ReliefSource

After enjoying the delights of Tunisia during the World Summit on the Information Society, it’s time to get back to field work. The Pakistan earthquake happened just as I arrived in the USA, where I was carrying out an assessment of ICT capacity to respond to emergencies for the Interagency Working Group (IWG). The IWG comprises CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam, International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, Mercy Corps and World Vision. Although they vary in size, this combined group ships at least 50% of the world’s non-governmental humanitarian assistance - so it’s a real challenge to work out ways that they can improve their game.

While I was in the US, the IWG Principals (ie the heads of emergency response) decided that it would be useful to include a field assessment of the response to the earthquake here. I was particularly happy about that, because I lived here for parts of 2001-2002, when we were setting up the Afghanistan Information Management Service. So here I am and, despite the terrible circumstances, it’s good to be back and to meet with some old friends.

So far I’ve been limited to Islamabad, visiting various NGO and UN offices to interview key staff. We’re not just looking at technology, which is only a means to an end - we’re also trying to identify the ends to which that technology is in service. That means talking not just to the ICT staff (although they’re key), but to the logistics officers, security focal points, programme managers… a range of roles within each organisation. Next week I’ll travel to Mansehra in the earthquake zone, to carry out interviews with field workers and do on-site assessment of communications set-ups.

Some things have changed immensely since I started doing this kind of work. Increased connectivity means that VOIP to the field has started to arrive. Applications like those provided by Global Development Group, Sahana, Groove and Voxiva become more plausible. We see more initiatives like Rise-Pak, springing out of nowhere and trying their own solutions on the fly. There’s more awareness of the need for better information in the field, particularly spatial data, which means more attempts to build standard models. We see more private sector involvement, through groups like Ericsson Response or IBM’s Crisis Response Team. All these things together mean that we are getting somewhere - hopefully this assessment I’m carrying out will be able to tie some of them together.

However, much as I like to champion new technologies, accessible services, open source software, and so forth, I’ve also spent 5 years working in the field. While improved communications technology (such as VSAT, which is pretty much standard for the larger aid agencies now) has definitely made a difference, it’s hard to get excited about many of the other developments. SMS early warning notification means nothing in valleys where there is no mobile signal, and where nobody can afford a cell phone. Google Earth is handy in the head office, but in the field nobody’s going to fork out the dollars to stream fairly rough satellite imagery without good reason. Skype is way cool (especially now they’ve got video), but have you seen how much bandwidth it swallows?

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be trying out new approaches with these technologies; we absolutely should. And we need to engage the technology advocates and professionals who are making a big noise about the power of the web, and to build bridges with people working on digital divide issues; put them together in a room, point out the realities of working in Bana Allai, off a generator, with one landline between fifty staff and a VSAT that was supposed to arrive 3 weeks ago, with the temperatures dropping and the roads starting to be blocked by landslides, as the male population of entire villages come down from the hills looking for any kind of shelter.

Once we have that, we can start talking about what the real solutions are. I guess that we’ll never have everybody in that one room, except… except that the Web is that one room, and we’re all sitting in it. Let’s keep these discussions going, and not let them fade out as soon as we start thinking it’s business as usual. For the relief industry (and it is an industry) this is business as usual, and it will stay that way for a long, long time.