Providing Innovative Information Management Support to the Protection Sector in Nigeria

The conflict across northeast Nigeria continues as intensely as ever and threatens the civilian population''''s human rights and physical security. Across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe (BAY) states alone, children, women, men, and the elderly account for 4.3 million vulnerable individuals grappling with protection issues spanning from displacement, gender-based violence, exploitation, and lack of access to essential services.

The 2022 protection response strategy targets internally displaced persons (IDPs), host communities and returnees. One of the Sector’s objectives for this cycle is to effectively consolidate data through harmonized protection monitoring. Through the overall aim to enhance the quality of response information collected and shared with partners and other sectors to support the groups targeted in this year´s strategy.

Since March 2022, with funding received from the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) and through its Humanitarian Information Analysis Unit (HIAU), iMMAP has been supporting the Protection Sector and the Child Protection (CP), Gender-Based Violence (GBV), and Housing, Land and Property (HLP) Sub-Sectors.

The support provided to the Protection Sector includes developing and coordinating the inputs for the 5W data collection tool used by 85 protection partners across BAY states while developing a survey to understand the IM needs of partners to enhance the coordination of response activities. In addition, the HIAU developed and regularly updates a series of information collection and visualization products:

• The Protection Sector Dashboard (Interactive) offers visualization of key figures such as people in need, protection objectives, monthly trends of beneficiaries reached, and more. The dashboard is updated regularly to monitor activity progress in relation to the targets set in the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP).
• The Operational Partner Presence Dashboard (Interactive) indicates the geographical coverage of partners, ensures the rationalization of partners across affected communities to reduce duplication of efforts while strengthening accountability to relevant stakeholders.
• The Protection Monitoring Dashboard (Snapshots) collects information on the rise of protection risks including intersectoral needs faced by the vulnerable population. This allows the sector to produce cross-sectoral analyses on the rise of protection needs in relation to camp closure, food insecurity, and limited freedom of movement.
• The Service Mapping Dashboard enables the sector to manage response gaps and coordinate targeted protection assistance.

On the other hand, the HIAU has also provided an array of services and products to the previously mentioned Sub-Sector´s to enhance the coordination of their response activities.

In November 2021, iMMAP supported the CP Sub-Sector to update its logical framework with identified operational objectives and projected outcome indicators for 2022. In addition, iMMAP provided capacity strengthening sessions to CP partners on using ReportHub – an online reporting tool developed by iMMAP for data submission and ActivityInfo – a user-friendly IM website for collaborations on data collection and sharing.

In a joint analysis with the Nutrition Sector, iMMAP consolidated multiple datasets from various sources to support the GBV Sub-Sector´s service utilization analysis. While for the HLP Sub-Sector, iMMAP designed the 5W data collection tool, guidelines for using the tool and facilitated a remote training session for 44 partners from 16 organizations its use.

These products enable Protection Sector and Sub-Sector stakeholders to better understand the vulnerabilities of affected communities, support their advocacy and reporting activities, and plan prioritized protection interventions while effectively managing coordination gaps. Collectively, iMMAP''''s products provide the grounds for evidence-based decision making to achieve cost-effective response results.

iMMAP thanks the Protection Sector and Sub-Sectors for their trust in iMMAP´s IM capabilities and services. We are proud to continue collaborating with the Sector, Sub-Sectors, and their partners to promote evidence-based response activities.