Indicator Development for Surveillance of Urban Emergencies (IDSUE)

Project Period

Project Partners

  • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

This is a five year phased research project, implemented in partnership with Concern Worldwide. The project aims to develop and empirically test a set of emergency indicators for an urban slum environment. The project will define indicators of urban emergencies suitable for triggering a humanitarian response.

This work will feed into a larger movement in Kenya to identify such indicators as well as fill a critical knowledge and information gap that currently prevents humanitarian actors from effectively and equitably responding to the emergency needs of the urban poor. The first one-year phase of the study was in 2010/2011 in two informal settlements in Nairobi. This was followed by the current phase of the study being implemented in four informal settlements in Nairobi, one informal settlement in Kisumu and one formal settlement in Nairobi. The third phase is expected to begin in November 2012.

Project Objectives

The project aims to develop and empirically test indicators of urban emergencies suitable for triggering humanitarian response and understand coping mechanisms of the urban poor to emergencies.

Spesific Objectives

  • To determine indicators for early detection of humanitarian emergency situations and coping strategies in the urban settings in SSA
  • To develop surveillance systems for detection of early warning signs of a humanitarian emergency/crisis in urban settings in
  • To identify thresholds/cut-offs/decision algorithms for defining when a situation has reached an emergency/crisis stage in an urban context in SSA