A daily reading of the blogosphere this week has provided a feast of new year predictions, wish lists and tips for 2009 that reveal some really interesting online and tech innovations that could have a great impact on the non-profit and development arenas in the year ahead.

The big story of course has been the ongoing conflict in Gaza; but this too has seen quick-thinking people adapt new technologies for communication and data-building to track the conflict and help build information for use by humanitarian relief agencies.

Mainstream news channel Al Jazeera English are utilising a platform first developed during the post-election violence in Kenya in early 2008 to track events in Gaza. Ushahidi – meaning “testimony” in Swahili – uses “crowd-sourced” information to map crisis situations. It allows anyone to submit information via sms, email, or through the web (Al Jazeera is utilising a Twitter feed). OpenStreetMap (OSM) –aimed at creating a free, editable map of the world – diverted their energies to a special Gaza project early in the week. They are looking for people familiar with street names and landmarks to enhance the limited existing map. Reuters Alertnet has a list of other mapping initiatives.

Elsewhere, the BBC reported on a growing E-library project providing ICT literacy and awareness to schoolchildren in Nepal, allowing pupils to “conquer their fear of computers”. The initiative uses the open-source Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP), which allows many people to simultaneously use the same central computer on a Linux operating system and hopes to reach children in all 75 provinces of the country.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) started the year by announcing big staff cuts and a “refocused mission” (via Ethan Zuckerman) that nevertheless prompted a healthy discussion on where this initiative should move next.

A pre-Christmas story in Wired, “The cellphone that could change the world” on how mobile phone telephony could be used in disease detection points to what could be a big theme of 2009 – health and web technology – picked up on in ReadWriteWeb’s new year predictions.

But perhaps the clearest call to action is Antony Mayfield’s (via socialreporter):

“Here’s a New Year’s Resolution for you that might do some real good: teach someone at work or in your family how to use social media tools. Actually New Year’s Resolution is too weak a way to frame this. It’s a call to arms. A plea to your humanity.

Feeling revolutionary itch but not sure how to start scratching with a mortgage/student debts/rent to pay? This is how.

Why? Because our future’s at stake…”

By Lisa Robinson

Rioting in Athens in early December prompted non-stop coverage from multiple television channels in the country. Greek audiences were obviously hungry to know where and why the rioting was happening, how extensive the damage was, and how long it might continue. In Athens at the time, I watched BBC and CNN for the english headlines, but eagerly flicked between at least three Greek TV stations with ongoing footage of the previous nights’ events.

During the week of the riots, Athens was hosting the Global Forum for Media Development where, my colleagues Imogen Wall of the BBC World Service Trust and Mark Frohardt of Internews were, coincidently, raising discussion about the crucial role of information for people affected by disasters (pdf).

As previously reported on this blog, too often humanitarian responses fail to meet the demand for information from affected populations. Local media and information infrastructures in developing countries are often weak to begin with, inhibiting the kind of widespread coverage taken for granted in Athens.

The conference discussions raised a number of comments from attendees focusing on the role of local media, in some ways oddly disconnected from events outside the conference centre on the streets of the city.

The director of Panos London emphasised the need for a code of conduct and questioned how ‘information’ might be defined, especially in politically sensitive areas.

Others reiterated the delicate balance between providing information to affected populations and politics. They questioned the role of the state in providing life-saving information, especially in contexts where governments retain a firm grip on media outlets.

Gavin Rees from the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma emphasised the wellbeing of reporters, who are often reporting under severe stress and shock. He urged organisations to take this into consideration when planning responses.

At a panel discussion at the Overseas Development Institute in London a few weeks earlier  the focus was on how information and communication could be mainstreamed within the humanitarian sector, while this session offered useful follow on discussion specifically about the role of local media.

Audiences in Athens that week expected to see the riots in the media and to publically discuss the moving events. Why wouldn’t audiences facing tragedies anywhere else in the world expect – and deserve – to receive the same?

For more on information in emergency response, please see the BBC World Service Trust policy briefing (pdf).

The face or voice of a foreign correspondent reporting on a natural disaster from a far-flung destination whilst scenes of destruction and human suffering play in the background is an all-too familiar image for many of us on tuning in to the latest news. The 2004 tsunami, 2005 Pakistan earthquake, and this year’s Sichuan earthquake in China and cyclone Nargis that devastated Burma are only the latest humanitarian emergencies that have prompted powerful news reports, and emergency response appeals  

But this depressingly familiar image also captures what Mark Harvey of Internews describes as “a double information jeopardy”. At the very moment at which international media are reporting an unfolding crisis to their audiences at home, the people who have most critical need of reliable information – the affected population – are caught in an “information vacuum”.

James Darcy of ODI introduces the panel

Harvey was speaking yesterday at a packed meeting hosted at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London, and launching the latest BBC World Service Trust policy briefing “Left in the dark: the unmet need for information in humanitarian responses” (pdf) co-authored by Imogen Wall and Lisa Robinson. The panel discussion and question session focussed on the need for a “paradigm shift” from a stress on “our” information needs towards the information needs of crisis-affected populations. As chair James Darcy of ODI put it, “people are agents, and they need information in order to make informed choices.”

All of which sounds incredibly like common sense yet as Imogen Wall noted, a collective failure of humanitarian agencies to address the information needs of affected populations is a common feature of recent evaluations of international crisis response.

The phrase Wall and Robinson were at pains to emphasise “communications with affected populations” is intended to stress the two-way (or multi-dimensional) nature of communications, and reflects the fact that communications should not be limited to just “media” (traditional or emerging). A need to think creatively and “bottom up” about communications – at all levels and through consultation with local people – was identified as key to developing a clear strategy around the issue.

Two case studies – from Pakistan and Burma – highlighted the difficulties in actually delivering this sort of targeted response in countries where specific political, religious, and social sensitivities (and often a closed or state-controlled media) make reporting and broadcasting extremely tough.

Mark Harvey reported on his organisation’s work in Pakistan following the 2005 earthquake, in which an existing training project based in Peshawar was adapted to respond to the unfolding emergency. Although they succeeded in reaching 3 million people through securing 8 emergency radio licences and eventually distributing 10,000 radio sets, they experienced big problems with procurement, funding, and local government.

Imogen Wall, co-author of the policy briefing "Left in the dark"

Ko Ko Aung a producer with BBC Burmese, and co-presenter of the BBCWST’s Burma Lifeline programme “Healthy Today, Stronger Tomorrow” set up in the wake of cyclone Nargis acknowledged the problems associated with operating in closed states such as Burma, but insisted that this was vital information that saves lives. The entirely humanitarian focus of the programme meant that the team were able to reach the 2.5 million people in the devastated Delta region who needed it, he added.

A population’s “need to feel heard as much as to gain information” was an important lesson learned from Pakistan said Harvey, along with a need for proper funding, infrastructure, research and preparation to enable rapid response. Lisa Robinson suggested adding a question on the state of communications infrastructure to the established rapid needs assessment (on hospitals, food and water security etc) as a simple and cost-effective way to mainstream communications strategy. Research and media/communications evaluations conducted in specific vulnerable nations and regions– such as Bangladesh – would again allow for rapid response in the event of an emergency.

Which is not to say any of this is new: the 2005 ICRC world disasters report focussed on information in disasters as its key theme, and many at the meeting had examples of working to get the issue recognised. Barriers to progress included difficulties in building trust between local and international aid agencies, local media and local populations, a lack of common understanding of the importance of communications within the humanitarian industry itself, and of effective coordination on the ground.

Yet there was a feeling of real enthusiasm for developing a common strategy from those gathered. Suggested next steps included the formation of an equivalent Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) for information implementers, and the setting up of a fund to allow for rapid response specifically on communications. It was even suggested that with a rapidly evolving media and communications landscape and a new generation of tech-savvy socially networked individuals, the case for instant access to information could be very compelling in attracting support.

For more on information in disaster response, see our Burma lifeline and Darfur lifeline projects, visit the Internews website, and keep checking Reuters AlertNet for their new emergency news agency initiative.

The humanitarian community consistently fails to understand or meet the information needs of affected populations in the aftermath of disaster. Why is this? And what has to change?

On Thursday 4th December, the BBC World Service Trust launches a new policy briefing in conjunction with the Humanitarian Practice Network, which analyses the information needs of affected populations and shares examples of where these needs have been successfully addressed.

“When Cyclone Nargis hit Burma in May of this year, it was weeks before a valiant local effort was reinforced by a massive international response. But one lifesaving commodity was able to get through from the outset: information. Dedicated radio broadcasts helped many to survive in those first critical weeks, telling them how to purify water, treat minor ailments, identify serious medical problems and build basic shelters. It confirmed the power of information to save lives and the vital importance of communicating with affected populations in a successful response to a natural disaster.”

The forum will feature authors Lisa Robinson and Imogen Wall, who together with Koko Aung of BBC Burmese and Mark Harvey of Internews will explain how broadcast media have been used to provide emergency ‘lifeline’ information. In addition, there will be exploration of how other ‘low tech’ communication solutions, such as bulletin boards and newsletters, have also played a critical part. The meeting will look at how such responses can be mainstreamed and built into the architecture of a humanitarian response.

Click here for more details and to reserve a place at the 4th December meeting.

A deliberately provocative headline in Wired magazine this week “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, make blogs look so 2004” heralded an article arguing that the “golden age” of blogging – where ‘amateur wordsmiths’ could ‘pour their hearts out’ in cyberspace and be rewarded with high Google rankings is over. A new generation of micro-blogging tools like twitter, and alternative formats such as YouTube and Flickr have replaced the more traditional long-form text weblog, itself overtaken by blog magazines such as the Huffington Post said Paul Boutin. This being the internet, the article was quickly picked up on – and blogged – by amateur and professional hacks alike, which resulted in a surreal exchange on the BBC’s Today programme on Radio 4 this morning as presenter John Humphreys struggled with social media linguistics and asked his guests how many real friends they had.

This seems a neat reflection of the evolving nature of information exchange and flow that new technologies and online applications have made possible in the last few years. For many of us around the world daily exchanges on social media networks such as Facebook, plus access to news through TV, radio, online, print newspapers and on mobile phones is an unconscious act. We are used to consuming information in a variety of formats – often complaining that there is too much of it.

However tomorrow (24th October) on World Development Information Day (also UN day), it is worth remembering that in a media-rich world, many of the planet’s poorest still lack access to potentially life-saving information.

In a new policy briefing from the BBC World Service Trust “Left in the dark: the unmet need for information in humanitarian response” (PDF, 750MB), Imogen Wall and Lisa Robinson argue that millions of people, already suffering or at risk through manmade crisis or natural disaster, are having their problems compounded because they are denied access to basic information that could help them save or rebuild their lives.

In the aftermath of disaster – such as the 2004 tsunami, 2005 Pakistan earthquake and 2008’s Burma cyclone and Sichuan earthquake – access to vital information about what has happened, whether it is safe to travel, where the nearest hospital is, where to go to for food and medical supplies etc is hugely important and often lacking. The report calls for aid and development agencies to build-in communication plans to emergency and humanitarian response strategies. Innovation and use of new technologies are just as important in these difficult contexts to maximise the reach of information and access remote or cut-off communities.

The comment responses to the Wired piece were nearly all in disagreement with the article’s claim, loudly attesting to the health of the blogosphere. It is a young format that is here to stay it seems – another publishing platform which those who find useful will heartily defend. It is natural for us to defend access to information – today, we should also remember to advocate it for those “Left in the dark”.

Download the full report here (PDF, 750KB) and read the full story on the BBCWST site here.