Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality - Chapter 36 - Quantitative Methods

Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024.
This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 36 - Quantitative Methods - contributed by Liesbet Heyse, Nina Hansen and Rafael Wittek.

From the introduction 
In the humanitarian sector, there are many information systems and databases that contain quantitative data, relating to different levels: regions and countries, organisations and projects, and groups and individuals. For example, there is The Humanitarian Data Exchange, Insecurity Insight, and ACAPs. 
These are examples of databases that aim to bring together all kinds of data on humanitarian situations, such as contextual data about specific countries and assessment information of humanitarian needs. There are also databases that provide broader data that can be of relevance for humanitarian actors, such as Our World in Data that contains information about famines, hunger and undernourishment, natural disasters, and conflicts, plus all kinds of inequalities, such as regarding income, gender, and health. Actually, there is so much information that one could easily get lost, with the risk of using the data for the wrong purpose or misinterpreting its value. 
Therefore, in this chapter, we provide some structure to the available quantitative humanitarian information and discuss ways in which one can use this information for humanitarian purposes of increasing well-being and promoting equality.

Note on contributors 
Liesbet Heyse is professor of organization sociology at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She studies non-profit and public organisations that aim to improve the situation of disadvantaged groups in society. She specifically focuses on their organisational policies and governance features in relation to the (un)intended consequences of their interventions. 
She studies these issues in organisations such as humanitarian NGOs, and Dutch municipalities, and NGOs working on the labour market integration of refugees, applying both qualitative and quantitative methods.

Nina Hansen is professor (adjunct) of social and cultural psychology at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Her research centres on the social psychology of cultural change. She is interested in social and cultural change that is caused by international development projects in the Global South as well as in the context of integration of migrants. She collaborates with scholars from different disciplines and societal actors around the world. She regularly is consulted by different governments and organisations around the world as an expert on designing psychological interventions and monitoring and evaluation designs.

Rafael Wittek is professor of sociology at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He studies the relationship between cooperation, governance, and societal resilience. He is one of the co-founders of the University of Groningen Branch of the Erasmus Mundus Program of the Network of Humanitarian Action (NOHA), and he taught in the Humanitarian Management and Logistics Executive Program at the Università della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano. 
Together with Liesbet Heyse, Andrej Zwitter, and Joost Herman he is one of the co-editors of Humanitarian Crises, Intervention and Security. A Framework for Evidence-Based Programming (Routledge, 2016). 

Overviews are already available for the following chapters: 
Introduction: humanitarianism and inequality – a re-orientation

Humanitarianism and colonialism

Humanitarianism and the global Cold War, 1945–1991

Humanitarianism and the new wars: humanitarianism, security, and securitisation

Humanitarianism, development and peace: a southern perspective

Localisation and the humanitarian sector

Human rights and humanitarianism

Humanitarian organisations: behemoths and butterflies

Faith actors in humanitarianism: dynamics and inequalities

Diaspora assistance

Political solidarity movements and humanitarianism: lessons from Catalonia, Spain (1975–2020)

Subversive humanitarianism

Citizen’s groups and grassroots humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and the military

Race, racialisation, and coloniality in the humanitarian aid sector

Humanitarian organisations as gendered organisations

Sexuality and humanitarianism: colonial ‘hauntings’

Class matters in humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and disability

Media representations of humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and pandemics

Humanitarian technologies

Linguistic inequality in the humanitarian sector: unravelling English-centric multilingualism

Climate change, disasters and humanitarian action

Refugee protection and assistance

Trafficking in persons, long-term vulnerabilities, and humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and Native America

Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific Regions

International humanitarianism in East Asia

West Asia and North Africa

Africa’s long fight for humanitarian self-sufficiency

The Latin American experience: inequality's role in shaping humanitarianism

Varieties of European humanitarianism

Humanitarian research ethics and the ethics of research in humanitarian settings

Archives and historical perspectives in researching humanitarianism

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