Towards interoperability in Crisis Management

keywords:

coordination

Event:

Organiser	Crisis Management Initiative
Location	Helsinki
Year	2003

Summary

The conference recognized and emphasized the importance of leadership and commitment from stakeholders to increase the professionalism of international organizations dealing with crisis management through efficiency and effectiveness. It highlighted the need to establish at the highest level a policy framework that will embrace the efforts of government officials, the military, and all civilian responders on the ground.

The conference was not an end itself but a vehicle to advance the policy debate on co-operation and information sharing in field operations and networking between the user and provider communities. The conference identified concrete measures that can enhance crisis management within and across responding organizations.

[The measures reported here seem not to be very concrete, making the actual outcome of the conference hard to measure]

Conclusions

Strong support was offered for the idea of more frequent meetings on specific issues. Groups such as CREATE demonstrate the usefulness of outcome-oriented groups that create an opportunity for discussion outside the normal organizational boundaries.

In order to strengthen relationships developed at the conference (particularly the public-private relations), a virtual forum was proposed. This method of exchange should be dynamic—based on developing a community of ICTpolicy activists working on common problems. In particular, experiences of good communication practicesshould be shared.

The inter-agency SHARE (Structured Humanitarian Assistance Reporting) standards for metadata offer a stable platform for information sharing in general. GIS was identified as a specific technology with wide-ranging utility for security issues and crisis management ingeneral. The means to improve the use of GIS among crisis managers included developing standard humanitarian cartographic symbols, UN Geographic Information Working Group, the Open GIS Consortium, joint procurement of satellite imagery.

Finally, there is an acute need for adequate ways to measure the success or failure of ICT projects. This is especially important for post-crisis recovery activities, such as occur during national capacity building.