Humanitarian Assistance – Page 2

Experimenting with Youth ICT Projects in Dadaab Refugee Camp

Photo: Voices of Africa

I have been searching online for the past couple of weeks for signs on people working on ICT4D projects in the refugee camps in the Horn of Africa. Through a reference from a friend I stumbled upon the news page for Voices of Africa for Sustainable Development (VOA4SD). The Dadaab mission team is doing on the ground ICT4D work, often shooting from the hip and trying to see what works. Though this approach isn’t ideal, I have to hand it to them for working in the camps themselves. Their experiences are ones that we should all learn from regarding ICT4Education projects, ICT in Humanitarian crises, and youth in development.

To quickly explain the context of the VOA4SD Dadaab mission team’s experience thus far, three young VOA4SD members arrived at Dadaab Refugee Camp on July 20^th. Their first goal was to deliver medical equipment from GIZ, the German Development Organization. After successfully delivering the equipment, they documented any ICT access, needs, and current projects in the camp. They stayed in the camp until August 1, 2011, upon which they returned to Nairobi to create a more comprehensive ICT strategy, DadaabNet, for the camps with other important stakeholders.

Now, DadaabNet is a Global Giving initiative, attempting to raise $10,000 to create the youth-run radio station, as well as providing computers and Internet access for interim schools and health centers.

The VOA4SD experience in their own words from their blog:

Day one – Ifo Camp:
- “It was not long before we saw an internet cafe. After speaking to the owner to establish his needs and those of the camp we quickly ascertained that the youth were in desperate need of something to fill their time and they already loved ICT. Everyone was using internet via the mobile phones, but do not know how to transfer the skills to a computer. Facebook was said to be extremely popular among the youth with photos being a prized possession. One disabled young man we met had been traveling more than 20 km twice a week by matatu to take computer studies courses. His motivation was truly amazing. He enthusiastically said that he believed all the youth in Dadaab would love to learn how to use computers and they already their phones to post to Facebook in Arabic.”
Day four – Formed a proposal for DadaabNet:
- “DadaabNet will bring wireless information, communications, and education to Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp. Our mission is to create a youth run community Internet service and education provider. The project will bring a wireless intranet, internal camp/refugee communications system and the lowest cost internet access throughout Dadaab and the nearby vicinity. Intranet will host free educational materials including videos made in Somali to be accessed through mobile phones and computers. We will make available educational materials pertaining to health, nutrition, sanitation, as well as education resources on computer training and how to use technology for sustainable development. The structure works like this: To view the materials a refugee would give their name, email, and mobile phone number. This becomes the base for our youth communications system. This will empower the youth to be managers of their own communications networks with management and oversight from the NGO partners. Youth can create networks within the system, take courses, become peer trainers, and will gain the skills necessary for employment both inside and outside of the camp. Internet will be made available at a low rate to increase affordability.”
Day five – meeting with Norweigan Refugee Council on their Youth Empowerment Program:
- “We spoke to them and quickly established both their need and the programmes’ need for ICT infrastructure and training. The youth empowerment training includes life skills, basic computer skills, numeracy and literacy, plus a choice of vocations: masonry, hair dressing, electronics, and tailoring. According to the YEP manager, the students have shown immense interest in computer studies with a majority of youth enrolling in the program to have a chance to learn how to use a computer. The first stop was the teacher’s lounge. David called together the teachers, 12 in total so we could be introduced. The teachers were primarily local Kenyan staff and were very welcoming. When we shared the idea about DadaabNet, bringing in a new ICT4D curriculum, and lower cost equipment. They were eager to tell us how they were going to use it in their classrooms. The computer teacher currently has no internet so he was the first to want to engage the students online. He showed us the one simple dongle that was used by all the teachers for internet. It was the only access in the school and they all had to share, leaving little time for learning new skills and gathering educational content for their classes. The hair dressing teacher said she would use the internet to show her students different styles of hair design and she had heard somewhere that there were websites that would show the students different hairstyles on the same head. I laughed as this is one of my seven year old daughter’s favourite online games. The electronics teacher was also eager to have access so that he could show his students diagrams of the equipment they are repairing and use online materials to teach them how to repair computers in addition to the mobile phones they are learning to repair now. All of the teachers were supportive and you could see their heads filling with positive ideas with the mention of increased technology and improved internet access.”
Day seven – Youth Targeted by Militants:
- “It is my understanding that the extremists target youth aged 15-24 most intensively. They are young, easily trained, and because for the culture have great respect for authority. This is the very reason why WE are people who want a free and just world without violence must also recruit the minds and hearts of these young and vulnerable. If we can reach them with education, opportunities for self-employment, ways to advance out of the misery, we can become a beacon of hope. The darkness is so heavy in the air that you can feel it on your skin and no amount of bathing can take it away. Just to smile and talk about the potential of a future with these youths has shown me that they are still reachable. …The NRC organization has the only youth programs in the Dadaab area. Their efforts are commendable and we are working through the appropriate channels for partnership. Yet their current program can only reach a maximum of 600 youth due to lack of space and facilities and there are more than 1000 youth showing up EACH WEEK in need of hope and support.”
Day 10 and summary of needs:
- “The refugees we spoke to as well as other NGOs really want a radio station run by the youth for the youth. With the implementation of DadaabNet this is a simple and low cost program. We hope to work in conjunction with the media team from UNHCR and Lutheran World Foundation. What is great about this idea is that it could be used as a platform to teach the refugees about their rights and the laws which are meant to protect and support them such as the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, the Kenyan Refugee Act, and the new Kenyan constitution. Most of the refugees we spoke to had no knowledge of any of these documents despite being the prevailing jurisdiction controlling their lives.”

What can we learn from VOA4SD’s experience in the camp?

There is a huge lack of infrastructure and communication capabilities in refugee camps. ICTs of any sort are helpful.
The youth are idle in refugee camps and spend the little money they have on computer access. Clearly, then, they have the time and the desire to learn how to use ICTs. If nothing else, ICTs can at least distract children from getting involved with rebel groups, terrorist organizations, or gangs.
Young refugees are familiar with the problems in the camps and can quickly identify various ways in which ICTs could solve problems.

August 12, 2011/by actualize

Japan Visit

I recently had the great opportunity to visit Japan for the second time since the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11th this year. My first visit was roughly 2 weeks after the disaster and at that time I spent most of my time in Tokyo coordinating ICT support to the NetHope members active in Japan. During my first visit, things were starting to get back into normal in the capital Tokyo, although almost constant aftershocks brought people back to the reality of what had occurred just a few weeks earlier. It was however great to see the tireless efforts of the various non-profit organizations to provide support to those affected. Even in a well prepared country like Japan, there are simply not sufficient government resources and expertise to deal with something of this magnitude.

During this visit we handed out a total of 250 laptops to NetHope members and their local implementation partners. NetHope received these laptops as generous in-kind donations from Dell and HP and they were all configured ready to use, thanks to another generous donation, this of one of software from Microsoft Corporation. Getting them shipped over to Japan was also made possible by yet another generous donation, this one of shipping services from DHL.

This time I spent half my time in Tokyo and the other half visiting the affected areas in Miyagi and Iwake prefectures. While in Tokyo I followed up on projects we started back in March and also had the great opportunity to attend the inaugural meeting of the NetHope Japan Chapter. This was the 12th local chapter we have established within NetHope. Local NetHope chapters play a very important role when disasters strike, because they enable coordination at the local level between the NetHope member organizations. It has often been said that having established relationships with other humanitarian organization is the key to successful coordination and we have seen this a number of times in countries that have local NetHope chapters when disaster strikes. Just knowing who your colleagues are allows for spontaneous coordination and collaboration to happen. During the inaugural meeting we also had representatives from our partners Cisco and Microsoft Japan (who graciously hosted the meeting). This is important as well, since it builds partnerships between the local NetHope members and the local offices of NetHope partners.

During my first visit, the phase of the disaster changed from the immediate rescue phase to the relief phase. Focus shifted from searching for survivors in the rubble to providing relief services to those that had survived. Most people had moved into evacuation centers and the main focus was to ensure they were receiving food, shelter and other basic services. It was therefore interesting that during my second visit there was also a change in phase. Focus was shifting from the relief services to recovery or reconstruction. Temporary housing has already been set up for a large portion of those affected and the plan is to move everyone out of evacuation centers by the end of the summer.

Although life in the evacuation center is no luxury, people sharing auditoriums and gyms with hundreds of other people, it also provided a safety net of some sorts for many people. While staying in the evacuation centers they got food, clothing and had access to other basic services, all for free. Moving into the temporary housing, although free, requires people to pay for electricity, food, telephone and other basic needs. This means that they have to find jobs to be able to afford these basic necessities. Many of those affected used to work in the fishing industry and due to the destructive force of the tsunami the boats, factories and harbors along the coast were all destroyed. A number of NetHope member organizations are working with local authorities in the affected communities on creating new livelihood opportunities for these people.
One of the great things about this trip was that I got Paul Chiswell, who is a director at our great partner and supporter Cisco to join me for the trip. Paul and I sit together on a sub-committee of the US State Department that focuses on ICT support during international disasters. During the initial weeks of the Japan earthquake/tsunami response, having relationships with people in the US State Department had helped us at NetHope tremendously in getting ICT equipment shipped over to Japan without it getting blocked in customs for days or weeks like so often happens. The US State Department and the FCC got us in touch with their counterparts within the Japanese government and as a result we were able to pre-warn the customs authorities that this equipment was coming and that since it was being used for relief services then it would not get stopped by customs. For him it was a great opportunity to see not only how generous support, both financial and in-kind in the form of networking equipment from Cisco had helped, but also to see how some of the work we had done in the sub-committee was already being put in practice.

Me and Paul visited the affected areas in Sendai and Shichigahama in Miyagi and Ofunato, Rikuzentakata and Kesennuma in Iwake prefectures. No words can describe the amount of destruction we witnessed. Close to 400km of coastline had pretty much been wiped out. Everything below 10-20m of altitude along the coast had been either seriously damaged or completely destroyed. What was however surprising was to see how houses built above the line of destruction had actually suffered less damage than I had expected. Reason for this was the fact that building codes in Japan are very strict and houses are built to withstand earthquakes. This is reflected in the fact that estimates are that only a few hundred people at most died in the earthquake itself. It was mainly the tsunami that followed that resulted in the massive loss of life.

We had the opportunity to visit one of the evacuation centers to see how Plan Japan (local branch of NetHope member Plan International). In this evacuation center, Plan International has set up a child friendly space where the kids can come and play or do their homework. For those that have not been in an evacuation center it may be difficult to understand the concept of a child friendly space. But when you see how people live very close to each other, separated only by cardboard boxes you realize that the kids get very little possibility to play or talk to each other. The child friendly spaces are therefore a crucial place they can release some of that energy and also talk about some of the experiences they lived through. Plan has been working closely with teachers and psychosocial services in the affected areas, providing them with guidance on how to help the kids out dealing with the psychological effects of the disaster. It was very educational to visit the evacuation center, see how well organized they are and to better understand the conditions that people live in.

The day after we went to visit PeaceWinds Japan (PWJ) a local implementation partner of NetHope member MercyCorps. PWJ is working up in Iwate prefecture and we began by visiting their local office in Ichinoseki. The reason they set up the office in Ichinoseki is that even though there was some minor damage from the earthquake, most basic services such as electricity and telecommunications were available within days of the quake. The staff then drives on a daily basis down to the various smaller cities and villages along the coast where they were doing their job. We visited a new temporary housing facility that has been built in Ofunato. The temporary housing facility was built on a baseball field. The temporary “houses” are built together 6 in a row, similar to trailers, but they certainly would have given the famous FEMA trailers for Katrina a very bad name. All together there were 12 groups of houses like this, so in total there were 72 apartments. Every apartment had a small living room/kitchen and a sleeping room. They were also had electricity, TV and telephone installed in each apartment. We did notice that no internet connectivity was provided. We are however working on a project with Cisco Japan and Toshiba Japan to provide internet connectivity to some of these temporary housing facilities as well as tablet computers.

The temporary housing is provided with basic appliances such as fridge, washing machine and TV, but it is through support of non-profit organizations like PWJ to provide all the other things needed, such as plates, glasses, cleaning equipment, etc. When space permits there is also a community building next to the groups of houses, allowing for various social support services to be provided. These temporary houses are what many people will be calling their homes for the next two years. At that time, people are expected to move out of the houses into their own permanent housing.
The work in Japan is far from over. The debris and rubble is starting to be removed and people are moving into the temporary housing, but the psychological effects and the recovery efforts will take years. It is especially during this period that it is important to continue supporting the work of the great non-profit organizations that are doing an amazing thing supporting these people who lost everything. The spotlight of the media may be gone, but thankfully the spotlight of the non-profits continues to bring light to the life of the people affected. It is through the use of technology like NetHope partners provided as in-kind support that this work can be made more efficient and easier. At the same time we must also continue to improve preparedness for future emergencies. Scientists believe that the massive earthquake of March 11th has increased the likelihood of an quake in the Tokyo fault line which has the threat of affecting even a bigger population.

June 24, 2011/by actualize

Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The Power of Preparedness – A story from Pakistan

In my trip to Pakistan earlier this year, I learned first hand about the power of preparedness at the community level. I visited a small “displaced” village on the banks of the Indus River. I asked them if there had been any early warning system in place for the floods. What they told me was that they had listened to radios to hear news about the flooding as it made its way down south. They had also received phone calls from relatives and friends up north telling them about the scale of the flooding.

But what really caught my interest was the fact that earlier in the year, one of the local NGOs that worked as an implementation for our NetHope member had visited this village to provide disaster risk reduction training to the people. They had explained the basics of disaster preparedness by showing a video on a laptop computer.

The local NGO then told me that they could see a dramatic difference between the villages that had received the training versus the ones that had not. In the ones that had received the training, people had brought their valuables to higher ground before the flood waters started rising. They had also in some cases harvested their crops before they were ruined by the floods.

Just providing this short and simple awareness building at the local level can really make a difference in how people prepare for the floods. And technology can help in this as the story shows. It is much more effective to be able to show a video than to bring leaflets or simply speak to people. Having the ability to bring something like a laptop with a pre-loaded video allows for even remote villages to be visited.

Of course we can say that the early warning system was very limited in Pakistan, but as always people find ways if they are aware of the danger. They reach out to their friends and relatives living up-stream to form their own little advisory network.

Way too many early warning systems are based on the pre-tense that there needs to be large investment by the government and that the government needs to warn everyone.

But as social networks such as Twitter and FaceBook are showing us then it is about the community of people you know and the community you live in. We must find simple and cost-effective ways of helping people connect to those around them through the technologies they have and thereby amplify these people-based networks of early warning.

This week I will be attending the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction and I look forward to meeting people from around the world and from organizations working on preparedness activities. For updates from the conference follow the Twitter tag #gpdrr2011

May 9, 2011/by actualize

Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Information sharing at the community level

When in Japan earlier this month I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Unni Krishnan who is a Humanitarian Coordinator for Plan International, one of NetHope’s member organizations. Dr. Krishnan who is an experienced disaster expert who has been to most of the major disasters in the past years told me a very interesting story of information sharing practices at the community level in one of the affected areas in Japan.

In one of the evacuation centers that Dr. Krishnan came into he saw that there was a big whiteboard with notes written in Japanese. Around the whiteboard there were teenage kids who were running around. He asked his colleague from Plan Japan what was happening there.

The colleague explained that the whiteboard contained a number of questions and answers. When the teenage kids were asked they explained that they had created this information sharing “platform” for the community there. People kept asking questions about the situation and the response. The kids decided to help facilitate this process, by gathering the questions that everyone had and then work on getting the answers from those in charge.

So when a member of the community had a question like “when is the next clothes distribution going to be?” the kids would run around and ask the people responding until they found an answer. The answer would then be written on the note and hung up on the whiteboard.

I loved this story because it reminds us of a few crucial items to keep in mind at all times.

First of all is the importance of information at the community level. We very seldom inform the affected communities themselves of our plans. We are to busy informing ourselves, our donors or the government, but forget the people who are affected. I wonder if the affected communities even know of the massive time we put into writing situation reports that very few people end up reading.

Secondly it reminds us of involving the affected community in the information sharing process. They are the ones who know what the community wants to know. They are the ones who can communicate that information back in a way that the community understands and appreciates. Lets also not forget the healing power of giving them tasks to help their own people. That takes their mind of the devastation around them even if only for the few moments they work on helping their own people.

Thirdly this story reminds us that technology is not always needed to share information. Yes maybe it can be shared more quickly and broadly through help of technology, but the underlying process and need doesn’t require technology to be present. We should therefore focus on improving our information sharing processes and address the needs of the communities for better information and then figure out ways to utilize technology as a tool for enhancing that process and helping meet the need.

So lets start putting focus on the affected communities and how we share information with them and obtain information from them.

April 28, 2011/by actualize

Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The Value of Preparedness

Six weeks ago the devastating force of mother nature reminded us again how things can change in a matter of a few minutes. For the first time we were able to watch live images of the destructive power of tsunamis as they struck the coast of Japan following a massive 9.0 earthquake. I have spent most of my time since March 11th, working on supporting the NetHope member organizations active in Japan.

It now appears that over 27,000 people died as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami that followed. Over 500,000 people were affected and close to 70,000 families lost their homes. Many towns and villages along the coast were totally wiped out.

But instead of focusing in this blog post on the aftermath of the disaster then I rather want to focus on what didn’t happen because of how Japan has invested in disaster risk reduction activities or what is often called emergency preparedness.

It is my firm believe that if this disaster had struck any other country than Japan then we would have seen the number of deaths multiply by a factor of 5-10. Ever since the big Kobe earthquake in 1995, the Japanese have spent lot of effort on disaster risk reduction activities. This includes systems for monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis. This includes systems for warning about impeding earthquakes and tsunamis. It includes running training and awareness programs for citizens.

Japan has a very extensive network of earthquake detectors. These monitor both the S and P waves (see this Wikipedia article for a great overview of how the difference between those two waves can be used in early warning). When a strong earthquake is detected through these monitors then a public warning is issued. I got to experience this first hand when visiting Japan at the start of April when a series of 6.5-7.1 aftershocks struck within a 48 hour period. In one case I was in a meeting on the 31st floor of a building an through the loudspeakers we were told a strong earthquake had been detected and would arrive in 10-15 seconds. About 7 seconds later we could feel the tremor. This of course works best when the earthquake strikes at a bit of distance, but there are also examples, at least from Taiwan that I know of where this is used to automatically slow down high speed trains and open up elevator doors.

But more importantly on March 11th was the early warning and training on the potential of tsunamis. Japan being a country that “frequently” gets struck by tsunamis has developed a very good system of monitoring ocean movements, but also of warning people. Regular evacuation drills are done in coastal areas and people are educated on the dangers of tsunamis. It was especially this effort that saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives on March 11th.

It has often been said that a dollar spent on preparedness saves at least six dollars in response costs. With the March 11th earthquake being the most costly disaster ever worldwide, with at last $300 billions in material damage according to government estimates, that figure might easily have risen substantially and caused even greater effects on the overall world economy.

It is therefore important for donors and governments around the world to learn a lesson from the people of Japan. Even though it might sometime be difficult to justify spending money on preparedness it is at times like these that we are reminded of its value. Lets make strategic decisions to move in that direction before the images of the devastation in Japan are too easily forgotten.

On May 10th-13th, 2500 representatives of national governments, regional and international organizations, civil society and non-profit organizations come together for the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. It is my challenge to those showing up there, including myself, that we put our money and action where our mouth is and not just talk about preparedness but actually start working full-force on preparedness activities that will pay off multiple times when the next disasters strike.

April 28, 2011/by actualize

Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

What Libya and Haiti Teach Us About The Intersection of Data and Social Media

I recently finished a chapter for a book to be published by the National Defense University about the persistent problem of information asymmetry in disasters, the condition by which information is disaggregated in such a way that it compounds the already horrendous logistics struggle of humanitarian organizations to provide life-saving aid to victims. Food drops are missed by the general population, the wrong supplies get to the wrong hospital, and water sits on a tarmac rather than getting into the hands of people who are desperate for it. Information asymmetry has two dimensions: the inability to get any data from a lack of access to that information or the inability to take aggregated data and make sense of it all. Often in disasters the first dimension is attributed to a lack of connectivity – whether because of geography or lack of infrastructure (cell phone towers tend to collapse in earthquakes, floods etc.). Six years ago, NetHope and a variety of private sector partners tackled the condition of connectivity in disasters with the creation of the Network Relief Kit (NRK) . The NRK, which fits in a backpack, has a BGAN satellite receiver about the size of a medium-sized textbook. It provides a broadband connection to the Internet, runs off a car battery (or small solar panel) and works almost anywhere on the planet. It has a built-in wireless router for WiFi to support up to ten laptops or Internet phones. So it creates a fast, temporary but crucial voice and data communications hub for a small group of fieldworkers when they need it most immediately – in emergencies.
While the NRK does amazing job of connecting, there are some disasters where the lack of connectivity is compounded in places (like Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis or today’s current conflict in Libya) where autocratic regimes have “shut down” the telecommunications infrastructure or restricted access to journalists. It becomes a situation of not just being able to get public information out but a condition of not being able to get any information at all. As we have seen over the last few weeks, when networks or communication is shut down people revert old network connections (mesh or dial-up) in order to harness new platforms– Twitter, Facebook and other social media – to subvert these network shutdowns. It’s outstanding ingenuity – voice to Tweet for example – and innovation that is providing us with a slew of crisis data. So now we have the information but what do we do with the data? This is the second dimension of information symmetry.

This weekend I met with Gisli Olafsson, NetHope’s Emergency Response and Preparedness Director, as we were both speaking at Harvard for separate events (who knew Harvard was the hotbed of technology, connectivity and enterprise). Gisli, whose blog on disaster response is a great read for anyone interested in this space, told me about the efforts of NetHope, OCHA, and countless other organization and volunteers around the world. Spread across the globe, connected by technology and social media this group is monitoring social media, mainstream media and response organization reports for updates on the terrible situation in and around Libya. I remember this group well from my time in Haiti almost a year ago. Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti this volunteer community rose up to try to help in their own way the people affected by that terrible disaster. Thus was born a new opportunity to improve situation information management that leveraged the human capital of countless volunteers around the world to tackle the very sticky problem of information asymmetry.

The efforts of this group (OCHA, UNOSAT and NetHope have been collaborating with the Volunteer Technical Community (VTC) specifically CrisisMappers, Crisis Commons, Open Street Map, and the Google Crisis Response Team over the past week) are available now for the public here. For the general public this is a fascinating look at the revolution of connectivity, technology, social media in reporting and responding to one of today’s most pressing global crisis’. For the people of the UN and its agencies, NetHope’s 32 international NGOs and countless others who are responding to the crisis this information provides the pivot point for rapid response and an important tool in overcoming the persistent condition of information symmetry. As this movement gains stream and structure the chapter I wrote less than six months ago may become a bookmark of the past as we begin to stage our response and resources in a way that saves countless lives – but hey I’m not going to feel too bad about my outdated chapter because that is the pace of innovation coupled with the persistence of the human spirit.

March 9, 2011/by actualize

Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Women as Agents of Change in the Aftermath of Humanitarian Emergencies

Woman interviewing another for the Lifeline project

Photo credit: Matt Abud, Internews

Suffering does not end with the cessation of hostilities or the phase-out of large-scale humanitarian aid. Sri Lankan women endured many unspoken hardships throughout the 30-year conflict, and continue to struggle as former IDPS with no home to speak of; with painful memories of the loss of family members; as victims of domestic violence; rape and alcoholism among men; supporting households as war-widows; or just having watched the opportunity for their lives to improve fade away. Despite these experiences, women remain significant, untapped agents of change, both within their local communities and across ethnic divides. Internews, with local partners such as the Association for War Affected Women (AWAW), will train women to use media tools to a) document their experiences, b) access essential information to enhance their economic empowerment, c) collaborate and reconcile with women from other local communities, other ethnic communities and across the diaspora and d) participate in policy decisions that affect them. Beyond the immediate impact of the radio, social media and newsletter products, Internews and partners will develop a toolkit for gender-based recovery and reconciliation in other conflicts. This project will build upon Internews’ successful Lifeline humanitarian information project that end in September 2010, and will help bridge the gap between humanitarian and development aid.

This was taken from Internews’ statement of commitment from the Innovative Use of Technology for Humanitarian Media Aid – Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action. Contact Jeri Curry at Internews for more information.

March 8, 2011/by actualize

Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

A New Approach to Humanitarian Information Management – Dealing with Disasters a post from Gisli Olafsson

This post originally appeared in @gislio ‘s blog on Thursday, February 24, 2011

Ten years ago, the humanitarian community came up with the concept of Humanitarian Information Centers (HIC) as a common information management service provider during conflict or natural disasters. The concept became widely used, although not always called HICs in the period 2002-2006. Following the Humanitarian Reform (HR) in 2005 the concept lost traction and was replaced by the Operational Guidance Note on Responsibilities of Sector Leads and OCHA in Information Management (OGN). In the OGN instead of a common service model, the opposite decentralized model was emphasized with information management (IM) responsibilities lying within each cluster and having OCHA handle inter-cluster IM.

Both these models had their drawbacks. The HICs often became bottlenecks and tended to focus on inter-cluster information management products, while in the OGN model inter-cluster information was lacking support and the capacity of individual clusters to provide high quality IM services varied greatly from one cluster to the other.

Improvements in connectivity and the rise of volunteer groups such as CrisisMappers (CM), Open Street Maps (OSM) and others provide an opportunity for the humanitarian community to re-think the current approach to crisis information management. It is important in this aspect to look at new models for doing this critical work with an open mind and not to keep things as they are just for formalities sake. We need to look at what has worked and what has not worked and take the best of both approaches and identify ways to avoid the things that haven’t worked in the past. At the same time we must be willing to think outside of the box for solutions we have not used before.

Key Principles

When looking for a new approach to crisis information management it is essential that we ensure that the following key principles are met:

Information is a shared commodity that all humanitarian organizations should have access to
Duplication of IM efforts should be minimized at all costs (i.e. don’t collect contact information multiple times)
Innovative ways collecting, processing, analyzing and visualizing information should be emphasized to improve the effectiveness of the crisis information management.

A Common Service

It is very easy to see that information is something that is of great value to the entire humanitarian community and spans the entire cluster system. Just like emergency telecommunication and logistics are handled as a common service to the entire humanitarian system, so should information management be handled. At the same time we must ensure that the common service is actually providing a clear level of support to the entire humanitarian community and not just focusing on the inter-cluster information management.

Service Contracts

An Information Management Common Service should up-front define the service it will provide to the rest of the community and the service levels it will adhere to. This means that the common service should negotiate with each individual cluster what information it will manage on its behalf. This way the common service can be held accountable for the service it is providing. At the same time clusters and lead organizations should also have to be held accountable towards providing information into the common service. Clearly defined processes and interfaces between the common service and the humanitarian community should therefore be put in place.

Scalability

Depending on the scale of the disaster the common service can take on different tasks. For smaller emergencies where it becomes difficult for individual clusters to provide information management capacity then the common service could provide these on behalf of the individual clusters. In large scale disasters and in prolonged disasters some clusters may elect to continue having dedicated information management capacity within the cluster. These information managers would then act as the interface between the common service and the cluster and provide additional cluster specific analysis on top of information provided by the common service.

Governance

The Common Service should not be a UN specific or UN OCHA specific entity. It should be an entity in which the entire humanitarian community has a stake in, a consortium/partnership of equals. This would ensure buy-in from more stakeholders and also the ability to ensure capacity is in place, because the common service could thereby make use of information management experts from a wide variety of organizations.

Funding

By classifying information management as a common service it also becomes easier to identify it as a separate funding line in the consolidated emergency appeals. Right now information management is scattered under various headings in different clusters and within the “coordination” bucket that OCHA requests. Donors are quite aware of the importance of information management but have not had a clear way of providing funding to it directly.

Distributed Model

One of the main drawbacks in the old HIC model was that it was entirely field based. An attempt was made to perform all the data processing and analysis in the field. With improved communication it becomes easier to off-load those tasks to people with better connectivity and better processing power than those in the field. These people could be trained information managers from the different humanitarian organizations or they could be volunteer communities that have been trained in performing particular predefined tasks.

Outsourcing

It is important for the humanitarian community to start leveraging the rise of volunteer groups, built up around social networks and communities. These people want to lend a helping hand during disasters and are willing to often perform very mundane tasks such as data cleaning and processing because through the sheer scale of number of people involved they can make these mundane tasks become easily overcome.

By applying the common services model it becomes easier for those volunteer groups to interface with the humanitarian community because they then only need to deal with one entity instead of multiple organizations.

Needs Assessments

The common service would work closely with the different clusters and individual organizations performing needs assessments on the ground to ensure limited duplication. By collecting data from these assessments jointly into a common service repository, the information becomes more widely available within the humanitarian community and thereby allowing for better decisions to be made.

A Common Information Management Roster

As a common service of the entire humanitarian community it becomes possible to put in place a common roster of information management professionals from UN Agencies, NGOs and other organizations that could be called upon to provide information management services as part of the common service. The funding provided through the CAP for the common information management service can then be funneled back to the organizations providing information management personnel for the particular disaster through the roster.

This also allows for common information management training to be created which would ensure that the different information management experts are all trained in the same methodology.

Partnerships

Through a common service approach it also becomes easier to put in place partnerships with other NGOs and volunteer groups since they don’t have to deal with a large number of humanitarian actors, but can focus on providing their service to the entire humanitarian community through the common service.

Innovation

By having a common service it also becomes possible to jointly work on innovative ways of improving information management activities instead of individual organizations trying to do things by themselves and thereby not achieving the economies of scale required to make innovation profitable. Attracting funding for innovation becomes much easier when the donors see that it will benefit not only one organization but multiple organizations.

March 6, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Cross Cutting, Economic Growth & Trade, Education, Humanitarian Assistance, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

NetHope Academy Haiti Internship Program

The NetHope Academy‘s ICT Skills Capacity Building Intern Program will give Haitian university students and recent graduates the opportunity to gain significant IT skills that will allow them to directly participate in the reconstruction of their communities and increase their economic opportunities.

During the course of this internship, candidates will work in the IT departments for participating humanitarian organizations and private sector companies. Program highlights include:

Six month internship program for Haitian computer science and engineering students/graduates that provides real world “on the job” training along with focused classroom and self-study learning opportunities
Internships will be geared towards desktop support, network administration, and telecommunications jobs
Participating organizations will increase capacity of their IT departments and contribute to the development of IT labor pool in Haiti

March 2, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Cross Cutting, Democracy & Governance, Economic Growth & Trade, Education, Environment, Environment, Health, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Apps for Development

Apps for Development.

Voting is open for the World Bank’s apps for development competition.

“The Apps for Development Competition aims to bring together the best ideas from both the software developer and the development practitioner communities to create innovative apps using World Bank data.”

I like the idea. But many of the apps appear to be solutions looking for a problem, probably due to the requirements that entries use World Bank data and address the Millennium Development Goals. Many entries were not meant to address field-level development needs, which is disappointing. But it is a great initiative, which can be adjusted in future efforts.

The Microsoft sponsored ImagineCup 2011 student IT competition is under way too. Its theme is imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems, also based on the Millennium Development Goals. Deadlines loom so pass the word to interested students.

It will be very interesting to see what comes out of these contests, and if someone can analyze them, see what we can learn about ramping up efforts to develop technologies to solve real-world problems.

Personally, I would like to see the GBI portal become a clearinghouse for practical apps for development – an app store for development, if you will.

March 1, 2011/by actualize