RIS ID
12876
Abstract
Humanitarian relief organizations are increasingly becoming reliant upon the use of Information Technology & Telecommunications (IT&T) for the distribution of aid to refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) throughout the world. Traditionally, basic telecommunications infrastructure like the public switch telephone network (PSTN) has been used to transmit important information but today humanitarian relief organizations are attempting to utilize emerging technologies such as global positioning systems (GPS) telephones and geographic information systems (GIS). For the greater part IT&T utilization by relief organizations has happened in an ad-hoc manner in response to specific events. This paper proposes the use of a complete end-to-end digital aid framework that will help humanitarian relief organizations respond better to crises. Preliminary findings indicate that web-based information delivery will play a pivotal role in the implementation of this framework.
Publication Details
This paper was originally published as: Sargent, J & Michael, K, The need for a digital aid framework in humanitarian relief, The 9th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI 2005), Orlando, Florida, USA, 10-13 July 2005, Vol. 5.