Document 521 - Pre-Assessment Report – Instructions for Report Preparation
Document 521 - Pre-Assessment Report
Instructions for Report Preparation
Please go to the EWB-USA website to make sure that you are using the most current version of this document.
The purpose of an assessment trip is to gather sufficient information to allow the chapter to a) assess the economic, social, environmental and technical viability of the project b) assess project sustainability; the potential for the project to last long-term, c) make a “go/no go” decision about continuing with the project, d) enable future design and analysis of the proposed infrastructure at the site and e) serve as baseline data for monitoring and evaluation of the project in the future. The pre-assessment document is a planning tool for chapters to use to ensure that the pertinent information is gathered during the site assessment visit. It also allows the EWB-USA National staff to review the trip and make recommendations that are intended to improve the quality of the project. To allow time for review by EWB-USA National office staff, this report must be submitted in accordance with the deadlines posted on the EWB-USA website. Your trip will be postponed if your chapter does not meet the posted deadlines.
There are two parts to the pre-assessment trip report: part 1 includes the administrative information for the trip and part 2 includes the technical information.
Part 1 is a fill-in-the-blank exercise that provides the EWB-USA National office with specific information about chapter and community contacts, travel details, safety plans and budget in a specific format. The information should be provided in the exact format requested without deviation. If you have questions about completing Part 1 of the report contact your Chapter Relations Manager (CRM) at the EWB-USA National office.
Part 2 of the report is not a fill-in-the-blank exercise. This is the portion of the report where your chapter provides all the technical information about the project and proposed trip. The outline of this portion of the report can be modified by the chapter if necessary to present the project more clearly. It is your chapter’s responsibility to clearly and thoroughly present your project and proposed assessment trip. Note that you may need to include additional information that is not listed depending on the specifics of your project. If you have questions about completing Part 2 of the report, contact one of the Project Managers (PM) at the EWB-USA National office.
Part 1: Administrative Information – Instructions
1.0 Contact Information – fill in the table completely.
2.0 Travel History – show every trip that your chapter has taken for this program.
3.0 Travel Team – Include information for all the travel team members. Note that student chapters must include a mentor on the traveling team that has at least five years of relevant engineering experience. One of the travel team members of a professional chapter must have five years of relevant engineering experience. Also note that the size of the travel team should be based upon the requirements of the project. The maximum travel team size is eight. Most trips should be smaller.
4.0 Safety
4.1 State Department Warning – state whether there is a state department warning or alert for the country. If yes state whether it affects the portion of the country where the team will travel. If the state department warning includes text to the effect that travelers should postpone non-essential travel to the country, the trip must be postponed.
4.2 Point to point travel detail – provide information about mode of travel for every leg of the trip, where the travel team will stay every night of the trip and where the team will get food and water during the trip.
4.3 Safety plan – provide a description of the safety considerations for travel – health, crime, transportation, food and water, weather and other natural hazards, local customs, relations with community residents, etc.
4.4 Emergency plan and exit strategy – describe the plan in case of an emergency at the site. How will the chapter evacuate the site and country in case of an emergency?
4.5 Contact
4.5.1 Provide the on-the-ground phone number for travel team
4.5.2 Nearest US Consulate – provide address, phone number, email address
4.5.3 Nearest Hospital – provide address, phone number, email address
5.0 Budget – fill in each of the tables in the report template without modifying any of the headings.
5.1 Cost - This should be your total budget including what team members are paying. Please include in-kind contributions.
5.2 Hours – Note that EWB-USA can count these hours towards our end of year donations. It helps us greatly to know how many hours people have spent on the project.
5.3 Donors and Funding - Please include in-kind donations. An in-kind is a non-monetary contribution to the project. So if someone donates solar cells, please include this in the donations with an estimated cost. Funding that is deposited in a 501(c)3 account (EWB-USA, University account) is not an in-kind donation. However, if someone pays for their own ticket, that is an in-kind donation provided they do not reimburse for the ticket.
6.0 Project Location – provide the longitude and latitude of the project location so that the project site can be located using Google Earth.
7.0 Project Impact – provide an estimate of the number of people impacted by the project. Use an exact number, not a phrase like “the whole village”.
8.0 Mentor Resume – Attach the resume for the traveling mentor. The mentor must have five years of directly related engineering experience.
Part 2: Technical Information - Instructions
1.0 Introduction – Explain the purpose of this document and provide a short description of the proposed project and trip.
2.0 Background – Provide the background for the project. This includes a description of the program that has been proposed for the community and where this assessment trip fits within that program. If this is a first assessment, the background can be taken directly from the 501 (Program Application) form. If this is a second (or subsequent) assessment, additional information should be provided including a brief overview of previous work carried out in the community or neighboring area. Do not simply copy the background section of your previous report submittal.
3.0 Objectives of Site Assessment Trip – State the objectives of the trip clearly, concisely and in detail. Developing clear objectives for the trip will help ensure that you complete the tasks that will be needed for subsequent design and implementation. Unless a chapter plans to travel on two assessment trips, which is recommended, first assessment trips to a community typically have two general objectives: (1) to perform a general assessment, which is needed to establish or confirm the community’s priority project(s), and (2) to perform a project assessment, which is needed to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed project and collect any technical data needed for the design. The specific objectives associated with the general assessment and the project assessment need to be clearly identified in this section.
4.0 Community Information
4.1 Description of the Community – Describe the community as well as possible given the fact that you may not have carried out an assessment to the community. Information should include those items that will have a bearing on the design of a project such as population, population density, infrastructure in the community (type and number of houses, water, power, industry, farming, roads, etc.), geographical size of the community, proximity to transportation, etc.
4.2 Community/NGO Resources and Constraints – List and describe the community resources and constraints relevant to your project. The design of your project will depend heavily on the resources available to your community and the constraints that the community has. The resources and constraints could include (but are not limited to) items such as financial resources, political organization of the community, administrative capability, language skills, geographic location, distance from vendors of construction materials, educational level and job skills of individuals in the community. What community resources may be important for your project? How will you investigate these and document them? What constraints may limit the alternative designs that will be later developed? Also consider these topics as they relate to the partner NGO, i.e. what resources are they able to bring to the project and conversely what are their constraints.
4.3 Community Relations – Describe the contacts that you currently have with the community, their relationship with the community and what they are providing you. Include information about the NGO with which you are working.
4.4 Community Priorities – List the community’s priority projects, if known. If this is not known, a community needs assessment must be performed and discussed in this section. If the community’s priorities are known, teams are still encouraged to verify these identified priorities prior to beginning work on a specific project.
5.0 Data Collection and Analysis
5.1 Site Mapping – Describe what items you will include for site mapping and how the mapping will be prepared. The mapping that you develop will help you during the project design and will allow presentation of the work for review by others. Site mapping is not required at this stage of the project if this is a first assessment. However, site mapping will be required for the implementation of almost every project. The type and detail of the mapping is dependant on the type of project.
5.2 Technical Data Collection – Provide a detailed description of the data that will be gathered at the site, what that data will be used for and how the data will be collected. Identify any specific design standards or criteria that exist in the country you are working in that will affect your engineering design. Examples of country specific design criteria may include structural design codes, water demand for new water systems and rules regarding the appropriation of a water supply.
5.3 Monitoring and Evaluation Data Collection – The EWB-USA National office is currently developing a monitoring and evaluation protocol that will be used for all EWB-USA projects. The protocol will be completed in August 2009. Until that time, chapters should develop their own metrics for measuring the success of their project. Describe those metrics and how the data will be gathered before and after implementation of the project.
6.0 Schedule of Tasks – Present all trip tasks within a trip schedule. It is essential that any chapter carrying out an assessment trip gathers as much information as possible during its time in the community. In order to do this, it is important to organize the tasks that must be accomplished and the schedule of the team members. Different chapters accomplish this in different ways. Some examples of trip/task organization include lists of tasks, daily schedules and decision trees. The trip organization should provide justification for the length of the trip and the number of travel team members.
7.0 Project Feasibility – The first question that a chapter must answer after its initial assessment trip is whether the project is feasible or not. Provide a list of the criteria that will be used by the chapter to determine the feasibility of the project and whether the chapter will continue with the project or the program in general. The Chapter may decide that the originally proposed project is inappropriate but that another project is feasible. It is important to establish the criteria that you will use to make this decision prior to your trip.
8.0 Mentor Assessment – The Professional Mentor (for student chapters) or technical lead (for professional chapters) should write a short assessment of how the project team prepared the pre-assessment document including individuals involved, studies and designs carried out, project management, etc. This section should include a description of any training that was carried out for the trip.
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