The set-up is quite impressive and I think shows what you have to invest, if you are serious about making social media monitoring an integral part of your emergency response operations – unless you rely mainly only the distributed power of volunteers in the crowd. I really hope that AmCross will also make this amazing resource available to other Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

And while I can’t see OCHA ever having the resources to build something similar for UN agencies, I  would hope that they at least schedule a visit and take a look.

• Behind the Scenes: The Digital Operations Center of the American Red Cross

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As many of you know, I’m quite critical when it comes to how to the impressive information gathering possibilities of crisis mapping tools turn into actionable information for responders. On LinkedIn someone shared a video with me today where Ushahidi’s Patrick Meier addresses some of these concerns.

The video is from 2010, but it’s still worth seeing:

He suggests that instead of expecting first responders to use the information collected on a crisis map, the data could be fed back to the crowd so that neighbours can help neighbours. He uses the example of snowstorms in Washington D.C. where people used an Ushahidi map to help others out with snow shovels etc.

I think he has point. If enough people were plugged into the system, it could turn into a marketplace for help needed and resources offered which could make a difference.

However, I have three caveats:

• The risk remains that multiple responders would rush to a single incident that catches the imagination (think: babies) while other, more serious cases,  might be neglected. I suppose the likelihood of this happening could be reduced by enabling logged in users to say “I’m taking on this task.”
• The usefulness depends very much on the size of the disaster and that there is a significant portion of the population who are not affected at all or who are affected but still have resources they can spare. So while it would probably work during the floods in Bangkok, it would not help during a mega-disaster like the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
• This model works only in societies which have a very advanced technology infrastructure that is accessible to a large part of the population. So, while I’m not surprised that it can work in Washington DC, it will not work in the poorer parts of the world which are also more likely to experience disasters.

With these concerns in mind, I nevertheless think that “crowdfeeding” (though that is a horrible term imho) can be a useful tool to organize people who are willing to help each other at least in the highly developed world – and that is nothing to scoff at, either.

What is your opinion?

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Doing their homework

One team of journalists who have really made an effort is the team behind “Inside Disaster Haiti”, which will air as of Tuesday in Canada. They had already been in touch with the Canadian Red Cross for a whole year prior to the earthquake, wanting to film a response operation. When the earthquake happened they were able to deploy with some of the first emergency response units and they came back a few times afterwards to film the progress.

Inside Disaster Trailer from PTV Productions on Vimeo.

Serious game gives a glimpse behind the scenes

An offshoot of the film is the “serious game” Inside the Haiti earthquake where anybody can play the role of a survivor, a journalist or an aidworker. It’s done fairly simply: you get shown a scene and then have to pick one of multiple choices, which will influence how the rest of the story progresses. But since it is based on professional-grade documentary material, I think that it actually leaves quite an impression and can help people to get at least a glimpse of the decisions that need to be made at in an operation like this.

I have worked as a journalist for almost ten years and found that part quite realistic. As for the aidworker-scenario: in the beginning I was really upset because their protagonist is someone who spontaneously decides to go to Haiti with some random, donated goods and without any training or useful skills, i.e. exactly the kind of person that most big organizations don’t want to see on the ground. But they actually manage to take this lack of experience and include it as part of the scenario. Which is brilliant because, after all, the people playing the game will have no experience.

And while it isn’t trying to give you an in-depth perspective by any means, I still think that it might open some people’s eyes to the complexities of the work. So, all in all, a big “thumps up” from me:

Check it out and play “Inside disaster the Haiti earthquake”.

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The question is: How useful are Twitter, Ushahidi, Facebook etc in disasters at the moment?

In this post I won’t go much into the potential and in what could be but will try to have a sober look at where we are today.

I like to look at this question in three different areas:

1. Information inside the disaster zone
2. Information coming in and out of the disaster zone
3. Information about the disaster.

Inside the disaster zone

Noula.ht is a local Ushahidi application in Haiti.

Assuming we are talking about a developing country, I don’t think social media really plays a substantial role.

By far the best technology to send an receive information aside from radio is by SMS. While many people don’t have access to a computer and the  internet, mobile phones are ubiquitous. In Haiti, the Red Cross is able to target broadcasts to the point where even single cellphone towers can be selected, enabling us to send information that is relevant to that specific area. But we need to get better at using mobile phones to collect information. Multiple choice SMS-surveys are a first start, but we still have a long way to go.

I have also become more critical of Ushahidi than in the past. While Ushahidi is good at collecting information, they aren’t very good at effectively linking up with relief organizations. In my opinion collecting information without being able to then follow-up is just not good enough. When you ask people “What do you need” you also have to have the infrastructure in place to then do something with it. Else you are just creating false expectations.

To their credit, Ushahidi has recognized this and as far as I know is talking to humanitarian organizations.

Not so long ago, there was an interesting discussion about this at the UN Week Digital Media Lounge (see video below).

Information to and from the disaster zone

It would appear to be logical that this should be where social media excels – giving people a voice. And while that is true from a media point of view, it is not necessarily true from a response point of view.

After all, you already know that there is an earthquake or a flood etc.. So what you need is actionable information that can be used to shape the response. However, most information you find on social media channels after an earthquake is more descriptive. “Many houses have collapsed”, “people are sleeping on the street” etc. Again: from a media point of view this is good information but it doesn’t help when planning a response.

It’s certainly interesting and I think it can add additional dimensions to information you already have received, but it is of secondary interest only. But f course that is a criticism of the way the information is used and not of the tools. We could definitely make better use of these channels by agreeing on standards and training people to convey operational information.

Which brings me to my last category:

Information about a disaster

This is where social media really makes a difference! In the same way that we used to have the “CNN effect” we now have the “Twitter effect”. Social media is able to create attention for a disaster. And with attention comes donations. The American Red Cross was able to raise 32 million US dollars for Haiti through SMS and that process was partly driven by Twitter and other social media channels – in addition to traditional media. I am convinced that it wouldn’t have been possible if it hadn’t been for smart phones that already combine internet applications like Twitter and mobile technology. Convergence is the key

For me this is where social media is really relevant. Fundraising might not be as glamorous as giving people in repressive regimes a voice, but it is nevertheless vital. Because without donations, emergency response organizations couldn’t do their job. And unlike everything else, this is something where social media can make a real difference.

What do you think? Am I right or off the mark? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

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Having been there for three months hardly makes me an expert – even less so since all I did was shuttle between the our base camp and the UN LogsBase in a land cruiser twice a day, always protected by a suffocating security bubble that made sure that I had no chance to actually talk to any Haitians, except for the drivers and our two local staff.

Nevertheless, I have an opinion. And that opinion is that Haiti was a terrible place to grow up and live before the earthquake. And the quake has made it worse.

What frustrates me is that many people seem to think that we should have been able to change that by now, simply by throwing a lot of money at the issues. The problem is: it doesn’t work that way.

Poverty is the real disaster

Poverty is the underlying problem to all vulnerability. And you can’t change poverty in seven months. To change poverty to you need to create opportunities. And that requires infrastructure, rule of law, education and jobs. You can’t end poverty with a cheque. If you dived all the money that has been pledged (oh, and btw, most of the money that was pledged by states at the beginning of this year still hasn’t arrived) you wouldn’t have ended poverty, you would just have increased prizes.

You also can’t build a functioning disaster preparedness system in seven months – and you definitely can’t do it in a country that never had such a mechanism while you are in the middle of a massive response operation. That is why everybody is so worried about hurricane season.

And don’t even get me started on deforestation – how do you improve the situation of farmers in seven months when 96 per cent of all trees have been cut in the country and the fertile top soil is washing into the sea before your very eyes?

Just across the road from the destroyed Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince is a large IDP camp.

A task for years, not months

What you can do in seven months is you can try to do the best you can. You can provide potable water, latrines, shelter and give people the basic necessities to survive. In a year, even in two years, you can only treat symptoms.

Treating these symptoms is important. However, there seems to be the bizarre expectation that it should be possible to change the future of nine million Haitians within a couple of months, when realistically I think that you will start to see improvements after five and real changes after 10 or 15 years – and that is in a best case scenario without civil unrest or new natural disasters. (“Tales from the Hood” has an excellent post about how aid is complicated and expensive.)

To make real changes, you need to change structures, which requires the political will and ability to make those changes. Think about it: how long it takes in your country before a new law has been passed or new regulations have been adopted? Why should it be any faster in a country where a quarter of the civil servants are dead, most ministries destroyed and where most people who have an education have left the country?

So when somebody asks me  ”How is Haiti these days?” – sometimes I just respond: “Very warm.” Because that is the only thing I know for sure.

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I have spoken an emailed to a lot of journalists over the past couple of weeks and now that the “6 months after”-stories are being published, it is starting to pay off. In my opinion, one of the biggest mistakes that international organizations make is not taking enough time to explain to journalists why thing are complicated and take a long time.

I find it absolutely astonishing that I’m the only dedicated communications officer within the whole cluster system that coordinates the response to the earthquake for the UN, NGOs and the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. And of course, I only speak for the Shelter Cluster, meaning that the 11 other clusters have no dedicated resources for communications at all!  No wonder many of them feel misunderstood.

Recommended reading

The best piece I read over the last few days is the the front-page  story of the today’s New York Times. This also proves that it pays off to have media that invest time and money. Deborah Sontag was in Haiti multiple times and spent a lot of time researching her article and talking to people. So, if you want to know what it’s like in Haiti, six months after the earthquake, read:

In Haiti, the Displaced Are Left Clinging to the Edge

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