Resource: Effective Information-Sharing During Humanitarian Emergencies

by Michael Bear · 2008-10-24 19:13:00 UTC
Topics:

Imogen Wall and Lisa Robinson at BBC World Service Trust just published a report entitled Left in the dark: The unmet need for information in humanitarian responses, which provides very, very useful information for aid workers scrambling to respond to emergencies.

The report looks at the need to ensure that affected populations have access to critical information as quickly as possible. As Wall explained in a recent article:

[A]nyone who has been caught in an emergency knows that decisions to protect lives and well-being in that moment depend on having the right information. What just happened? Where is the nearest hospital? Is anyone coming to help, and what do I do in the meantime? How can I find out about my family?

It also includes examples of successful information strategies that humanitarian agencies have used in crises ranging from Kosovo to Sri Lanka, Aceh to Pakistan.

Effective communication is also important from the perspective of pure, glorious self-interest.  One of the most difficult - and frustrating - aspects of being an aid worker is trying to deal with and manage community expectations. As the report explains:

An important component in this is expectation management – desperate populations are very prone to hearing what they want to hear. Ineffective communication at this stage can create false expectations and misunderstandings about what assistance is forthcoming, and about the role of the agency in question.

John Holmes, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, summed up the situation thusly: "Communicating better with those we are trying to help strikes me as a major gap in our armoury."  This report is one step towards remedying that gap.

[Image from personaldemocracy.com]

Michael Bear
PREVIOUS STORY:
Fair Trade Happy Hour
NEXT STORY:
A letter from Bettina Siegel, "Pink Slime" petition creator

COMMENTS (2)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.