Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is also the central place for the coordination of the disaster relief activities between agencies and headquartes, and the relations to the government of the Philippines. Most clusters and organisations meet here, information from the field is evaluated and transmitted from here to Head Quarters and Government. 

Manila is also the place where newcomers - from Australian fire fighters to Danish nurses - make contact with those who come back from the field, tired and happy to go home. For us, this is an opportunity to experience the transition from early to late response and recovery.

Manila itself is a vibrant city, crowded, traffic is dense, and apart from the omni-presence of aid teams, the city hardly touched by Haiyan: Christmas Trees glitter, and we listen to "Rudolphe the Rednosed Reindeer" over breakfast...

This post will report about just one interview, as we are about to leave from Cebu to Manila. We will try to add more as we go.

Interview with Neil Bauman - 
IM for the Shelter Cluster (IFRC/Canadian Red Cross)
Neil has worked in the Philippines since the Bohol earthquake. He is the first referring to Haiyan as the information management disaster. The sheer scope and magnitude of Haiyan has led to an enormous response effort - reflected by thousands and thousands of maps, situation reports, relief projects, Wikis and websites. Haiyan is the first natural hazard declared L3 since Haiti, organisational interests, funds and efforts are according. 
UN-OCHA has implemented its cluster approach to facilitate work in different activities, distribute tasks, and coordinate acitivites and information. 

The shelter cluster was one of the most important in this natural disaster. As of december 16 2013, there are still more than 1.1 million affected houses, and the rainy season will start at the end of January in some affected areas, meaning that short- and medium-term shelter solutions must be found beforehand. 

As an information manager, it was Neils role to act as coordinator (managing relations with cluster partners and agencies working in shelter) - from very technical issues such as engineering to how to address the needs of the population given the context of the Philippines. 

This very first interview gave us important leads for all the others to come: information overload and the trade-off between real-time operational decision-making vs. strategic decisions that need to be well aligned with the other actors, agencies and bureacracies were frequently among the most important issues.

The team has been in Manila for the past 1 1/2 days meeting with people from the  Shelter Cluster, OCHA Information Management, and the International Organization of Migration Staff.

We are also confirming and setting up future meetings for the next days in Cebu, Tacloban and Guiuan.  Daily, the team is connecting with Jennifer Chan in Chicago via Skype.  While the bandwidth is excellent from Manila our Skype call dropped about 6-7 times.  This didn't stop us from working on the next few days activities. After our 15 min call the DRL team headed off to bed at 11:30pm Filipino time & Jennifer worked the ER at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.  Here is a Skype video screen shot of the team in Manila. 

In a few moments, Tina Comes, Bartel Van der Walle and Kenny Meesters will be lifting off as part of the research field team with the Disaster Resilience Lab.  Marc van den Homberg has already landed in Manila and is (hopefully!) getting some good rest!

We are part of a collaborative team of researchers from different areas of expertise, and our collaborative communications via Skype, Googledocs, Twitter and emails is what helps us learn from each other, share new ideas, co-create and co-plan this field research project.

This what we believe are some of the foundational aspects of our work, it's the collaborative and teamwork from all parts of the world. Whether it's in Haiti, Netherlands, Norway, USA, Paris or the UK, we come together around the philosophy of shared learning and real-time exploration. We could not nearly achieve alone what we can as a multidisciplinary team.

We also believe that our understanding of information, decisions, logistics, and outcomes of new information streams form the Digital Humanitarian Network is a shared exploration that we need to have together with responding organizations and communities in the Philippines.

So as we fly over the Caribbean Sea, Indian and Pacific Oceans to meet Marc in Manila, here are some pictures of our travel and planing.

In the past days, we have been asked why the research in the Philippines is relevant for Europe. What do we gain other than an adventurous trip?

Storm over Europe
The answer: insights that are all too relevant for ourselves. Storm Xaver has shown how brittle our critical infrastructure systems are. Travelling into Amsterdam last night, I found myself stranded at the airport, sitting between “Ako Nieuws & Media" and “Dutch & Delicious” shops and trying to figure out where to go. Train service had stopped three hours before, people were waiting on cold platforms amidst suitcases and backpacks with a cellphone in their hands, trying to get connection to the internet or calling to find out more about the situation.

Strikingly, information for travelers was at the same time conflicting, redundant and lacking: for instance a female voice announces frequently that a tree is blocking the tracks close to Leiden and train services are stopped in the Provinces of Northern Holland and Groningen, while visual displays list all the trains that will not run. However, what all travelers really need is information about what does work. 

The only communication that seems to work is peer to peer: calling relatives to organize pick up services at the airport, having a friend search the web, or going to the one open counter of the Dutch railway, where a friendly lady in blue tries mostly to calm the travellers down. This peer to peer communication works, since the information provided addresses the specific problems and needs of those who request it. But is highly inefficient. It blocks bandwidth; I can only access the internet sporadically, and many of my calls drop. It is redundant, since the same questions need to be answered over and over again. And it privileges those with access to local knowledge and contacts.

Back to the Philippines
Interestingly, I have discussed the same issues with MapAction and GeorgeMcGuire, who also provided the map above, as a part of a series of maps that would be required to facilitate logistcs planning.

The challenge for us, working on decision support tools and information systems is how to maintain the advantages of tailored information while providing information for very different contexts and users. How do we avoid overloading them with thousands of maps, redundant or irrelevant information? How do we ensure that the content is understood by providing it in the right language and format?

In essence, this will require an approach that is transparent and accessible to all and enables filtering and ad-hoc processing of information in near real-time - customization of mass communication.

As we plan where we need to go, and with whom we would like to talk, the most important question is what we are going to achieve. The sheer magnitude of the disaster is overwhelming, going along with an enormous urge to help. Also from a scientific perspective, there are many interesting questions and open issues that do require attention. One of the most difficults aspects is focussing on what we can achieve in very few days. The work that we conduct during our mission in the Philippines will serve to collect data and material from different organisations as a basis for future work. 

To shape our research, we had a long series of meetings and skype conferences. We had a meetings with the European Commission, interviewed the team leader from the B-Fast team (now back from the field)... and an endless series of skype calls with colleagues such as Adam Widera (ERCIS, Muenster), Lars Peter Nissen (ACAPS), Vicenzo Bollettino (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative), Andrej Verity (UN OCHA), Jennifer Chan (Northwestern University), Gisli Olafsson (Nethope). They all provided help, guidance and contacts, and supported us getting in touch with coordinators and responders on-site. Thank you all so much for this! 

During these discussions, three core topics crystallized:

1.     Decision-makers’ needs:

Starting from the taxonomy that has been developed in the OCHA/ACAPS Report on Decision Makers Needs in Sudden Onset disasters, we will visit decision-makers who work in various roles and for different organizations. We will aim at eliciting requirements in terms of information relevance, credibility, information, interoperability, accuracy etc.

2. Information flows

Starting from the decision-makers’ needs, we will investigate the information that was available to these decision-makers in the different response phases (up to six weeks after a disaster). We will collect information to analyse the flows of information between different actors and organisations in the Philippines including tools that are used to communicate, process and share information.

3. Impact evaluation

We will collect information about the technologies; information products and decision support tools that are currently used in practice, as well as an initial understanding why these are adopted. We will also address questions about the use of crowd-sourced information.


This mission is a unique effort connecting scientists and crisis managers working in disaster response so that we together can work towards the aim of improving disaster resilience. If you have any suggestions or would like to support this trip, please contact us at thedisasterresiliencelab@gmail.com.