[FoME] Launch Disaster Relief 2.0: The Future of Humanitarian Information Sharing

[Christoph Dietz]

>>> Daniel Stauffacher <danielstauffacher at ict4peace.org> 28.04.2011
22:28 >>>

Launch Disaster Relief 2.0: The Future of Humanitarian Information
Sharing


28th April 2011, New York: The ICT4Peace Foundation was delighted to
have participated in the New York launch of Disaster Relief 2.0: The
Future of Humanitarian Information Sharing, a report prepared by the
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, in cooperation with the United Nations
Foundation, Vodafone Foundation and the UN Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) at the US Mission to the UN in New
York.

Sanjana Hattotuwa, ICT4Peace Foundation's Special Advisor, who is also
quoted a number of times in the report, participated in a lively panel
discussion on the results of the report and its recommendations,
moderated by Ambassador Rick Barton, United States Representative to the
Economic and Social Council of the UN, along with Pat Banks, Director of
Communications and Information Services, UNOCHA, Adele Waugaman, United
Nations Foundation, Nigel Snoad, Senior Advisor UN OCHA (and also on the
Advisory Board of the ICT4Peace Foundation), Mark Foran, Harvard
Humanitarian Initiative and Heather Blanchard, Founder Crisis Commons.

See
http://ict4peace.org/updates/launch-disaster-relief-2-0-the-future-of-humanitarian-information-sharing
for video and links to the Disaster 2.0 report. 

One of the conclusions coming from the discussions was that a process
was needed to bring together the growing number of Volunteer Technical
Communities (VTCs) into a working relationship with the governmental and
intergovernmental humanitarian actors to support them in having robust
and sustainable crisis information management systems. The UN's Crisis
Informations Management Strategy (CiMS) launched by the UN Chief
Information Technology Officer (which is now part of the UN's core ICT
strategy) and OCHA's important work on Core Operational Datasets (CODs)
were mentioned as important platforms that could help bridge the
valuable work of these various communities.

The ICT4Peace Foundation has published a number of reports and articles
on these issues over the last few years which have also contributed to
the writing of Disaster Relief 2.0. These include,

● UN World Summit of Information Society (WSIS) panel discussion on
ICTs and crisis information management, Managing the accelerating
complexity of humanitarian response,
http://ict4peace.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/WSIS-ICT4Peace-Report.pdf

● UN Common Operational Datasets plus crowdsourced information map,
http://ict4peace.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Information-Sources-UN-+-Crowdsourced.pdf

● ICTs for Risk and Crisis Management, Presentation at Davos,
http://ict4peace.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Presentation-Sanjana-Hattotuwa.pdf

● Haiti and beyond: Getting it right in Crisis Information
Management,
http://inventory.ict4peace.org/f/Haiti+and+beyond-+Getting+it+right+in+Crisis+Information+Management.pdf

● ICTs for humanitarian aid: Some enduring challenges,
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CBoQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slideshare.net%2Fguestddc221f%2Ficts-for-humanitarian-aid-some-enduring-challenges&rct=j&q=%22ICTs%20for%20humanitarian%20aid%3A%20Some%20enduring%20challenges%22&ei=Ddi5TKvAA5DUvQO_9sm7DQ&usg=AFQjCNGr9h35Ll6_YbdPjm690B-QNkif5w
● Crisismapping and the United Nations,
http://ict4peace.org/updates/connecting-crisismapping-to-the-united-nations


###

ICT4Peace took root with pioneering research on the role of ICTs in
preventing, responding to and recovering from conflict in 2003 and lead
to the adoption of Paragraph 36 by the World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) in Tunis in 2005 which recognises “...the potential of
ICTs to promote peace and to prevent conflict which, inter alia,
negatively affects achieving development goals. ICTs can be used for
identifying conflict situations through early-warning systems preventing
conflicts, promoting their peaceful resolution, supporting humanitarian
action, including protection of civilians in armed conflicts,
facilitating peacekeeping missions, and assisting post conflict
peace-building and reconstruction".

The ICT4Peace Foundation (www.ict4peace.org) works to promote the
practical realisation of Paragraph 36 and looks at the role of ICT in
crisis management, covering aspects of early warning and conflict
prevention, peace mediation, peacekeeping, peace-building as well as
natural disaster management and humanitarian operations. 

Download a report on the use of Information and Communications
Technologies for peacebuilding (ICT4Peace), with a Preface by Kofi A.
Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations here -
http://old.ict4peace.org/articles/ict4peace_ebook1.pdf 

Follow ICT4Peace on Twitter here - http://www.twitter.com/ict4peace 

Follow ICT4Peace on Facebook here - http://facebook.com/ict4peace