Rapid Post-Disaster Community Needs Assessment: A Case Study of Guatemala After the Civil Strife of 1979-1983

Information collected during emergencies often does not identify accurately either the population in greatest need or the relative amounts of relief assistance required. Needs appraisal models are required in which data collection and analysis is rapid. This paper presents a case study of a disaster relief project in Highland Guatemala which sought to provide a database which relief organisations could use to target assistance. A brief introduction to target assistance. A brief introduction to the existing conditions in Guatemala is presented, followed by a description of the assessment techniques used. Initially, the two main techniques used to obtain quantitative and qualitative data were an observational checklist and key informant questionnaires. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and impacts of the study.