A Needs Analysis to Inform Global Humanitarian Capacity Building

This article describes a needs analysis case study to inform the instructional design of a multinational capacity building project in humanitarian logistics. Survey responses from 106 foreign partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) were collected to gain insights into organizations’ access to technology, levels of confidence in five logistics process areas, the strengths of previous capacity building projects, and organizational strategies and methods for capacity building. Results show that staff have access to mobile phones and computers and prefer to use the latter for learning. It was also found that not all NGOs implemented all the common logistics processes of an emergency response. Further, respondents preferred participatory approaches to scenario-based training over lecture-style presentations. Instructional design recommendations based on these results are shared as well as lessons learned which may help instructional designers working for multinational organizations design their needs analysis projects.