Tina and Bartel are leaving this sunday to Accra, Ghana, where the hub the for coordinating Ebola operations in the West African sub-regionare is stablished.
The DRL team will to spend one week in the country, to meet practitionners from different relief organizations and agencies, and start the field exploration.

Jonas Landgren, Matthieu Lauras and Laura Laguna will support the field team work remotely.

The information explosion described in the first chapters of our report goes along with an explosion of products. In a sheer sea of maps, situation reports, humanitarian needs assessments, infographics, appeals, surveys, blogs, twitter hashtags and more, it is difficult to find answers to specific questions. Therefore, practitioners, affected communities, policy makers, donors and also we researchers all are trying to find what we believe are good products. What a “good” or useful information product is depends, on the goals and the processes we all use to work with information. The information age has lead to the re-envisioning of the power of information and the rights-based approach to humanitarian action. It is not only the extension of the belief that information is a right – such as health, protection, education –, but the information quality, accessibility, and timeliness are key factors.

“Timely information can save lives…Aid organizations must recognize that accurate, timely information is a form of disaster response in its own right.”
(M. Niskala, Secretary-General of the IFRC, World Disasters Report 2005 )

This third part of our report is therefore dedicated to understanding if and how information products influence humanitarian operations and decisions.

By many interviewees we were told, the role of information has never been so prominent as in the response to Haiyan in December 2013.

And while today many of our friends and colleagues are currently working on data collection, processing, and setting up communication channels such as google sites, skype chat groups, or dropbox folders, we reflect on the in this part, into the reasons that may have lead to this claim. 


Chapter 1 will advocate a new role for Information Management (IM), and the trade-offs that need to be made between automation and standardisation vs. a flexible and adaptable approach that addresses specific information needs. Chapter 2 reflects on Information Sharing and Coordination of the different actors, and addresses the challenges of aligning actions and communication of the diverse humanitarian actors, governmental organizations, and the affected organizations. 


The needs of affected communities can only be addressed if they are identified, assessed, translated into concrete requests, and communicated to those who can best provide aid. Therefore, the last chapter of this part is dedicated to needs assessment, and aims at giving an overview about the diverse perspectives in this field. 

Hope you find it an interesting read - we would be curious to what you think are similarities and differences to the ongoing response to Ebola!

The researchers of the Disaster Resilience Lab have been working individually on the challenges of infor­mation management; sensemaking; decision support; and humanitarian (information) technolo­gies in disaster management. As Haiyan made landfall - almost a year ago - we were trying to keep track of the unfolding re­sponse. 

The response to Haiyan had two sides: on-site and local efforts of volunteers and professional responders as well as online and remote support from the virtual and technical communities, or by professionals at headquarter levels. 

To find answers to our many questions on decision-makers' needs that reflected both realities, it was insufficient to work remotely. The first part of our report provides the background for our work, and explains how we brought together our individ­ual perspectives and background to jointly conduct field research on Haiyan. 

We hope you find it an interesting read, and look forward to your suggestions and comments!

Over the past months and weeks, we have been working on the DRL report about our transdisciplinary field research on Typhoon Haiyan. Our research has been driven by the need to under­stand the information and communication needs of humanitarian responders. During the response to Typhoon Haiyan, we focused on decision support and sensemak­ing, i.e., the process by which people give meaning to what is happening.

In the Executive Summary we report on our findings along five domains and try to provide some first answers to the following questions:

1.     The Role of Information Management: what is the role of traditional information management offic­ers and other actors who focus on information products and flow of information to various deci­sion-makers? How is information management embedded in their respective operations?

2.     Information Sharing and Coordination: how is information shared between actors and organiza­tions? How is it filtered, processed, and transformed into actionable insights? What are the success stories, and what are challenges?

3.     Understanding and Monitoring Risks: how are risks assessed and monitored? How is infor­mation from various partners analysed to efficiently recognize gaps between aid provided and needs in a post disaster dynamic environment? How are emerging risks and new threats under­stood by various actors and how does this translate into monitoring?

4.     Information Products Impact Evaluation: how are traditional and current crisis mapping infor­mation products impacting humanitarian operations? Which technologies, information product types, and modalities are being recognized, valued and used for decision-making at various lev­els?  What are the cross cutting barriers to perceived value and successful use?

5.     Logistics and Supply Chain Management: how is information about logistics needs translated into goods distributed, and what is the impact of aid on markets, and infrastructures?
 
We are happy and proud to share the draft of the Executive Summary with you. Our findings and recommendations are derived from field observations, meetings, and 39 interviews con­ducted in the Philippines with responders from United Nations (UN) agencies, local and interna­tional non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as governmental agencies. MapAction and digital humanitarian volunteers carried out additional analyses. 

Once more, we would like to thank all our supporters, particularly our interviewees. Without you, this work would not have been possible.

The insights and recommendations shared in this document are aimed to contribute to ongoing and evolv­ing discussions on information management and decision-making in humanitarian and disaster set­tings. We hope that our communications do not only support pre-existing knowledge and perspectives but also that our findings will provide new insights and help us all move ahead. 

This draft is only a part of the full report, which we will over the next weeks post chapter by chapter. We hope that in this manner, we can engage in a discussion process with you. We look forward to your feedback on this work, and are open for suggestions on how to continue our collaboration.