RAPID INSIGHTS FOR HUMANITARIAN AID IN THE UK

© David Severn/British Red Cross

RAPID INSIGHTS FOR HUMANITARIAN AID IN THE UK

MATTHEW GWYNFRYN THOMAS

HUMANITARIANS HAVE A LOT TO DO THESE DAYS. The last five years have seen a torrent of emergencies, while the future looks ever less predictable.

The Red Cross—or the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, to give the global humanitarian network its full name—is best known for helping people during emergencies. The British Red Cross, one of the world’s many National Societies, responds to emergencies across the UK – including floods, heatwaves, and domestic fires.

But that’s not all we do. The British Red Cross also helps people receive the care and support they need without falling through gaps in the health and care system, and we support people to

feel safe, live with dignity, and have choices and opportunities if they are experiencing displacement.

These are complex areas of work, requiring many kinds of action backed by evidence. My team of researchers and analysts takes a mixed-methods approach to producing the evidence required, including literature reviews, semistructured interviews, thematic analysis, PESTLE analysis, scenario planning, data visualisation, and statistical analysis. A lot of the time we need to produce this evidence at short notice, and we often work closely with operational, policy, and strategy colleagues to do so. This article explores three recent (and mostly ongoing) emergencies that required rapid insights.

We designed a set of food aid services, including a partnership with FareShare, that aimed to support people at the sharp end of food insecurity, which was targeted based on the Vulnerability Index

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC We aim to support people living in the most vulnerable situations, where no other means of support is available. But when facing a rapidly spreading new disease and support is limited because your nation is locked down, how do you prioritise where and who to help?

A few days before the Government announced a national lockdown for the whole UK, we began to model vulnerability to Covid-19 based on what was known at the time. People with specific health conditions or suppressed immune systems were classed as ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ to the disease – so we gathered as many datasets as we could find that had information about these conditions.

It was also clear early on that there would be a socioeconomic angle to the crisis, with many people unable to work, financially insecure, unable to access food, digitally excluded, living in higher-risk environments, or working in occupations that increased their risk of catching the disease. Again, we pulled together a range of indicators that spoke to these vulnerabilities.

As mutual aid groups popped up across the country, a cavalcade of friendly nerds also sprang to action. Several people helped us by providing data or offering their analytical expertise, including Obi Thompson Sargoni at University College London, Brian Johnston at Queens University Belfast, and Tom Russell at the University of Oxford. OCSI, the Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion, were particularly

FIGURE 1 BRITISH RED CROSS COVID-19 VULNERABILITY INDEX

generous with their time and data and deserve special thanks for supporting us throughout the pandemic (and beyond).

With all the data in place, we produced a neighbourhood-level composite index for the whole UK that modelled clinical vulnerability, socioeconomic vulnerability, and indicators of broader health and wellbeing. Figure 1 displays the index, showing neighbourhoods that were clinically and socioeconomically vulnerable during the pandemic. The areas lightly shaded were the least vulnerable and those with the darker shading were the most vulnerable. From the beginning, we made our Covid-19 Vulnerability Index (VI) open source and freely available so others could use it – which many did: from Local Authorities and Community Foundations, to the Scottish Public Health Observatory and even Arts Council England.

The British Red Cross used the VI for multiple avenues of support. We set up a ‘hardship fund’, disbursing £5m as shortterm financial support to 13,000 people who were facing (or already experiencing) destitution – and the socioeconomic domain of the VI helped in targeting our cash assistance. We also designed a set of food aid services, including a partnership with FareShare, that aimed to support people at the sharp end of food insecurity, which was targeted based on the VI. That these services operated alongside our ‘business as usual’ support to people experiencing a multitude of crises is testament to the amazing humanitarian spirit of our volunteers and staff.

ARWEN, BARRA, CORRIE, DUDLEY, EUNICE, FRANKLIN As if a pandemic wasn’t enough, the UK also got battered by multiple storms in quick succession. Beginning with Storm Arwen towards the end of November 2021, through to Franklin in February 2022, hundreds of thousands of people across our isles experienced power cuts, damage to their homes, injury and, in a few tragic cases, death.

The day before Barra, the second storm of the season, was due to hit, we rushed to provide insights to guide emergency planning and response in areas with a red or amber warning from the Met Office. This resulted in a set of profiles for these areas that included information about atrisk groups, such as older people, people living alone, and people in financially precarious situations. Although this was an especially rapid analysis, produced within a single day, some local infrastructure organisations (who support other local charity organisations) said they were incredibly useful and shared them widely across their network

These profiles built upon several of the same data sources used in the Covid-19 Vulnerability Index, and we repurposed code from that and other projects—all shared on our organisational GitHub account—to make the profiles in such a short time. (The code for this piece of work is not currently publicly available, although we would be happy to share it with anyone who might be interested.)

We shared the vulnerability profiles with local British Red Cross teams as well as with partner organisations at the Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership (VCSEP). The VCSEP is a hub for local and national charities, helping them plan for and respond to emergencies in a coordinated way. Although this was an especially rapid analysis, produced within a single day, some local infrastructure organisations (who support other local charity organisations) said they were incredibly useful and shared them widely across their network.On the other hand, this rapidly conducted experiment revealed some interesting challenges for our ambition to become more anticipatory and proactive in how we plan for emergencies. One of our goals as a team is to support the British Red Cross to become more future-oriented, especially in anticipatory planning for emergencies. However, there can be gaps between strategic intent and

operational reality – and these gaps will not necessarily be reduced by throwing more evidence and insight into the mix: they require deeper consideration around culture and even differing worldviews about what it means to respond to an emergency.

UKRAINE Towards the end of February 2022, the ongoing crisis in Ukraine spilled over, leading to casualties, displacement, and a worsening of the global cost of living crisis. Alongside the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s support in Ukraine and across the region, my team attempted to shed some light on the potential humanitarian impacts in the UK.

Given the massive uncertainty surrounding the situation, we needed to produce rapid analyses of multiple plausible scenarios to inform how the British Red Cross might support people in the UK, especially those fleeing Ukraine and their loved ones who were already living here.

This was far more qualitative than the previous two examples. Our scenario analysis explored a range of potential humanitarian consequences for the UK and took a deeper look at the potential vulnerabilities and unmet needs for people seeking protection here.

We categorised the multitude of potential impacts by whether they were ‘critical uncertainties’ (highly uncertain, high-impact phenomena), ‘predetermined potential impacts’ (medium-to-high-impact phenomena that are better understood), and ‘ripple effects’ that could have large impacts further into the future.

The predetermined potential impacts included further cost of living increases, the health needs of refugees in an already-pressured health system, people entering the UK through unsafe routes such as via small boats crossing the Channel, and other factors associated with the Nationality and Borders Act.

Critical uncertainties encompassed a range of worst-case scenarios such as: potential destitution for people fleeing Ukraine after their support in the UK ends; increased trafficking to or in the UK; cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure such as hospitals, banks, the National Grid, or transport systems; and even nuclear attacks or radiation borne on winds.

Finally, the ripple effects looked at the potential for future refugee crises following global food shortages that may lead to conflicts in other nations; the implications for climate change under short-term decisions around energy supply; the risk of a recession; and increased social and material inequalities.

This depressing smorgasbord of possibilities shaped how we have planned different aspects of our aid in the UK, which so far has focussed on providing emotional support, information and signposting, cash assistance, SIM cards, hygiene products, and mobility equipment.

Critical uncertainties encompassed a range of worst-case scenarios such as: potential destitution for people fleeing Ukraine after their support in the UK ends; increased trafficking to or in the UK; cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure

We also shared these scenarios with other organisations through a VCSEP network call. They especially piqued the interest of Business in the Community—a charity that helps businesses improve their impacts on communities and the environment— which used the scenarios in regional meetings and ‘Business Response Forums’ with representatives from various FTSE 350 companies.

A CASE FOR SLOWER INSIGHTS These three examples showcase how we have increased our agility as humanitarian responders, supported by the rapid production of insights. But slowing down can be beneficial too. By building what you might call ‘insight infrastructure’, we can offer tools that support teams with their decision-making and understanding of situations related to emergencies, health inequalities, and displacement.

We are working on two main tools in this regard, both of which will be publicly accessible web apps. The first is an Emergency Planning Tool (which we are developing in collaboration with the Emergencies Partnership) that will help charities to better prepare by highlighting risks and vulnerabilities to specific emergencies in their areas, signposting users to other organisations who work in a place, and offering guidance on how to plan for emergencies. Our other tool will be a Health Inequalities Explorer, showing who and where are likely to experience inequalities in health outcomes, in the risks of poor health, and in access to high-quality support.

We cannot stop hazardous events from occurring, but we can take steps to become better-prepared so that they do not necessarily become disasters.

Matthew Gwynfryn Thomas is Head of Strategic Insight & Foresight at British Red Cross.