The Disaster Resilience Lab
Follow us on Social Media
Disaster Resilience Lab
  • Home
    • People
    • Presentations
    • Publications
    • Contact
  • News
    • DRL in the News
    • Events
    • Past Events
  • Field Research
    • Ebola >
      • Ebola Research Diary
    • Haiyan >
      • Field Research Philippines
      • Research Diary
  • Blog
  • DMN
    • RefugeesWelcome

First impressions from Manila

12/21/2013

0 Comments

 
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.
Picture
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.

0 Comments

    Authors

    Bartel Van de Walle has worked on the virtuous circle of sensemaking and decisions in crisis management. For the past 20 years he has worked on information systems for better crisis response in the field and as an associate professor at Tilburg University.

    Tina Comes develops systems and tools to support decision makers dealing with complexity and uncertainty. Her work as Associate Professor in ICT at the University of Agder aims at bridging the gap between technology and users.

    Together, we are working on improving disaster resilience, since the ability to prepare for, manage and learn from risks and crises has become a prerequisite for sustainable growth in an increasingly complex, uncertain and dynamically evolving world.    

    Categories

    All
    Coordination
    Decision Support
    Field Trip
    Funding
    Impact
    Infrastructure
    Interview
    Logistics
    Ngos
    Philippines
    Planning
    Recovery
    Research
    Response
    Shelter

    Archives

    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    June 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013

    Categories

    All
    Coordination
    Decision Support
    Field Trip
    Funding
    Impact
    Infrastructure
    Interview
    Logistics
    Ngos
    Philippines
    Planning
    Recovery
    Research
    Response
    Shelter

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.