Questionnaire Design. How to Design a Questionnaire for Needs Assessments in Humanitarian Emergencies

There is no shortage of questionnaires used during emergencies that are too long, overly complex or unable to generate useful responses. The art of developing an effective questionnaire is the topic of master degrees and doctorates. The questionnaire is a critical tool in humanitarian response and requires time, resources and a detailed understanding of the context, factors which are all in short supply during an emergency. This technical brief aims to support the design of questionnaires for use in humanitarian emergencies by providing a set of guiding principles and a step-by-step process. If many of the principles detailed are universal to the development of any type of questionnaire, most of the examples used in this brief are related to strategic needs assessments implemented at the community level rather than the household level, e.g. Multi Cluster Initial and Rapid Assessments.