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Plans nationaux pour les télécommunications d’urgence: Catalyseurs et garanties. Guide succinct d'évaluation à l’intention des spécialistes des politiques publiques

Ken Okong'o

London: GSMA (2021), 16 pp.

"Ce guide a pour but d'aider à identifier les lacunes, les opportunités et les faiblesses du système afin de guider la définition d’une stratégie nationale plus cohérente et de positionner la téléphonie mobile comme appui aux activités de préparation, de réponse et de relèvement en cas ... more

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National Emergency Telecommunications Plans: Enablers and Safeguards. A Brief Evaluation Guide for Policy Practitioners

Ken Okong'o

London: GSMA (2021), 16 pp.

"Section 1 focuses on creating an enabling environment. Mobile network operators (MNOs) operate in a regulated environment.5 However, if this environment is not sufficiently enabling to support disaster preparedness, response and recovery, MNOs will encounter challenges when disaster strikes. This s ... more

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COVID-19 Discourse on Twitter in Four Asian Countries: Case Study of Risk Communication

Sungkyu Park, Sungwon Han, Kim, Jeongwook, Majid Molaie et al.

Journal of Medical Internet Research, volume 23, issue 3: e23272 (2021), 17 pp.

"COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has led to a global pandemic. The World Health Organization has also declared an infodemic (ie, a plethora of information regarding COVID-19 containing both false and accurate information circulated on the internet). Hence, it has become critical to test the veracity ... more

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Disaster Tales as Communication Tool for Increasing Risk Resilience

Paola Mazzoglio, Stefano Macchia, Enrico Gallo, Julia Winter, Pierluigi Claps

International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, volume 12 (2021), pp. 341-354

"Agencies in charge of flood management use disaster reports (DRs) as the preferred source of information on past flooding events. A systematic survey of DRs prepared by Italian agencies suggests that DRs could be widely enhanced in view of targeting more effective communication to citizens, reinfor ... more

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Public Health Agencies Outreach Through Instagram During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Perspective

Aqdas Malik, M. Laeeq Khan, Anabel Quan-Haase

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, issue 61: e102346 (2021), 9 pp.

"Drawing on the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication framework, we sought to examine how leading health organizations use Instagram for communicating and engaging during the COVID-19 pandemic. We manually retrieved Instagram posts together with relevant metadata of four health organizations (WHO, ... more

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Investigating the Prevention and Mitigatory Role of Risk Communication in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Bloemfontein, South Africa

Olivia Kunguma, Mosekama Osia Mokhele, Mercia Coetzee

Jàmbá - Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, volume 13, issue 1: a1130 (2021), 11 pp.

"The South African disaster response activities surpass risk reduction since the implementation of the Disaster Management Act 57 of 2002 (DMA) and the National Disaster Management Framework of 2005 (NDMF). Risk reduction, in particular risk communication, remained unexploited until the occurrence o ... more

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Role of Frequency Modulation Radio in Disaster Communication: A Case Study of Pakistan Earthquake

Syed I. Rahman, Nauman Sial, Sanya Moazzam

Jàmbá - Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, volume 13, issue 1: a1047 (2021), 9 pp.

"Pakistan suffered from a massive earthquake in October 2005 that caused the deaths of more than 87 000 people. As a result of this calamity, around 3.5 million affected people had no access to information. In these scenarios, community media became an important catalyst. In developing countries, ra ... more

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Humanitarian Communication in a Post-Truth World

Mel Bunce

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, volume 1, issue 1 (2021), pp. 49-55

"When people look online for information about humanitarian crises, they increasingly encounter media content that blurs the line between reality and fiction. This includes everything from rumour and exaggeration to partisan journalism and completely invented stories designed to look like real news ... more

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The Critical Risk of Disinformation for Humanitarians: The Case of the MV Aquarius

Sean Healy, Victoria Russell

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, volume 3, issue 1 (2021), pp. 28-39

"The search and rescue of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants on the Mediterranean has become a site of major political contestation in Europe, on the seas, in parliaments and government offices and in online public opinion. This article summarises one particular set of controversies, namely, fals ... more

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Ethical Traditions in Humanitarian Photography and the Challenges of the Digital Age: Four Conversations with Canadian Communications Officers

Dominique Marshall

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, volume 3, issue 2 (2021), pp. 57-64

"As the production, content, and display of humanitarian images faced the requirements of digital media, humanitarian organizations struggled to keep equitable visual practices. Media specialists reflect on past and current uses of images in four Canadian agencies: the Canadian Red Cross, the Multic ... more

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When ‘Seeing Was Believing’: Visual Advocacy in the Early Decades of Humanitarian Cinema

Valérie Gorin

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, volume 3, issue 2 (2021), pp. 18-27

"Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central and Eastern Europe, this paper discusses the development of advocacy in the movies made by organizations like the ICRC, Save the Children Fund or American Relief Administration. While aid agencies obse ... more

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Radio: A Key Humanitarian Response Tool

Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (ELRHA) (2021), 2 pp.

"This study, undertaken during the COVID-19 outbreak in Burkina Faso, found that radio enabled sharing of rapid, relevant, and reliable information, even during COVID-19 and a deteriorating security situation. Radio can be considered and deployed in emergency context as an urgent response tool. Huma ... more

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Explicability of Humanitarian AI: A Matter of Principles

Giulio Coppi, Moreno Jimenez Rebeca, Sofia Kyriazi

Journal of International Humanitarian Action, volume 6, issue 19 (2021), 22 pp.

"In the debate on how to improve efficiencies in the humanitarian sector and better meet people’s needs, the argument for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated decision-making (ADMs) systems has gained significant traction and ignited controversy for its ethical and human rights-re ... lated implications. Setting aside the implications of introducing unmanned and automated systems in warfare, we focus instead on the impact of the adoption of AI-based ADMs in humanitarian response. In order to maintain the status and protection conferred by the humanitarian mandate, aid organizations are called to abide by a broad set of rules condensed in the humanitarian principles and notably the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. But how do these principles operate when decision-making is automated? This article opens with an overview of AI and ADMs in the humanitarian sector, with special attention to the concept of algorithmic opacity. It then explores the transformative potential of these systems on the complex power dynamics between humanitarians, principled assistance, and affected communities during acute crises. Our research confirms that the existing flaws in accountability and epistemic processes can be also found in the mathematical and statistical formulas and in the algorithms used for automation, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and other efficiency-gaining-related processes. In doing so, our analysis highlights the potential harm to people resulting from algorithmic opacity, either through removal or obfuscation of the causal connection between triggering events and humanitarian services through the so-called black box effect (algorithms are often described as black boxes, as their complexity and technical opacity hide and obfuscate their inner workings (Diakopoulos, Tow Center for Digital Journ, 2017). Recognizing the need for a humanitarian ethics dimension in the analysis of automation, AI, and ADMs used in humanitarian action, we endorse the concept of “explicability” as developed within the ethical framework of machine learning and humancomputer interaction, together with a set of proxy metrics. Finally, we stress the need for developing auditable standards, as well as transparent guidelines and frameworks to rein in the risks of what has been defined as humanitarian experimentation (Sandvik, Jacobsen, and McDonald, Int. Rev. Red Cross 99(904), 319–344, 2017). This article concludes that accountability mechanisms for AI-based systems and ADMs used to respond to the needs of populations in situation of vulnerability should be an essential feature by default, in order to preserve the respect of the do no harm principle even in the digital dimension of aid. In conclusion, while we confirm existing concerns related to the adoption of AI-based systems and ADMs in humanitarian action, we also advocate for a roadmap towards humanitarian AI for the sector and introduce a tentative ethics framework as basis for future research." (Abstract) more

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Information Sharing Protocol: Somalia

Inter-Cluster Coordination Group (ICCG); Somalia Information Management and Assessment Working Group (IMAWG) (2021), 12 pp.

"This Information Sharing Protocol (ISP) is designed to support data responsibility in Somalia. Data responsibility in humanitarian action is the safe, ethical and effective management of personal and non-personal data for operational response, in accordance with established frameworks for personal ... more

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From Digital Promise to Frontline Practice: New and Emerging Technologies in Humanitarian Action

Leonie Arendt-Cassetta

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (2021), 65 pp.

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Data Responsibility Toolkit: A Guide for Cash and Voucher Practitioners

Linda Raftree, Anna Kondakhchyan

Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP) (2021), 45 pp.

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Multihazard Multisectoral Risk Communication Framework for Pakistan

Washington, DC: World Bank; Government of Pakistan, Ministry of National Health Services Regulations and Coordination (2021), 26 pp.

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Utilizing telecommunications / information and communication technologies for disaster risk reduction and management. Study period 2018-2021

Geneva: ITU (2021), xii, 162 pp.

[...] Early-warning systems play a crucial role in informing people about impending disasters and should therefore be deployed in disaster-prone areas. Effective information transmission and dissemination are important before, during and after a disaster. A workshop on early-warning systems held dur ... more

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Media and Disaster Risk Reduction: Advances, Challenges and Potentials

Rajib Shaw, Suvendrini Kakuchi, Miki Yamaji (eds.)

Singapore: Springer (2021), xiii, 249 pp.

"The media is considered to be of utmost importance in all phases of disasters, before, during and after, with different types of media having different proactive roles to play in disaster risk reduction. Before disasters, they play essential roles not only in bringing early warning to people but al ... more

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The Barbados Information Ecosystem Assessment (IEA): How the Flow of Information Impacts Disaster Preparedness and Response

Internews (2021), 95 pp.

"Barbadians are not sufficiently prepared for natural disasters. In addition to being heavily reliant on electricity and the internet for communicating during times of crises and disasters, Barbados is in need of a mandatory building code, more resilient housing and building infrastructures, and gre ... more