The Measuring Separation in Emergencies (MSiE) project is an inter-agency initiative funded by the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and co-ordinated by Save the Children, in partnership with Columbia University in New York, on behalf of the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action. The project is guided by an inter-agency Advisory Panel. The overall aim of MSiE is to strengthen emergency response programs for unaccompanied and separated children through the development of a suite of practical, field-tested methods to assess of the scale and nature of separation in emergencies.

The project team recently completed two pilots to evaluate the performance of these tools. The first pilot took place in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Over six months in 2016, the research team implemented a community-based monitoring system as part of a response to the drought and famine affecting the area. The second pilot took place in the Sud region of Haiti. In early 2017, the team implemented a population-based estimation survey following the devastation of Hurricane Matthew.

The CPC Learning Network’s Beth Rubenstein and Matt MacFarlane hosted a webinar discussing the Measuring Separation in Emergencies (MSiE) project on Friday, June 9th, 2017. The presenters shared an overview of the project, findings along with lessons learned from the field, and recommendations for next steps in the development of tools and methods.