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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian AffairsUN OCHA is the arm of the United Nations Secretariat that is responsible for bringing together humanitar-ian actors to ensure coherent response to emergen-cies. OCHA also ensures there is a framework within which each actor can contribute to the overall response effort. OCHA’s mission is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partner-ship with national and international actors in order to alleviate human suffering in disasters and emergencies; advocate for the rights of people in need; promote preparedness and prevention; and facilitate sustain-able solutions.

http://ochaonline.un.org

The United Nations Foundation & Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership

Created in October 2005, the United Nations Founda-tion & Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership leverages mobile technology programs to support and strengthen UN global health and disaster relief work. Our core areas of focus are to: (1) strengthen communi-cations in humanitarian emergencies though capacity building and support for disaster response missions that connect aid workers and the affected community; (2) support the development of mobile health (mHealth) programs that tackle critical public health challenges and improve public health systems, decision making and, ultimately, patient outcomes; and (3) promote research and innovation using technology as a tool for international development.

www.unfoundation.org/vodafone

Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

The mission of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) is to relieve human suffering in war and disaster by advancing the science and practice of humanitar-ian response worldwide. HHI is a leader in providing ap-plied research, education and training on disaster man-

agement, humanitarian assistance, and humanitarian action. As an inter-disciplinary organization it has a his-tory of producing high impact research that translated directly into evidence-based policy and programming.

http://hhi.harvard.edu/

Contact

United Nations Foundation 1800 Massachusetts Ave., NW Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20036 USA

The Vodafone Foundation One Kingdom Street Paddington, London, W26BY UKRegistered Charity No: 1089625

Suggested citation

Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Disaster Relief 2.0: The Future of Information Sharing in Humanitarian Emergencies. Washington, D.C. and Berkshire, UK: UN Foundation & Vodafone Foundation Technology Part-nership, 2011.

The views expressed in the report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations Foundation, The Vodafone Foundation or the Technology Partnership.

report partners

Cover Photo Credit: Government of Colombia, OCHA/Richard Johnson, UN photo, Ushahidi/Jonathan Shuler Back Cover Photo Credit: OCHA via AP/Eranga Jayawardena, Mark Turner, Ushahidi, Nigel Snoad

Footnotes1 Tim Berners-Lee, Testimony of Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, CSAIL Decentralized Information Group Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Hearing on the “Digital Future of the United States: Part I – The Future of the World Wide Web”, http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2007/03/01- ushouse-future-of-the-web.html.

2 Ibid.

3 Paul Currion, “New Lamps for Old: The Role of Information Management in Humanitarian Assistance,” The Newletter of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies 3–1 (28 February 2001): http://www.icva.ch/doc00000267.html#opinion.

4 Data dictionaries act like thesaurus around one concept. For instance, if WHO is referring to a particular region of a river in a cholera report, it is not possible for WFP and the water/sanitation cluster to automatically relate their own data to that region. Any analysis would be the responsibility of a human to collect, analyze, and report on any possible interlinkages manually. Automated discovery or early prediction of action (such as a cholera outbreak automatically triggering an analysis of medical supply chains and water purifiers to the affected region) would be highly unlikely. Such data would need to be pulled by a coordinator who understands the complex interdependencies of a cholera response operation.

5 For example, the schema in the WASH cluster lack a means to specify a water bladder of x type has been placed in an IDP camp with y P- Code with at a specific latitude/longitude with z capacity. Without this level of specificity—including location-aware attributes for integration into GIS applications—the common operational dataset will be hard to implement in way that facilitates breakdown of data silos.

6 Under UN humanitarian principles, datasets with personally identifiable information about refugees and internally displaced persons require special protections so that no harm comes to the people about whom the UN has data.

7 Political sensitivities are sufficiently high that the authors of this document chose to leave out quotes from these interviews.

8 Crowdsourcing Crisis Information in Disaster-Affected Haiti, Jessica Heinzelman and Carol Waters, US Institute of Peace, Sept 2010.

9 For more on software code as a form of modern law, see Code by Lawrence Lessig.

10 ICT4Peace Foundation document from Palisades meeting and Crisis Mappers document.

11 See Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline; Ronald Heifetz et al, The Art and Practice of Adaptive Leadership; Otto Scharmer, Theory U; John Sterman, Business Dynamics (which takes a quantitative approach to systems thinking as applied to business processes).

12 The Common Operational Datasets (COD’s) are predictable, core sets of data needed to support operations and decision-making for all actors in a humanitarian response. The COD’s are defined in the IASC Guidelines Common Operational Datasets (CODs) in Disaster Preparedness and Response, Endorsed Nov 2010 http://bit.ly/eigMGI.

13 IASC Needs Assessment Task Force (draft) IASC Operational Guidance for Coordinated Assessments in Humanitarian Crises, and Key Sectoral Indicators http://oneresponse.info/resources/NeedsAssessment/Pages/Indicators%20and%20Guidance.aspx

14 See P. Senge, The Fifth Discipline, opening of Chapter 1.

15 A. De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume II, Book Two, Chapter V.

16 Cf. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership from Ronald Heifetz taught at Harvard for 25 years and The U Process from Otto Scharmer and applied by Peter Senge, which has been in use for nearly as long.

17 Although on another order of magnitude, the ‘KfW’ framework used by Germany to manage Marshall Plan funds over the past six decades and reinvest those funds in small-to-medium-sized businesses might be a good thought exercise to ensure feedback loops will lead to continual reinvestment.

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Andrew Alspach, OCHADavid AylwardDavid Bitner, SahanaHeather Blanchard, Crisis CommonsOscar Caleman, World Food Program (WFP)Kate Chapman, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap TeamKurt Jean Charles, noula.htNicolas Chavent, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap TeamChoi Soon-hong, ASG and UN CITOCraig Clarke, U.S. Marine CorpsPaul Currion, humanitarian.infoNoel Dickover, Crisis CommonsRamiro Galvez, UN Disaster and Assessment & Coordination (UNDAC)Stuart Gill, World Bank Global Facility for Disaster Risk and Reduction (GFDRR)Alfred Gilman, WFPChris Fabian, UNICEFShelly Gornall, UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)Wendy Harman, American Red CrossSanjana Hattotuwa, ICT4Peace FoundationDennis King, U.S. Department of State Humanitarian Information Unit

We would like to acknowledge the team that worked on creating and producing this report. At the Harvard Humani-tarian Initiative, this includes authors John Crowley and Jennifer Chan; researchers Vincenzo Bollettino, Mark Foran, Gregg Greenough, and Gisli Olafsson; assistants Margeaux Fischer, Tara Suri, and Alexa Walls; and transcriber Ciara Jevon. At OCHA, this includes Oliver Lacey-Hall, Andrew Alspach, Mark Dalton, Brendan McDonald, Nigel Snoad, and Andrej Verity. At the UN Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, this includes Adele Waugaman, Trinh Dang, and Sarah Hiller. Finally, we wish to thank copy editor Kate Sparks at Active Voice, LLC, designer Ambica Prakash at Eighty2degrees LLC and Hal Kowenski and Andre Temoney at Linemark Printing.

Of course, misunderstandings and errors remain the fault of the authors, who are indebted to those who will raise concerns and help us correct the record.

This report would not have been as compelling without the rich photos, graphs and tables contributed by those acknowledged throughout this report. Lastly, the research team would like to thank their spouses and partners for their patience during an intense writing process: Becky, Vaughan, and Wade.

AcknowledgementsThe report partners, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the United Nations Foundation, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and The Vodafone Foundation are thankful to the numerous individualswho have shared their ideas and experiences to inform this report. In particular, our thanks go out to the 41 experts who were interviewed by the research team:

Robert Kirkpatrick, UN Global PulseMartin Kristensson, WFPCharlotte Lattimer, Save the ChildrenBrendan McDonald, OCHAPatrick Meier, Ushahidi and Crisis MappersRob Munro, Stanford University and Mission 4636Gisli Olafsson, NetHopeJacobo Quintanilla, InternewsDaniel B. Prieto, IBMMark Prutsalis, SahanaEric Rasmussen, InSTEDDNigel Snoad, OCHAAndrew Turner, Crisis CommonsSuha Ulgen, UN CITOKatrin Verclas, MobileActiveAndrej Verity, OCHAJeffrey Villaveces, OCHAJaroslav Varuch, UshahidiBartel Van de Walle, Tilburg UniversityNigel Woof, MapActionJen Ziemke, Crisis Mappers

tABleof contents of contents of contents of contents of contents

RepoRt paRtneRs | 2

acknowledgements | 3

FoRewoRd by ted tuRneR | 7

executive summaRy | 8

intRoduction | 10

inFoRmation landscape | 16

bRidges and tensions | 34

inteRFace RequiRements | 44

oRganizational design FoR an inteRFace | 54

dialogue | 62

glossaRy and acRonyms | 64

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Credit: WHO/Syed Haider

Individuals everywhere are interconnected by technology as never before. In 2011 more than 5 billion mobile phone subscriptions are in use worldwide, creating connectivity in many parts of the globe where previously we talked only of a digital divide.

Mobile uptake, including access to the mobile Internet, is creating new market forces and reshaping businesses around the world, including the business of humanitarian aid.

The global response to the January 2010 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti showed how connected individuals are becoming increasingly central to humanitarian emergency response and recovery. Haitians trapped under rubble used text messaging to send pleas for help. Concerned citizens worldwide engaged in a variety of ways, from sendingin donations via SMS, to using shared networks to translate and map requests for assistance.

Powered by cloud-, crowd-, and SMS-based technologies, individuals can now engage in disaster response at an unprecedented level. Traditional relief organizations, volunteers, and affected communities alike can, when working together, provide, aggregate and analyze information that speeds, targets and improves humanitarian relief. This trend toward communications driven by and centered on people is challenging and changing the nature of humani-tarian aid in emergencies.

Since 2005, the United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership has leveraged the power of mobile technologies to support and strengthen UN humanitarian work in the fields of global health and disaster response. We commissioned this report—the sixth in the United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership’s Access to Communications publication series—to examine the challenges and opportunities an increasingly networked world presents for delivering disaster relief in the immediate aftermath of large-scale humanitarian emergencies.

Our hope is that this report will spur dialogue and action to harness the potential of evolving communications technologies to transform how the world responds to disasters. This work is part of an ongoing conversation and we welcome your comments at: www.unfoundation.org/disaster-report.

Ted Turner, ChairmanUnited Nations Foundation

foreword By ted turner

Credit: FAO/Truls Brekke, UN Photo, Internews/Eckert