It’s not always easy to identify potential risks and harms that exist when you collect data. Nor is it easy to know how to mitigate or reduce the risk if you know it exists. And while there are very complex, long and detailed resources available, most project design and frontline teams do not have the time to read (and understand) them.
We set ourselves a task to create a short, simple, and practical resource to help teams who are designing projects to identify potential risks and harms. And to provide some clear and practical actions and activities to include which would help reduce the risks and harms.
Here’s what we came up with. Download what we developed: Identifying and Mitigating Potential Risks and Harms
It is not perfect (far from it) so we welcome ideas to improve it (please let me know). Please share this widely. If we all apply these basic actions, collectively we can reduce risk for those we work with.
Data collection is very often fraught with numerous challenges. In some circumstances data info is tightly guarded and some governments are reluctant to have 3rd parties have access to information on data due to political reasons.
The risks not withstanding though, access to accurate and reliable data is very critical for our projects planning and impact follow ups.