I just finished reading Vodafone Foundation and the UN Foundation’s report on “New Technologies in Emergencies and Conflicts: The Role of Information and Social Networks.“ I was going to write a long, cumbersome blog post on the contents, but I’d rather highlight a few things that stuck. Also, I would recommend reading the full report as it highlights the many interesting ICT applications used by both humanitarian actors and civil society.
First of all, it was clear throughout that the use of social networking and applications like Twitter and Facebook merits the attention of inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations involved in pre, conflict and post-conflict situations. However, it was also emphasized that there needs to be a method to better “verify” information. During politically charged situations, anyone can harness the Internet/mobile waves to spread lies or hate messages. Apparently Ushahidi is developing an application called Swift River which will aggregate information from crowd sourcing and other sources such as media and check facts against each other leading to a stronger verification process. Read a more accurate and interesting description here.
Despite the amount of confusing and complex acronyms and tech-words, the report also made it clear that organizations need figure out how to “people-center” technology and make use of existing social networks. This requires an in-depth study of how information spreads and how technology is appropriated by communities in different stages of emergencies. Refinement to follow. Secondly, it’s necessary for the information to be bottom-up, instead of top-down. Civilian participation is crucial. Thirdly, organizations needs to standardize and implement emergency communications systems with this new information.
Otherwise, the report lists a series of programs that are being used in different stages of conflict. While all this is interesting, I think the report, despite finger-pointing, has also failed to analyze the broader social implications of technologies in conflict. If anyone can point me towards research that studies these process (let’s say, how a rural villager interprets and understands an application like Ushahidi), I would be most grateful.
