Introduction

Health Resources and Services Availability Monitoring System (HeRAMS)1 is an approach that aims to improve overall access to health care by contributing to the elaboration of a commonly agreed-upon picture of health service needs, gaps, and priorities and by providing essential information to support decision-making and coordination of health sector actors in emergencies. It is a collaborative approach that involves a large range of stakeholders and that has been specifically designed to operate in highly constrained, low-resourced, and rapidly changing environments, where access, security and the lack of time and resources impede the use of other traditional health service assessment and monitoring approaches.