What is www.huminman.net?

This site is an attempt, to survey and digest the emerging field of humanitarian information management.

The site has been up since October 2007 and is starting to get some visitors. If you find this a valuable resource you can add comments without logging in, or create an account to add new pages. This site is unfunded and will benefit from your input!

Information on this site is in four categories

• Library publications
• Organisations
• Tools
• Conferences and events

Attempted definition of 'Humanitarian Information Management'

Humanitarian information management concerns the collection, storage, and presentation of data concerning humanitarian operations. Many of these activities take place in post disaster or conflict situations, which demand much more effort and expertise than normal information management because:

• there is often limited internet connectivity
• end users tend to be less familiar with data and computing
• end users may have very little language in common
• the institutions involved are not competing to be efficient

Apart from enabling organisations to be more efficient, Information Management is vital to coordination between disparate actors. UN/OCHA now provides a number of data-sharing services to the UN and wider humanitarian community.

The political side of information management involves negotiating between organisations who need to put new systems in place if they are to participate in the larger coordination effort.

An important aspect of Humanitarian IM is geographic information systems (GIS). This is usually slightly seperate from the other core skill sets around web sites, databases, assessment, and end user training.

As with all humanitarian work, preparedness is an important part of the work.

There is currently no training available in this area. There is no collection of literature. No history has been written. There is no established forum and no orthodoxy. There have been a few conferences around the subject.

Humanitarianism

The doctrine that people's duty is to promote human welfare, (WordNet)
Historically, humanitarianism was publicly seen in the social reforms of the late 1800s and early 1900s, following the economic turmoil of the Industrial Revolution in England...Today, humanitarianism is particularly used to describe the thinking and doctrines behind emergency response to humanitarian crises.(wikipedia)

Information Manangement

Information management is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information. Management means the organization of and control over the structure, processing and delivery of information.(wikipedia)