It arrives too late
By the time the analysis lands, the window to act on it has already closed.
Humanitarian data consulting
Better decisions start with better data systems.
We work alongside NGOs, governments and development partners on climate and disaster preparedness — building data systems that are ethical, locally grounded, and built for real field conditions.
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The challenge
Collecting data is the easy part. Making it usable is where programmes fail.
Humanitarian and climate programmes rely on data to decide where support goes and who is prioritised. Four failures show up again and again.
Local context is stripped out
Numbers without the nuance that made them meaningful stop being trustworthy.
Quality erodes trust
Inconsistent, unverified data leads to strategies built on the wrong picture.
Tools don't fit the field
Systems designed for stable connectivity break in the settings that need them most.
What we do
Practical data consulting for humanitarian action.
Analytics
Data analytics
Turning complex, fragmented data into decision-ready insight for planning, preparedness and response.
Training
Data capacity building
Hands-on training from KoBoToolbox to data governance, so your teams own and run their own systems.
Collection
Data collection
Ethical, context-informed, offline-first collection designed around real field conditions.
Preparedness
Early warning systems
Locally grounded monitoring and alerting that gives communities usable lead time before a climate shock.
Strategy
Humanitarian data strategy
Coherent long-term data strategy that connects policy to what actually happens in practice.
Our approach
Technology should support communities, not replace them.
Innovation works best when it strengthens local knowledge rather than routing around it. Four principles hold across every engagement.
Local ownership
Communities and national teams lead. We build the system, then hand over the keys.
Ethical data
Informed consent, data sovereignty and accountability are designed in, not retrofitted.
Context-informed
One size fits no one. Every system is shaped around the setting it has to survive in.
Collaboration
We work alongside partners, not above them — as practitioners, not auditors.
Selected work
Field work, where the data is hardest to get.
Early warning systems for climate preparedness
Locally grounded monitoring and alerting built with local partners and indigeneous knowledge- designed to give communities lead time ahead of climate shocks.
Data preparedness & local systems
Strengthening the data systems national and local actors depend on, so preparedness information is ready before a response begins.
KoBoToolbox & digital data training
Hands-on training that moves teams from paper and spreadsheets to reliable digital collection they run themselves.
Adaptive analysis in complex contexts
Analysis that keeps pace with situations changing faster than the reporting cycle.
About Data Terns
We bridge local knowledge and global decision-making.
Data Terns is a humanitarian data consulting organisation supporting NGOs, INGOs, UN agencies and development partners working on climate and disaster risk.
We evolved from Fields Data — a humanitarian data-preparedness INGO registered in Spain and Norway — to meet the growing need for practical, ethical data consulting. That lineage is why our work starts in the field, not in a dashboard.
Contact
Let's strengthen your data systems.
Whether you're building preparedness systems, improving data quality, or strengthening field operations — tell us what you're working on and we'll take it from there.
connect@dataterns.com
dataterns.com