This guide offers a menu of options for conducting a situational analysis in support of the design process in a program approach and adapted to the East and Central Africa Region (ECAR). It is a compilation of resources that draws from CARE East and Central Africa‘s Regional Capacity Building Initiative, analytical guidance from across CARE International (particularly from CAREs Bangladesh and Nepal), and myriad Country Office (CO) experiences within the ECAR. The frameworks and tools here span macro, meso and micro level analyses for understanding the underlying causes of poverty (UCPs) and relate how different levels of analysis link together to render a comprehensive picture of a particular country context. This is not a guide to be rigidly applied. It casts a wide net of methods and tools within a strategically targeted set of themes so that design teams can choose intelligently the forms of analysis that best suit their contexts. It fulfills the situational analysis needs of multiple programs at once and their 10-15 year prospective. It is also meant to generate innovation in practice by COs as they engage in situational analysis as part of their program design process. Using this guide as a reference, we hope that teams will develop new ideas during the application process, to inform future situational analyses.