Challenges to Effective Information and Communication Systems in Humanitarian Relief Organizations

1
Challenges to Effective Information and
Communication Systems in Humanitarian Relief
Organizations

• Christina Maiers
• Margaret Reynolds
• Mark Haselkorn
• Department of Technical Communication
• Interdisciplinary Program in Humanitarian Relief
• University of Washington
• depts.washington.edu/iphr

2
Challenges to Effective Information and
Communication Systems in Humanitarian Relief
Organizations

• Introduction
• Intra-organizational Communication
• Inter-organizational Communication
• Conclusion

3
Introduction

• Background on humanitarian relief
• What we did to study ICS in humanitarian relief

4
Background

• Information and communication systems (ICS) in
  support of humanitarian relief during complex
  international emergencies.
• ICS supports all stages of evolving relief
  efforts, including preparedness and early
  warning, rescue, relief, and recovery.
• These stages are themselves composed of complex,
  interconnected operations such as logistics,
  supply chain management, human resources,
  informal and formal agreements, evaluation and
  assessment, lessons learned, and institutional
  learning

5
Background

• Focus here on NGOs, but communication is
  complicated by diverse landscape of players,
  including United Nations, donor governments,
  military, governments of affected countries,
  philanthropic foundations, corporations, the
  giving public, and those who have suffered during
  the crisis.
• Traditionally, NGOs focus on response and
  immediate human needs less focused on
  preparation, coordination, long-term strategy and
  infrastructure.

6
Background

• In the face of natural and man-made disasters,
  communication channels, infrastructures,
  strategies, agreements, education, and training
  should be in place. Too late after the event
  occurs.
• Technology component usually the easiest part

7
Background
Putting in the sensors is the easy part. The
difficult part here would be coordination between
emergency-response agencies in the region. Then,
you have to deal with education, preparedness and
training issues.
Harley Benz, USGS National Earthquake Information
Service, on putting in a South East Asia Tsunami
warning system
8
What We Did

• Two types of research conducted in 2004
• A headquarters level assessment of upper-level
  management perspectives on organizational
  communication issues and strategies
• Open-ended survey administered face-to-face or
  over the phone to IT managers, directors, and
  operations managers of prominent Northern
  humanitarian relief NGOs
• A field-level assessment conducted in Kenya and
  Ethiopia
• In-depth exploratory interviews with, and
  participatory observation of, key NGO field
  personnel. Conducted in cooperation with the
  Fritz Institute John Snow, Inc. USAID and World
  Vision International.

9
What We Found

• Both intra- and inter- organizational
  communication are complicated by tensions and
  challenges that are inherent in the humanitarian
  relief endeavor.
• These challenges require ongoing management and
  investigation.
• While some of these challenges are uniquely
  expressed in the humanitarian sector, they have
  analogs in organizations working in other
  sectors.
• Many of these challenges are in areas that
  require technical communication expertise. Many
  key roles for technical communicators in the
  humanitarian relief sector.

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Intra-organizational Communication

• Need for User-Centered Design Strategies
• Complications from a Decentralized Organizational
  Structure
• Weak Information Management
• Need for Cross-Organizational Program Development
  
• Lack of Funding for ICT Strategic Planning and
  Implementation
• Resistance to Technology
• Complications in Developing ICT Infrastructure
  due to Short-Term Focus
• Lack of Trained Personnel

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Need for User-Centered Design Strategies

• It would be very useful to have the program
  people see what SCM entails and have them learn
  more about the logistics process on the ground.
  (NGO field office)
• One area of needed improvement is getting
  local SCM staff to better understand the
  financial structures and the budget process. We
  have had a lot of budgeting problems, because
  there is a lack of understanding of the financial
  process.
• (NGO HQ)

12
Need for User-Centered Design Strategies

• Many HQ-driven ICS projects developed and managed
  without adequate consultation with local staff.
• ICS projects where field workers were not
  co-owners caused friction between local staff
  and HQ and in some cases even reinforced
  asymmetrical power relations between developing
  world and HQ level staff teams.
• ICS needs to meet the unique communication and
  environmental needs of the international field
  offices.
• ICS needs to be flexible but not ad hoc.

13
Complications from a Decentralized Organizational
Structure

• There is a need for a central ICS organizational
  strategy, but mandating such a strategy from HQ
  (top-down) is not effective or feasible.
• Field offices are highly autonomous operational
  units HQ generally non-operational with little
  oversight.
• Mandating policy from an HQ level is not
  compatible with the consensus-building leadership
  style of NGOs

14
Weak Information Management

• To a great extent, the sector reinvents itself
  with each new catastrophe
• Now trying to focus not only on doing well in the
  current emergency, but also doing a better job
  the next time
• Need to develop and apply ICS to the capture and
  application of past experiences.
• Many constraining factors highly chaotic,
  resource and information poor environments
  insufficient time, energy, and financial
  resources workforce turnover and lack of
  professional standing multiple organizational
  perspectives on the appropriateness and role of
  information infrastructures focus on technology
  rather than on organizational culture and
  differences as to the value and implementation of
  ongoing assessment and improvement strategies.

15
Need for Cross-Organizational Program Development

• Cross-organizational communication a vital
  component of program planning and organizational
  success.
• Proposals often written without adequate input
  from support departments, such as ICT and
  logistics.
• Need for a coordinated approach and information
  and communication policies that support increased
  coordination.

16
Lack of Funding for ICT Strategic Planning and
Implementation

• ICS viewed as overhead rather than as a
  fundamental activity
• Donors focus on immediate solutions for immediate
  situationswater and sanitation, medicine, food,
  and shelter in direct response to visible human
  suffering
• Donors generally view overhead costs as
  detrimental to a proposed project
• Most funding is project based, so there are few
  program resources that can be used to address
  longer-term, organization-wide infrastructure
  needs

17
Lack of Funding for ICT Strategic Planning and
Implementation

• Need for donor education. A child is far more
  compelling than ICS, but a well-designed and
  implemented ICS can help reduce the suffering of
  many children
• Inadequately planned and implemented ICS
  negatively impacts critical activities like
  contingency planning and preparedness, forcing
  organizations into a reactionary mode where
  information and communication needs must be
  addressed on the fly.

18
Resistance to Technology

• ICS equated with technology, and technology is
  often seen as a distraction from the primary
  mission of reducing human suffering
• Field workers do not see direct benefits, in fact
  they generally experience IT initiatives as
  reducing their effectiveness

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Complications in Developing ICT Infrastructure
due to Short-Term Focus

• Far easier to raise funds and focus energy on an
  immediate crisis than it is to find support for
  improving the relief sectors ability to more
  effectively mitigate the next disaster
• Need for professionalizationhigh turnover (up
  to 80 in the field), no degree, no scholarly
  journal, no central conference.

20
Lack of Trained Personnel

• The biggest challenge for me is the lack of
  trained personnel and human resource issues. We
  need people who are competent and ready when a
  disaster strikes. These are not easy to find or
  to have on hand. Academia helping train people is
  part of the answer.
• NGO administrator

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Inter-organizational Communication

• Need to Increase Coordination and
  Interoperability While Maintaining Autonomy
• Need for Increased Security and Coordination with
  the Military
• Need to Integrate Incomplete Information among
  Various Organizations
• Need to Overcome Reluctance of Organizations to
  Share Information
• Challenges of Working in Underdeveloped,
  Disaster-Affected Environments

22
Need to Increase Coordination and
Interoperability While Maintaining Autonomy

• Humanitarian coordination is based on the belief
  that a coherent approach to emergency response
  will maximize its benefits and minimize its
  potential pitfalls - in short, that the whole
  will be greater that the sum of its parts.
• United Nations Office for Coordination of
  Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

23
Need to Increase Coordination and
Interoperability While Maintaining Autonomy

• Humanitarian relief organizations are very
  diverse, with different constituents, missions,
  and cultures
• Desire ability to act independently (a shared
  warehouse might well increase our efficiency, but
  we could not participate if it meant sacrificing
  the ability to respond independently)
• View ICS interoperability not as sharing common
  systems, but as creating conditions that enable
  separate organizations to share information
  toward a common end. (Solomon and Brown, 2004)

24
Need for Increased Security and Coordination with
the Military

• Security a new high priority
• Military used to operating independently and not
  likely to share information that puts their
  troops at risk
• NGOs mission depends in part on the appearance
  and fact that they remain unbiased
• Not seeking military information and coordination
  can put relief personnel at considerable risk

25
Need to Integrate Incomplete Information among
Various Organizations

• At the onset of an emergency, information such as
  assessments, statistics, and census reports is
  needed immediately in order to gauge the
  necessary level of response
• Existing information is generally outdated, hard
  to find, scattered among different sources, or
  unreliable for political or other reasons

26
Need to Overcome Reluctance of Organizations to
Share Information

• Competition versus cooperation.
• While NGOs are non-profit entities, they still
  compete over limited available resources and
  market share.
• Competition can weed out non-productive NGOs,
  but creates atmosphere of secrecy and seeking of
  competitive advantages.
• Well designed ICS can support the advantages of
  cooperative effort.

27
Challenges of Working in Underdeveloped,
Disaster-Affected Environments

• Poor infrastructure in disaster areas and
  developing areas.
• Effective ICS can alleviate constraints imposed
  by underdeveloped or destroyed physical
  infrastructure.
• Rapid sharing of information (e.g. destroyed
  roads) and communication between isolated workers
  and HQ.

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Conclusion

• Technical communicators have a key role to play
  in the future of humanitarian relief.
• Help evolve well-planned ICS that enhance
  organizational capacity, especially in
  challenging areas like coordination, strategic
  planning, preparedness, accountability, lessons
  learned, training, research, and education.
• Help NGOs focus not only on direct relief, but
  also strategic management.
• Help not only address the current disaster, but
  also learn from it in order to do better the next
  time.
• Help professionalize the humanitarian relief
  sector.

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Conclusion

• Humanitarian relief is a significant new area of
  opportunity for the technical communication
  fieldan opportunity based on the needs of the
  humanitarian sector and our ability to meet those
  needs.

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Conclusion
Designers of information and communication
systems have a key role to play in the future of
humanitarian relief.