Country Context Analysis

Illustration by Freepik Storyset

What is a country context analysis?  

Country Context analysis plays a key role in enabling humanitarian actors (like CSOs) to operate in environments characterized by complexity, instability, insecurity and (often) foreignness. The purpose of context analysis is to allow CSOs to better understand the socio-cultural, political, economic and geographic factors that give rise to a need. A structured context analysis can contribute to the prioritisation of interventions and potential programmatic entry points while also informing project design, implementation and the monitoring and evaluation framework. 

Why do a country context analysis? 

The reasons for conducting a context analysis include: 

  • Programme design and quality 
    • Informs intervention design in an inception phase 
    • Identifies the root causes and contributing factors to a social issue.  
    • Determines stakeholders’ positions, interests and influence – e.g. value chains and local institutions 
    • Assesses programme entry points for programme themes 
  • Access 
    • Informs decisions on access 
    • Contributes to decisions on implementing partner (IP) selection 
    • Contributes to decisions on provision of services 
  • Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (PMEL) 
    • Fundamental to adaptive programming is that there is a starting point.  
    • Informs PMEL design and the theory of change (ToC) 
    • Contextualises interrelationships and informs the learning agenda 

How to do a country context analysis? 

To collect the information needed, there are four steps to go through. These steps are divided into two groups: 

  • Scope of the analysis and the core questions (step 1); 
  • Finding valid answers to the core questions (step 2, 3, 4). 

The four steps are:  

  • Step 1. Define core research questions: What are the main questions that need to be answered?  
  • Step 2. Sources of information: Find the information in the best way;  
  • Step 3. Information validation: Validate the information; 
  • Step 4. Write report: Report on the answers found.