Post by Senior Director, Juliette Terzieff:
Technology has emerged as an integral element of humanitarian response efforts around the world in recent years—put to use in both emergency situations and in efforts to address chronic issues. Almost gone are the days when aid groups and disaster responders operating in hostile or remote environments had to wait days or weeks for information transfers that could save lives. Not only are ICT tools and the Internet changing how aid organizations and the public respond to crises, but they are also helping the global humanitarian community better predict and pre-plan accelerated response efforts.
The potential reach of technology is near limitless and can be applied to any issue. Around the world development experts and organizations are using technology to drive initiatives on education, health care and poverty reduction. The information and capacity that these efforts create feeds directly into the humanitarian community’s ability to manage crises.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme is employing electronic vouchers to fight malnutrition in Zimbabwe for HIV-positive patients and their families. The electronic food voucher, introduced by the WFP, and implemented by Zimbabwean authorities and NGOs, identifies malnourished patients and gives them vouchers they can use to purchase food at designated shops. Zimbabwe’s economic woes of the last decade have left many HIV/AIDS patients undergoing antiretroviral treatment unable to feed themselves and their families, and the program has helped around 570,000 Zimbabweans since it began.
WFP is also using technology more broadly, expanding the organization’s 2005 video game Food Force to fight against hunger by teaming up with Konami Digital. Released 30 November 2011, the game’s most recent version can be found on the social networking website Facebook in both English and Japanese.
Global positioning systems (GPS) provide early weather warnings for areas like Nepal to map health facilities and plan disaster response in the event of a major earthquake. Mobile operator Airtel in Bangladesh “has teamed up with the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods,” as well as three other organizations—Oxfam, CARE, and the Center for Global Change—providing fisherman at sea with the early weather warnings using GPS.
In India, scientists are developing a handheld, battery-powered device that can take a sample of urine, blood, or sputum, process it, and alert a health worker whether a feverish child has malaria, dengue or a bacterial infection. Projects such as these can help eliminate some of the logistical challenges with accessing care for impoverish or rural communities.
Text messaging is being used to raise awareness on human rights issues. The Burkina Faso Red Cross, for example, uses text messages to remind government officials, employers, traditional leaders, business owners and others about rights abuses associated with the “exploitation of domestic workers.”
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Geographic Information System (GIS) software is used to “map artisanal mining sites, transportation routes, and mineral trading points” as part of efforts to reform the mining sector. Security and human rights issues on the ground are also monitored using the software. The DRC has been the center of a global battle against the trade in “conflict minerals”—tin, tantalum, gold and others—that has been used to finance massive human rights abuses and bloody conflict.
A major component of how technology is being adapted for humanitarian purposes efforts is ways in which it can be used to streamline information rapidly and unify the efforts of various organizations and individuals.
When the crisis broke in Libya, humanitarian workers and decision-makers realized they didn’t have real time information regarding the events happening within the country. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) teamed up with the Ushahidi initiative, a project that ultimately set new standards to map crises and aid response plans through the use of social and traditional media information. The effort, which relied on 150 volunteers skilled on crisis mapping to manage data coming from within Libya, resulted in the LibyaCrisisMap.net.
“Given that the UN had virtually no access to the country, we now had situational awareness,” Andrej Verity, information management officer at OCHA in Geneva, said. “And, within 48 hours, we had 100-plus response activities collected and compiled – the same amount of data [that] took about four weeks in the Philippines, two weeks in Haiti, and two weeks in Pakistan to be made available.”
Technology has also changed the way caring members of the public around the world are able to help when disaster strikes. As massive natural disasters struck with little warning in 2010 and 2011, aid groups and people around the world turned to social media and other technological tools to help people in Haiti, Pakistan and Japan find missing relatives, and to identify emergency needs and raise funds for relief efforts. In Kenya, an initiative using mobile phones to facilitate cash transfer services—“Kenyans for Kenya”—raised over US $7 million during a period of drought that affected northern and eastern parts of the country.
