Best Practices in Humanitarian Information Exchange +5

keywords:

Event:

Organiser	UN/OCHA
Location	Geneva
Year	2007

Summary

Context and structure

In the previous symposium, 2002, the 'Ten Principles of Best Practices in Humanitarian Information Exchange' were hammered out, and some key points. There followed a series of regional workshops in Bangkok, Panama, and Nairobi, producing 'best practices' and 'lessons learned' etc.

The backbone of this Symposium + 5 consisted of four discussion panels and reports from five working groups. Continuity with the previous conferences was provided in the form of their respective published reports. I would have liked a better understanding of this whole conference process and where its going.

Attendance

I totted up the numbers attending from various bodies. Cluster leads are in italics. Links are in bold. I believe there were seats to spare.

39 UNOCHA
18 Permanent Missions to UN
11 UNICEF
9 UNDP
7 UNOSAT
7 IFRC
6 UNHCR Cluster Lead
5 WHO
5 Norwegian Refugee Council
5 ICRC
4 BBC
4 InSTEDD
3 Ithaca
3 Microsoft
3 ICT 4 Peace, creators of Sahana
3 iMMAP
3 WFP
3 IRIN (OCHA)
2 FAO
2 UNISDR
2 UNMIS
2 Care International
2 UNAMI
2 Global Hand
2 Internews
1-2 Many organisations omitted
1 U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
0 MSF
0 IOM

My highlights of the Symposium + 5

when maps of Palestinian territory and access were overlaid, to reveal a people confined to tiny pockets
when the Humanitarian Coordinator spoke about his wish to strengthen OCHA to support coordination of information
talking to people
the presentation by COHORT of their survey results profiling the attendees to learn about barriers to IM, and social networks.

Ideas for next time

It was good to hear George Monbiot quoted as "Every flight kills a child" (I think the reference was to 'flying across the Atlantic is now as unacceptable as child abuse') in reference to the carbon costs of the meeting.

Could there be a more efficient process for OCHA and its constituents to communicate? What if a small media team were to continuously produce engaging interview, documentary and informative audio or visual programmes? What if documents were initiated, as well finalised online? What if business and government were enticed into the discussion?