Appendix A: Rapid Economic Assessment Form¶

This form goes with Chapter 3. It gathers, ready to photocopy, the questions and grids your team will take into the field. The questions are drawn from published guides, with the source given for each block; they are adapted and sometimes shortened. Fit them to your area, to the language of the people you interview and to the disaster. Do not read them out like a questionnaire: they are conversation starters.

A1. Before going into the field¶

To fill in at a team meeting, before the first visit. Acronyms: MIRA, Multi-Cluster/Sector Initial Rapid Assessment; PDNA, Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (see Chapter 3).

Question	Team's answer
Does an official assessment (MIRA, PDNA, sector assessment) already exist? Who is leading it? Do we have its results?
What pre-disaster data do we have (club diagnosis, registries, chamber of commerce, census)?
What decision should this assessment inform?
Which two or three activities or markets are we selecting?
What is the key question for each?
Who is on the team? Which pairs? Which dates?
How do we introduce the assessment without promising anything?
To whom will we report the results, and when?

The six criteria for choosing an activity (based on the Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis toolkit, EMMA, 2010):

Importance for the lives and incomes of the affected women and men
What the authorities and the major organizations are already doing
How badly the disaster hit it
Fit with your club's skills and network
Timing and season (harvest, tourist season, holidays)
Whether a realistic response exists

Suggested introduction: "We are members of the Rotary club of [town]. We are meeting the merchants and craftspeople of the neighborhood to understand what the disaster has changed for their business. This visit does not entitle anyone to aid and commits us to nothing; it helps us find out where we could be useful, and we will tell you what we have learned. Would you be willing to talk with us for about twenty minutes?"

A2. Key informants¶

Elected officials, municipal departments, chamber of commerce, merchants' or craftspeople's associations, neighborhood leaders. Length: up to one hour. Source: PDNA Guidelines, Volume B, chapter on employment, livelihoods and social protection, Annex 3.

What are the main ways in which people make a living in this area?
Do women do different things to make a living than men? Which ones?
Which are the most vulnerable groups, where are they located, and what is their relationship to those making a living in the area?
Which groups have been most affected, and why?
What has been the general impact of the disaster on how people make a living? (Keep in mind the proportion of shops or businesses closed or collapsed, of fields flooded or damaged, roads closed, marketplaces.)
What are people doing to cope? What are they likely to do?
What are the immediate priorities to support?
What can be expected from the government agencies and organizations present?
What changes are required for lasting recovery and for being less vulnerable to the next disaster?

A3. Entrepreneurs and small business owners¶

Length: 20 to 40 minutes, on site, in person. Sources: PDNA employment guidelines, Annex 3; EMMA, boxes 4.5 and 4.7; World Bank damage and loss assessment method.

Situation

Did your business close after the disaster? If so, for how long? Has it reopened?
What are the estimated damages, at replacement cost, to your premises, equipment and machines, raw materials and finished goods?
Have your costs gone up (more expensive materials and transport, cleaning, demolition, repairs)?
Has your turnover dropped (fewer customers, canceled contracts)?
Is your business held back by a lack of workers (employees gone, injured, busy with their own families)?

Customers and suppliers

How many customers do you have these days? At what price do you sell now, and at what price at the same time last year?
Who are your suppliers, and where are they? Are they still delivering to you?
If your customers came back, how fast could you supply as much as before? Twice as much? Three times as much?

Credit and cash flow

Did you sell to your customers on credit before the disaster? How much are you owed today?
Do your suppliers still give you credit?
Do you have an outstanding loan? With whom? Can you repay it on the planned schedule?

Outlook

What are your main problems in working today?
What could solve them? What would allow you to start up again?
Do you plan to stay here, leave, or do you not know yet?

The World Bank guide also asks owners about the difficulties they foresee: financing and credit needs, availability of goods to sell, availability of labor.

A4. Community leaders and households¶

Length: 20 to 30 minutes; interview women separately if possible. Sources: PDNA employment guidelines, Annex 3; EMMA, box 4.4.

How did people make a living before the disaster? What were your main sources of income at this time of year (wage or day labor, selling crops or livestock, petty trade, money sent by family)?
What skills exist in the community and in households?
What damage did the disaster cause? What effect has it had on your livelihoods?
Which activities have stopped, and why (crops or livestock lost, roads cut, buildings collapsed, no more goods)?
If you lived from day labor: do you find as much work as before? At the same wage?
If you lived from selling your products: do you sell as much? At the same price?
How is your family getting by? What have you changed to cope? (Watch for answers that signal the sale of tools, livestock or work vehicles, debt, or children taken out of school.)
Have any organizations already stepped in?
If you received money rather than goods, what would you buy first? Where?
What would enable people and businesses to resume their activity?
What were daily wages, skilled and unskilled, before the disaster? And today?

A5. The marketplace¶

Length: one interview with a market representative or key informant, then a day for two people to go around the traders (30 to 40 minutes per trader). Source: Rapid Assessment for Markets (RAM) of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, 2014, Tool 8.

Heading	To note
Identification	name, location, market day, contacts and their phone numbers
Physical damage	stalls, market hall, warehouses, access, water, electricity
Demand	have customers come back? which ones are missing?
Supply	number of wholesalers and retailers before and now
Capacity	could traders increase their sales by half, or double them?
Supply chain	where goods come from, by which roads, which links are cut
Prices	current prices of four or five key products, and usual prices this season
Contacts	merchants' association, market manager, chamber of commerce

A6. Damage, losses, needs grid¶

One column per business or activity visited.

Heading	Activity 1	Activity 2	Activity 3
Damage
Losses
Needs to restart
Main obstacle

Reminder: damage is the assets destroyed, at pre-disaster prices; losses are what no longer comes in or now costs more; needs are what it takes to restart. Do not count twice: a business's losses include the wages it no longer pays.

A7. Monitoring sheet per trader¶

Source: EMMA, box 4.10. As the toolkit points out, understanding the trend matters as much as having precise figures.

Trader:	Before (baseline)	Now	Trend
Sales volume
Purchase price
Selling price
Stock
Credit given and received

A8. Order-of-magnitude calculations¶

Source: PDNA employment guidelines. Always give a range, and cross-check two sources when you can.

Workdays lost in an activity = number of workers before the disaster × days worked per year × percentage drop in activity.
Income lost by employees = number of employees affected × average wage × estimated time without work.
Income lost by the self-employed = number of micro-enterprises affected × people per micro-enterprise × average income per person × percentage drop × duration of the drop.

Accuracy benchmark from EMMA: with twenty people interviewed, an average is at best accurate to within plus or minus 10%; with ten, to within plus or minus 30%.

A9. Price monitoring¶

To set up if your club distributes cash, vouchers or goods (Chapter 5). Source: MARKit, 2015.

Three to five traders per market, always the same ones, taking care not to wear them out; in a small market with three or four retailers, all of them.
The same day and time each week; market day if the market is weekly. At least once a month.
For each product, the most common price, not the average; weigh local units.
Indicative thresholds suggested by the source as a cue to ask questions: a change of 7.5% from one week to the next, 15% over two weeks, 30% from one month to the next.

Week	Product 1	Product 2	Product 3
1
2
3
4

A10. Organizing the team¶

Pairs; one marketplace per pair per day (RAM).
Indicative split of interview hours (EMMA): households 15%, traders and local employers 30%, wholesalers and large buyers 30%, key informants 15%, reserve for follow-ups 10%.
Every evening: update the market map, summarize the interviews, complete the forms, review the next day's schedule (EMMA, box 5.1).
In-person visits, by members the interviewees know; no questionnaire sent to business owners hit by the disaster.

A11. Feedback and participation¶

The results have been presented to the people interviewed before any decision
Women, young people, people with disabilities and the poorest have been heard, separately if necessary
People know how to give feedback without fear of losing aid
No promise has been made
The data has been shared with the town hall, the humanitarian coordination and the chamber of commerce
Personal data is protected (consent, limited access)

A12. Last questions before concluding¶

Based on the checklist in the livelihoods guidelines of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC, 2010):

Do we understand the main ways people make a living in the area?
Do we know how households and businesses are coping?
Do we know who is least able to cope?
Do we know what ideas the affected people have to speed up their recovery?
Do we know what the main obstacles to recovery are?
Have we considered the market opportunities and constraints for each activity?
Do we know what other projects are planned or under way, and whether the affected people can access them?

A13. Conclusion by activity¶

Activity	Conclusion	Who acts
	nothing to do / obstacle to report / need to address