Impact of the Internet - Information Dissemination
Page history last edited by Sanjana Hattotuwa 1 year ago
Impact of the Internet ~ Information Dissemination
Summary
"For all the changes already wrought by the arrival of the web, we are only at the beginning of an upward curve. Increases in computing power and expansion of broadband access will make it increasingly easy to more rapidly disseminate a richer array of information, e.g. live audio and video, multimedia and mapping images, and so on. In such circumstances, the problem of information overload becomes more pressing; the new frontier is a crowded place, and the difficulty for the web user is how to identify useful information and filter out the rest.
Websites offering this type of filtering are referred to as portals, and in the fragmented ICT4Peace community, they can make significant contributions to development of a culture of information sharing and development of an ICT4Peace community. Here the term ‘portal’ implies that the information is not created by the organization itself, but that the website collates information from other sources in order to act as a filter for the vast amount of information available on the web."
A service of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), is the hub for humanitarian information, receiving approximately 1 million hits a day in 2004 – and 3 million hits a day following the South Asia Tsunami. Over 70,000 people subscribe to its email services, the site offers a "web feed" service to deliver customized content to partners' web sites, and users can create password-protected profiles to manage material of particular interest to them. ReliefWeb has offices in three time zones to ensure that its news items are updated around the clock, and posts some 150 maps and documents daily from over 2,000 sources. These are then categorized and kept in a searchable database containing nearly 300,000 items dating back to 1981. In addition to these and other resources pertaining to countries and crises, the site includes a guide to humanitarian web sites, a search engine, direct links to news sites, and professional tools. The latter include directories of employment and training opportunities, thematic listings of "communities of practice" in different areas of specialization, and a contact directory of humanitarian organizations.
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)
http://www.irinnews.org - an independent news service reporting on humanitarian crises. IRIN produces updates, analysis and alerts on developments in 46 countries in Africa and eight in Central Asia. The information is drawn from (and provided to) a network of UN agencies, NGOs and international organizations, national authorities, donors, human
rights organizations, political parties, regional institutions, churches, academia, businesses and the media. In addition to producing its own daily, weekly and special reports, IRIN distributes publications from its partners. Some 100,000 people worldwide read IRIN reports daily via e-mail with customizable preferences, and IRIN also operates a web radio service with content geared toward particular countries and region in crisis.
Alertnet
Alertnet - http://www.alertnet.org - is a project of the Reuters Foundation that focuses on rapidly developing humanitarian emergencies and on early warning of future emergencies. It draws on the Reuters news agency’s unparalleled 24-hour news feed to provide up to the minute coverage of breaking events concerning natural disasters and complex emergencies, and provides a wealth of country profiles, satellite images, interactive maps, and databases. The site attracts upwards of three million users a year and contributes to network development by providing links to 374 member organizations in 87 countries, a weekly email is received by more than 10,000 readers, and a password-protected Professional Zone where members can post information and contacts of use to other humanitarian professionals.
OFFICE FOR THE COORDINATION OF HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS (OCHA)
The mission of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors in order to:
alleviate human suffering in disasters and emergencies;
advocate for the rights of people in need;
promote preparedness and prevention, and
facilitate sustainable solutions.
The above mission statement defines OCHA’s global priorities deriving from the December 1991 UN General Assembly Resolution (46/182) that created the position of Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) and other groundwork on which OCHA developed. The UN Secretary-General assigned the ERC the status of Under-Secretary-General (USG) for Humanitarian Affairs and established the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), with offices in New York and Geneva, to provide the ERC with institutional support. DHA was reorganized into the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in 1998, and its mandate was expanded to include policy development and humanitarian advocacy in addition to coordination of humanitarian response.
Much of OCHA’s day-to-day work at headquarters and in the field is conducted on behalf of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), chaired by the ERC. The IASC includes the UN’s primary humanitarian agencies, representative NGO consortia, and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The IASC ensures inter-agency decision-making for complex emergencies and natural disasters. Among other things, the IASC is the guardian of the Humanitarian Coordinator system, the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP), and other coordination mechanisms for policy development, needs assessment, and humanitarian response.
ICT4Peace Special Advisor Sanjana Hattotuwa's presentation at UN OCHA +5 Symposium, October 2007, Palais des Nations, Geneva
AzerWeb is an Internet and Intranet web-site (on-line information system) developed to promote dialogue and information sharing within the humanitarian and commercial sectors of Azerbaijan. AzerWeb is maintained and operated by the "Save the Children" till January 2001, when it was devolved to Open Society Institute - Assistance Foundation Azerbaijan. AzerWeb was originally envisioned as the Azerbaijan component of the United Nation Department of Humanitarian Affairs (UNDHA) effort to expand ReliefWeb, an online information system. Discussions on the AzerWeb project began in early 1995 and included representatives from USAID, MC, SCF, UN Development and Relief Agency, IRC, RI, CARE, WV, UN and DHA. AzerWeb was designed to be utilized as a tool in strengthening the reliability and timeliness of information dissemination that supports the work of humanitarian and development agencies in Azerbaijan. Since most information found in AzerWeb is voluntarily supplied by the agencies themselves, sometimes augmented by data from other sources, OSI-AF does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the information nor does it necessarily endorse any view point that might be expressed by another organization.
Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters
With a special focus on public health, epidemiology, structural and socio-economic aspects, CRED promotes research, training, and information dissemination on disasters. It aims to enhance the effectiveness of developing countries' disaster management capabilities as well as fostering policy-oriented research.
Our goals:
To promote research and provide information to the international community that ensures sufficient preparedness and improved responses to disasters and populations in danger.
To train field managers, relief officers, doctors and health professionals in the management of short and long-term disaster situations.
To introduce emergency preparedness and response in development programmes of disaster-prone countries.
To develop autonomy of developing countries to improve their own preparedness for and response capacities for emergencies and critical situation.
The International Committee of the Red Cross
www.icrc.org, the oldest and probably the largest humanitarian organization, offers access to databases of treaties and related instruments.
Norwegian Refugee Council’s Global IDP Project
http://www.idpproject.org monitors the movement of people who have been displaced within their own country by conflict or because of human rights violations, maintains a Global IDP database and related maps, and uses this information to promote the safe return or resettlement and reintegration of the displaced.
International Documentation Network on the Great African Lakes Region
http://www.grandslacs.net is an international, inter-university program that collects, edits, and provides access to documents on recent events in Burundi, Rwanda and their regional context (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo). The network’s goal is to make the largest possible range of documents available to decision-makers, academics, and NGOs in those countries and around the world. In order to develop a trusted resource and to foster a culture of critical reading of information, the Network only accepts complete and verified documents (to avoid mis-quotes or false attributions that often fuel strife in the Great Lakes region). Documents include reports and technical materials on development from various sources, letters, statements and studies by public personalities, and communications from within civil society. These documents, which number in the thousands and often exist only in hard copy form, are scanned or re-typed and made available via a searchable Internet database and CD-ROMs. Depending on the original documents, the project makes available resources in English, French, Kinyarwanda, and Kirundi.
Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) at the Harvard University School of Public Health
http://www.hpcr.org runs a Portal Development Unit, which gives policymakers and practitioners easy access to information on human security and conflict prevention and allows users to create virtual networks with counterparts to share common concerns. Its Indonesia portal http://www.preventconflict.org/portal/main has become a trusted source for reports and other documents reflecting many points of view.
International Humanitarian Law Research Initiative (IHLRI)
http://www.ihlresearch.org/ihl, allowing access to news articles and resources on the topic of international humanitarian law relevant to situations in ongoing conflicts.
The tools on this website bring together people and organizations around the globe who are working to improve life in developing countries. DGF is an international nonprofit organization with the mission to reduce poverty and enable change in developing nations through information technology. To this end, DGF provides Web-based platforms that make aid and development efforts more effective around the world. We focus our resources in three areas where even small investments in information and communications technology (ICT) can make a major difference:
Effective government – enabling better aid management and coordination, and more efficient and transparent government procurement.
Knowledge sharing and collaboration – leveraging the Internet for online communications among development practitioners worldwide.
Local partner programs in nearly 50 countries – connecting developing country organizations into our mission and helping empower them to use ICT to scale up local development efforts.
Impact of the Internet - Information Dissemination
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