Today, over half of all internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees are living in cities. This means that forced displacement is both a humanitarian and development challenge, given that displacement is often long term, with more than 80 percent of refugee crises lasting ten or more years. Current models and tools developed mostly for rural, camp-based settings are not equipped to help responders understand and navigate the complex nature of urban contexts. Context analysis approaches can help humanitarian actors have a better understanding of the dynamics in a given setting by unpacking the political, economic, social, service delivery and spatial factors that could potentially enable or hinder effective crisis responses of affected populations.


The urban context analysis toolkit was created to provide an analysis toolkit that is user friendly, relatively quick to use, and adaptable. The toolkit contains a set of practical tools (work plan, questionnaires, analysis tables, report templates) tailored to conducting analysis that informs context specific responses – targeting both the displaced and host communities – in a given urban crises setting. The guidance note provides step by step guidance on how to apply the context analysis toolkit in practice. This toolkit will enable users to identify relevant stakeholders, existing power relations, resource distribution, governance and legal frameworks, sources of livelihoods, social networks, and access to services that will help responders to determine suitable entry points and improve the effectiveness and responsiveness of their programs.

Available documents & links