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Addressing Humanitarian Accountability Within Humanitarian Tech 

The humanitarian field is making strides to bring greater accountability to humanitarian principles in tech.  Largely, with a focus on "ethics," we have gained traction with creators of humanitarian information & communication technologies (HICTs) in addressing hard issues around vulnerability of information and privacy of data. Yet, this still doesn't reach the level of evaluation or criteria for our principles that we expect within our core work as we deliver services to vulnerable populations. How might we raise HICTs to the next level of humanitarian accountability in design and development?

Do you have examples where you negotiated a breakthrough with a tech creator to bring greater inclusion or alignment with the way we work in order to uphold our human rights and humanitarian values? Or, in contrast, examples of where doing so just seemed too far to reach?

We want to know more!  We are seeking such examples to help us map future innovation efforts for bringing greater accountability to our values into the design and development of technology.  Please join our study below!

Take our survey and share with us your examples

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What is the humanitarian socio-technical gap (HSTG)?

The Socio-Technical Gap (Ackerman, 2000) is a term used in tech design and development which refers to a chasm that exists between the  “socio-”  and the “ –technical.”   

That is, the gap between:

What tech experts know  they must support socially (socio-), and

What is technically possible (-technical)

For Humanitarian Technology, this gap is a bit wider on both ends:

1. First, tech creators don’t actually know what they need to support humanitarians socially.  There is a lack of adequate understanding of the ways humanitarians are effectively translating humanitarian accountability into the details of their work with communities on the ground. That’s something, we, as the expert practitioners, have to better translate for tech creators before we can expect it to be adequately assessed within tech creation.
2. Second, technically speaking, current technology design and development methods are not meant to accommodate what is needed to create ICTs that can be accountable to our humanitarian values. Traditional development methods are, in fact, explicitly designed to be a-moral (or, to not judge social-ethical needs.) We hope to explore, in tandem with tech innovators, alternative methods and measures for building tech for uniquely moral types of work. 

How can we close the gap?

Identification

This starts with better identifying the ways we create successful outcomes in our work as humanitarians.  Studies such as Valuing What Works provide a framework for considering a different kind of "effective" and information requirements than current traditions assume. Here, the Wheel of Successful Practice begins to provide the more critical socio-requirements needed in the design of HICTs.

Engagement

Next, we must engage the cooperative work of translating our social requirements further into technical requirements for tech creators, with tech creators. Here is one study where we sought to do this.

Partnership and co-creation

Finally, together with tech partners, we pursue the innovative work of co-creating technology development methods that can meet these "ethical" socio-requirements, and establish a formal assessment of HICTs on these critical aspects of humanitarian accountability.

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In 2019, the main theme was: “Resilience Dividend: Towards Sustainable and Inclusive Societies.” This sixth session was convened and organized by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and hosted by the Government of Switzerland. More information and background to the GPDRR 2019 can be found here.

Red Cross Red Crescent coordinated approach

The IFRC Disaster and Crisis unit and the Global Disaster Preparedness Center / American Red Cross implemented key actions to share disaster risk reduction initiatives from the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement and local communities:

Leaving No-One Behind 

El-Haj As Sy, IFRC Secretary-General,  was the opening speaker on the High-level Panel on leaving no-one behind. “We must start recognizing where they live, their identity, what are their needs, identify the best way to reach out to the most vulnerable,”  remarked the Secretary-General to ensure inclusive DRR. Check out more on the key messages and advocacy video presented.  

Ignite sessions

As part of the strategy of “Bringing Community Voices to the GPDRR 2019,” the IFRC and Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies presented disaster risk reduction practices in person or online. In total, seven ignite presentations were presented on the following topics. 

• Community voices: the use of games for raising climate and gender awareness in Kenya. Video 
• Disaster Preparedness in camp settlements and host communities in Cox’s Bazar Bangladesh. Video 
• Nature protects people. Working with communities on nature-based risk reduction solutions. Video 
• Business Preparedness Initiative in Uganda. Video
• Understanding risk: Enhanced vulnerability and capacity assessment platform. Video
• Community resilience: Onlive reflections by community members.Video
• Missing Maps: mapping the bottom billion in a free and open map. Video

Community Voices Portraits 

A series of large posters were located in the main hall of the venue. The portraits included the voice of community members referring to good practices on Disaster Risk Reduction from Bangladesh, Syria, Indonesia, and the Philippines. This activity was made in collaboration with the Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR) and UNDRR.

Social media outreach  

IFRC and the Global Disaster Preparedness Center (GDPC) implemented a social media campaign to engage with National Societies and communities around the world. The main objective was to bring community voices to the GPDRR 2019. The results are the increasing number of engagement in the GDPC communications channels: 96k impressions (representing more than 800% increase), 484 likes, 224 retweets, 10,823 followers.  

Side events 

IFRC: 100 years of building local resilience in the face of rising risks

Over 80 people from the Red Cross Red Crescent network participated in the pre-meeting launched on May 14 to review and discuss key achievements and challenges on resilience and disaster risk reduction work since Global Community Resilience Forum in Cali (2014). From 20 Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies, IFRC regional offices, two reference centers, and partner organizations engaged in world cafe sessions, panel discussions, and conferences to join efforts and align accordingly with the RCRC Strategy 2030. 

Early Warning Systems pre-conferences 

The World Meteorological Organization launched a pre-event on May 13 – 14th in Geneva, in which, GDPC colleagues shared the results about the Cyclone Preparedness Program in Bangladesh and Multi-Hazard Apps & Common Alerting Protocol Feed Integration.

WhatNow – Key preparedness messages Workshop

Nine National Societies along with representatives from IFRC, GDPC, regional offices, and Google participated in the WhatNow Service workshop on May 13th. The workshop had the objective to socialize the tool, key preparedness messages, API usage, and partnership outreach to disseminate key preparedness action messages through the WhatNow portal to better prepare communities.

Find more details on the following report.

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The Nature Conservancy has joined efforts with GDPC in the Coastal Cities project to help identify ways that nature can be a part of building social-ecological community resilience before, during, and after natural disasters. As the project conducts workshops with communities and key stakeholders to discover different aspects of social-ecological resilience, through coalition building, TNC will contribute to the importance of nature conservation and geospatial technology to the dialogues.

The Coastal Resilience approach and tools will provide city-specific ecosystem data that can assist and guide city level planners and community members to make informed decisions for appropriate nature-based adaptation solutions, or natural infrastructure, as a critical component of disaster risk reduction. Find out more here

Do-It-Together toolkits and services being developed in the project

Components

Coalition-Building

Coalitions involving diverse members within the participating cities are the foundation for the rest of project activities, providing the resource -and skill- base to enable effective collective action on the priority risks identified by local stakeholders. The coalitions themselves are intended to live beyond the scope of the project and serve as a resource for ongoing civic engagement and collaboration on resilience.

The Americas region of the IFRC has already put together a set of guidance documents on coalition-building. The ‘Coalition-building in Coastal Cities’ project will build on these documents, add further case studies and examples to design and test a more detailed set of guidance materials for use in the project and more widely within 1BC.

Assessment of Community Resilience

A city-wide assessment of community resilience will anchor the start of the work of the coalition in each city. The assessment will review the relevance of the implications for community resilience in existing city risk assessments and seek to access additional secondary data, focusing especially on climate and coastal risks. The end result of the city-wide risk assessment will be a listing of priority risks facing communities in the city to serve as the targets for the wider resilience-strengthening activities that will take place under the project.

Design thinking and social entrepreneurship

To address the priority risks, the project will provide support to the local coalition to design local solutions and resourcing strategies. Where appropriate the coalitions will be encouraged to draw on existing global resources such as the corporate volunteering program developed by the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) and the American Red Cross, the First Aid and Hazard apps, the Business Preparedness initiative being developed by the Global Disaster Preparedness Center (GDPC), the U-Report citizen reporting tool developed by UNICEF, and other similar tools and services.

Campaigns

To engage the wider communities within each city in implementing the target solutions (and to link individual and collection actions), the coalitions will integrate awareness-raising about the priority risks as well as tools and services to implement the solutions as part of a local campaign and action plan. The campaigns will be planned around timeframes appropriate to the risks and solutions being targeted and will incorporate iterative sets of activities to allow learning and adaptation over the course of the campaign implementation. The New Zealand Red Cross and the GDPC worked together on a mapping of a variety of previous awareness-raising campaigns. The ‘Coalition-building in Coastal Cities’ project will build on these documents, add further case studies and examples to design and test a more detailed set of guidance materials on campaign design for use in the project and more widely within 1BC.

Community funds

The final element in the project is catalyzing local resourcing of resilience solutions. The project includes a small community grant fund that will make awards on a competitive basis to the coalitions in the participating cities to catalyze local resilience actions. In addition, the project team will seek to link these community grant funds to other community funding opportunities. Conversations are currently underway with both the potential sources and programs for funding these initiatives. Ultimately the goal is to use these funds to match and incentivize local investment in the targeted resilience solutions through contributions to the campaign element of the project by the local business community, local government budget allocations, and public fundraising and volunteer recruitment.

Partners

The project is a joint effort with the Myanmar Red Cross, Vanuatu Red Cross, and Indonesia Red Cross Societies.

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Showcase & Workshop

Co-hosted by the IFRC and American Red Cross

August 26, 2016

Hall of Service, American Red Cross, 1730 E Street NW, Washington, DC

The aim of the workshop is to introduce participants to the One Billion Coalition (1BC) initiative and identify how existing initiatives and their target audiences can be connected and counted through a set of easy-to-use tools and common targets.

The workshop will provide an opportunity to:

• Gain familiarity with the key tools and ideas that are driving the One Billion Coalition for Resilience.
• Broaden and diversify the One Billion Coalition, connecting existing campaigns and providing increased opportunities for people and community organizations to engage locally and globally

Outcomes of this workshop are to encourage participants to:

• Become inspired partners to share the story and shape the journey of the One Billion Coalition for Resilience
• Identify/agree on opportunities for greater collaboration with current and new partners

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Shaun Hazeldine, Head of Innovation and Futures on the IFRC, explained that the discussions and workshops went around top innovative topics like forecast-based action, innovative and disaster risk financing, digital identity, data literacy, the use of cutting-edge technology (virtual reality, 3D printers, artificial intelligence); and transformation projects happening in the National Societies. For example, the British Red Cross presented MapSwipe, developed in support of the Missing Maps Project. The mobile app allows users to remotely contribute to humanitarian missions by identifying and locating people who need help, through satellite images.

Human center-based solutions, cutting-edge technology, and processes’ innovation were the common discussions among these days. Anderas Hjorth Frederiksen, Head of Innovation at the Danish Red Cross, mentioned on this interview, that one of his takeaways is understanding other perspectives of innovation “We talk about Innovation as something where we need to create new ideas, new technologies, but sometimes innovation is just to removing obstacles, making things simpler.”  Also, Heather Leson, Data Literacy Lead at the IFRC, stated in an interview that the challenge is “to keep building projects together because humanitarian response needs it.”

Check more about other projects like the use of affordable prosthetics to people in need by the Norwegian Red Cross, the 21 initiative an accelerator for social innovators and entrepreneurs from the French Red Cross, and many other insights from the participants, following the hashtag #RedInnovation on Twitter.

The IFRC’s Global Innovation Team promotes and develops strategies and tactics aimed at transforming business as usual. The objective is to localize a range of innovation and futures approaches ensuring that organizations and programs remain agile while cultivating an anticipatory mindset to meet the needs of vulnerable communities. Find out more about the projects currently in practice on the Innovation and Futures webpage.

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Disaster Risk Reduction and Building resilience in Humanitarian and development contexts 

Miami has been referred to as one of the most economically vulnerable cities on the planet with $416 billion in assets at risk for flooding and sea-level rise, in just one of Miami-Dade’s many municipalities.  More alarming is the level of human exposure to natural hazards, where 2.7 million people are living in densely populated areas exposed to floods, storm surge and other risks related to climate change (US Census Bureau). 

The Global Disaster Preparedness Center invests in promoting disaster preparedness learning, innovation and good practice by drawing on more than a century of experience and a network of 190 Red Cross and Red Crescent national societies with the wider goal of safeguarding and strengthening communities susceptible to disasters.  The Nature Conservancy, on a parallel track, has been working for decades to understand and advance the role that natural systems, such as natural areas, mangroves and reefs, play in reducing disaster risks.

On March 29th, 2016  we announced a new partnership between the Global Disaster Preparedness Center and The Nature Conservancy.  Together we aim to capitalize on our collective experience, expertise, partnerships and networks in order to foster community resilience worldwide.  Two panels of experts, domestic and international, will explore innovative solutions to climate change where people and nature meet at the local, regional and global levels.

Recording of Event

Local to Global Climate Solutions: Making Communities Safer with Nature from TNC Coastal Resilience on Vimeo.

Agenda

Note: Press interviews will be conducted in Gables Salon, opposite Merrick Ballroom

Press Release: GDPC and The Nature Conservancy Partnership

• Building Climate Resilience with Nature

National Geographic Voices: Quick Take: Nature Protects People

• Blog: Nature Protects People

​

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WhatNow Service, developed by the Red Cross and Red Crescent's Global Disaster Preparedness Center, in partnership with Google, is designed to increase the speed and dissemination of disaster preparedness and risk reduction messages. It is founded on IFRC's Public Awareness and  Public Education (PAPE) key messages for disaster risk reduction, covering 20+ hazards. Red Cross/Red Crescent (RC/RC) National Societies adapt these multi-hazard key action messages to their local risks, language, and context to ensure consistency, clarity, and safety.

National Societies upload the messages on to the global WhatNow Message Portal, which hosts all 192 National Societies' localized WhatNow messages. Partners -ranging from global networks like Google to regional, national, and local media companies- can access WhatNow messages through the open API and broadcast them alongside hazard alerts already disseminated on their platforms.

National Society HQ, branch offices, volunteers, and partner organizations can view the WhatNow messages on a Message Viewer while coordinating harmonized messaging across field communications and programming. As a result, community members receive the RC/RC attributed messaging from many different communication channels and are more informed on how to prepare in the face of the alerted disaster safely.

Fast Facts

• 20+ Hazards: Drought, earthquake, flood; pandemics, and more.
• 6 Urgency Levels: mid-term forecast, forecast, watch, warning, immediate, recovery.
• Available in 78 languages.
• Attributed to Red Cross Red Crescent National Society.
• Download the one-pager.

How does it work?

WhatNow Service operates in a five-step process:

• Step 1: Red Cross Red Crescent  National Societies work with GDPC to upload localized messages on the global WhatNow Message Portal.
• Step 2: Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies engages with Media partners about WhatNow.
• Step 3: Media networks access WhatNow messages through API and broadcast alongside hazard alerts they already disseminate on their platforms. The Message Viewer is available for printing and sharing and social media communications.
• Step 4: At-risk communities receive WhatNow messages from many communication channels.
• Step 5: Red Cross Red Cross National Societies engage with communities for feedback.

How do I get involved? 

Are you a Red Cross Red Crescent National Society interested in contextualizing and/or uploading messages?  Review our WhatNow Message Portal Toolkit and reach out to us through the contact form.

Are you a media network or partner organization interested in broadcasting messages.  Visit the WhatNow Message Portal and contact Nathan.Cooper@ifrc.org

Related Resources:

Providing Worldwide mobile users with early warning actions 

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Vision

Goals

• The primary aim is to build the disaster resilience of small businesses.
• The secondary aim is to better position RC/RC national societies among business communities to facilitate multi-faceted investment toward safer communities.

BPI Program Elements

Led by the Global Disaster Preparedness Center (GDPC) with the help of RC/RC national societies, the BPI provides a mobile application (Atlas: Ready for Business) that small business owners and managers can use to assess their level of preparedness for natural and man-made disasters. Utilizing this free tool, business owners or managers learn to improve their preparedness at their own pace. They are guided to examine operational readiness, networks and relationships, leadership and culture, change readiness, and their ability to assist their people at work. As they progress through the app, users are tested with real-world disaster scenarios with increasing challenging levels. To support their learning, business owners can complete tasks alone or alongside their employees. Based on progress and inputs, Atlas skillfully auto-generates a shareable ‘Crisis and Recovery Plan’ which can be used not only during disasters, but also to exercise readiness and educate staff. The mobile application utilizes interactive features, including a human-like chat  that messages with the user to gain insights to guide them on their unique journey towards resilience. This journey is enabled through Atlas’s flexible content management system which can show the user location-specific content, facilitate translation into unlimited languages, and include sector-specific content to better assist businesses.

The BPI also provides wrap-around support tools and resources, such as workshops and guidance materials, that small businesses can use to strengthen their preparedness capabilities:

• Exploratory workshop for local coalitions and national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies interested in small business preparedness integration into their wider community resilience work. This workshop includes participatory sessions, including a mapping exercise to identify enabling partners and relevant local stakeholders, an opportunity to define roles, aspirations, and capacity, as well as creation of a joint vision and plan for roll-out of decided-upon tools.
• Workshop in a box for small business continuity and resilience: This workshop includes the basic tenants of business continuity – including, but not limited to, a hazard assessment, dependency map, emergency supplies checklist, self assessments, succession planning, contact list templates, and emergency communication procedures for the participating businesses. For implementers, it provides presentation materials, talking points, invitation templates and outreach and media release templates.

Alignment with Community Resilience

Anticipated Outcomes and Benefits

The BPI provides large corporations, government, and business associations with the opportunity to engage with small businesses in their communities by forming coalitions for implementation that promote BPI tools and resources (mobile application and wrap-around resources). The overall benefit will be a better connected, well-informed, resilient community where large, medium, and small businesses alike will be able to work together to ensure quick disaster recovery.

Specifically, the BPI aims to promote and support:

• Quicker post-disaster recovery time for the entire community
• More resilient supply chains for larger businesses
• Reduced economic impact from disasters
• Stronger relationships between the public and private sector
• Stronger and more sustainable relationships between national societies and business community through earlier engagement and interaction
• Engagement of the business community as part of the larger civil society networks creating bridges between different stakeholders through the use of tangible tools and resources
• Wider insurance coverage and/or lower insurance premiums for small businesses
• Increased holistic and sustainable resilience effort globally​

Why the GDPC and RC/RC Network?

The GDPC has a highly unique position within a large network to make an impact in the business preparedness field. As part of the International Federation of the Red Cross Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the GPDC is linked to 191 national societies and over 160,000 branches and local units of the RC/RC network, illustrating a large distribution channel with diverse resources. Additionally, the RC/RC has a positive image and worldwide recognition with both public and private sectors. Due to these factors, the RC/RC network allows the GDPC to market these business preparedness tools and services globally. The GDPC will utilize its role to provide the network needed to increase entry points into business communities around the globe, while providing a relevant service and promoting stakeholders with a particular interest in business preparedness. Additionally, the abovementioned tools and services would be backed by the integrity and reputation of the RC/RC network.

The BPI also supports the IFRC-led One Billion Coalition for Resilience (1BC) by fostering partnerships in communities between the various stakeholders involved in the BPI ultimately strengthening the overall community resilience.

Recent Program Highlights

• Presentation at the BCI World Conference & Exhibition 2015
• Co-organization of the ADPC Business Forum 2016
• Participation in the HPE Living Progress Challenge 2016
• Presentation at the Innovations for Resilience Convening, hosted by the Global Resilience Partnership, IFRC, and The World Food Programme (November 2017)

Interested in getting involved?

The GDPC is always seeking ways to form new partnerships for its programs. If you are interested in finding out more about the Business Preparedness Initiative and how to become a partner, please email gdpc@redcross.org

Are you a small business interested in this program?

Piloting and subsequent global realease of Atlas: Ready for Business mobile application is coming soon! To find out when the mobile application will be available in your country, please contact the GDPC at gdpc@redcross.org

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This case study captures the partnership building and community participation experiences of the Zuia Mafuriko/Ramani Huria project to enhance flood resilience in informal settlements in Dar Es Salaam. Dar Es Salaam is prone to regular flooding and has experienced various catastrophic flood events in the past 10 years. Many of the devastating impacts of floods in the city could have been prevented by well-coordinated approaches at the institutional and community levels. The project established local Disaster Preparedness and Response Teams who lead the prioritization of flood resilience actions in coordination with municipal authorities.

The focus of the case study and the supporting documentation is on the coordination and collaboration processes among stakeholder groups at the community level to highlight enabling factors and obstacles to local coalition building processes. The documented experiences allow others to learn from the process and inform the implementation of multi-stakeholder partnerships to enable local level action in alignment with municipal and city level planning process.

Videos of project compontents 

• Project Background
• Problem statement 
• Recommendations and Lessons Learned 
• Acknowledging Challenges 
• Community focused activities 
• Motivation for partnership formation 
• Partnership phases and their activities 
• Partnership formation process 
• Opportunities for learning

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