenda is available.

SMART Technical Working Session

The objective of the three-day technical working session was to establish a generic, standardized methodology for assessing mortality rate and nutritional status of populations in crisis which would be accepted and adopted by all organizations working in humanitarian assistance. A one-day Policy Session immediately followed the working session and to convey the key conclusions of the working session to policy makers and to promote a better understanding of how policy and program decisions are made by donors and international agencies.

Working Session Papers

Assessment of Adults and Older People in Emergencies: Approaches, Issues and Priorities [40 kb]
Busolo, HelpAge International

Linking Food Security and Nutrition Information to Understand the Causes of Child Malnutrition: Pitfalls and Potentials [33 kb] Chastre, LeJeune, Save the Children UK

A Method for Estimating Mortality Rates in Humanitarian Emergencies Using Previous Birth History [78 kb]
Myatt, Taylor

Nutrition and Health Survey Badghis Province, Afghanistan [43 kb]
Woodruff, Tchibindat, UNICEF

Population Nutritional Status During Famine [243 kb]
Golden, Grellety

Survey Manual: Emergency Nutrition Surveys, Afghanistan 2002 [38 kb]
Tchibindat, Woodruff

The technical session presentations are available on the SMART website, www.smartindicators.org.

Summary of Key Areas of Consensus

• Timely, reliable, and standardized data is essential for making policy and program decisions to address the needs of populations in crisis.
• It is important to establish a generic, standardized methodology to be used in all emergencies for assessing nutritional status.
• Crude Mortality Rate (CMR) and nutritional status of children under five are considered the most basic, essential indicators for assessing the overall severity of population stress and for monitoring the overall effort of the humanitarian community. The standard nutritional status indices to be used are wasting (thinness or marasmus) and edema (kwashiokor). Wasting is measured using weight-for-height.
• Analysis of trends is recommended for determining whether a situation warrants intervention. Frequent surveys using a simple methodology, are recommended to recalibrate surveillance data and monitor trends.
• Mortality survey data should to be compared with other data such as nutritional status, surveillance (e.g. incidence and program coverage), grave counting, religious authority records, mother to child ratio, and demographic profile.
• Data on wasting and edema should be reported separately.
• Nutritional survey data cannot be interpreted in isolation. A wide variety of information sources should be drawn on. In particular, food security needs to be understood to interpret nutritional survey data.

Next Steps

The SMART initiative will develop guidelines and other tools to assist organizations in using the proposed standardized methodology. In addition, an independent technical advisory group will be formed to review and accredit surveys for policy and program decision-making. Operational research and validated studies will be conducted to guide future recommendations and modifications on the current standardized methodology with on-going technical assistance to the humanitarian assistance community.