Key Takeaways from the UN Working Group on Emergency Telecommunications

Last week, the Government of Luxembourg hosted Humanitarian ICT Week. Over the course of the week, our Disaster Response team attended both the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) meeting and the Working Group on Emergency Telecommunications (WGET). In anticipation of these events, we featured a guest blog post from Imogen Wall, an independent consultant advising UN OCHA, who mapped out some of the topics of discussion.

One of the key focus areas for the ETC was to discuss their vision and strategy to be implemented over the next six years – dubbed ETC 2020. Looking to the future allows us to better prepare and adapt to the challenges that are sure to dramatically impact the mobile and technology landscape by 2020. Technological advances could change the way communication is delivered, or increase resilience to a point where disasters have minimal impact. On the other hand, an increasing global population combined with the impacts of climate change and increasing numbers of people moving into  disaster prone areas means we face a ‘new normal’ in which increasingly climatic disasters have destructive impact. It is important that the ETC is positioned to support and strengthen local telecoms providers where necessary, as they themselves are forced to take on the role of humanitarian responder. There is much work to do on all sides to realise this by 2020. Focusing on the role of local MNOs as important partners in providing lifesaving communication, as well as the value of restoring communication services for local communities, forms part of the shifting focus of this sector.

The WGET

Partnerships and community level engagement, both with local operators as well as with local communities themselves was a common theme of the WGET. Those who had attended previous WGETs acknowledged that recalibrating to emphasise local level engagement and resilience was a positive step. Presentations covered topics from ‘Envisioning the future’ of humanitarian response, and the work of Philippine operator Smart Communications following typhoon Haiyan, to cyber-warfare and unmanned aerial vehicles for use by the humanitarian community. The emerging uses of these technologies remind us that whilst we don’t know what the landscape will look like in 2020, but that there are new actors that will need to be incorporated into this changing arena of telecommunications and disaster response.

‘The importance of communities’

Since Haiti there has been a growing acceptance of how fundamental connectivity and communication are as core components of humanitarian assistance, as identified in reports such as OCHA’s Humanitarianism in the Network Age and the IFRC 2013 World Disasters Report. Increasingly it is recognised that the largest proportion of lives saved are saved by local people with in disaster hit communities. This reality necessitates a reaction from humanitarian and private actors within the response process. The #Commisaid work focuses on precisely this; that communications are an important form of aid, and can be of equal importance to survivors as food, water and shelter. It is widely accepted that the first responders to disasters are those communities affected. Access to communication and information to enable self-organisation, information sharing and communication amongst loved ones is essential, and is a core message that we deliver through our own Disaster Response work.

There is a growing shift towards humanitarian organisations recognising the importance of communications as a route to increased efficiency of aid.

‘New elements of partnerships’

The importance of partnerships is not a new concept, however an appreciation of the value that emerging partnerships can bring is still critical as we move towards 2020. Different partners bring different expertise, along with different resources which can be leveraged. There are also crucial points where we can support one another. Local MNOs are not humanitarian responders, they are telecommunication providers. Yet in the aftermath of disaster not only do they provide a critical service, in many cases integral to people’s survival and wellbeing, but their staff, engineers and technicians in the field, are tasked with repairing networks in some of the worst affected areas, confronting scenes they are not trained to deal with, sometimes as the first external groups to enter areas of devastation. Psycho-social training and experience of humanitarian organisations would be an extremely valuable support point. Dual-location of equipment, providing support and benefits for both operators and humanitarian responders is also a potential area for greater engagement.

The rate of technological change means we don’t yet know what 2020 will look like. But we are able to predict the long term shift of emergency telecommunications in the approaches that will be needed.

One key question for those engaged in this space is how to keep momentum going beyond convening’s like MWC or the WGET. Our programme holds workshops in different regions, aiming to bring together local MNOs, responding agencies and Government, but in what other ways can we continue the conversation? We’d like to hear your suggestions, so please do comment below. You can also join the discussion on the WGET via LinkedIn.

Humanitarian response in the year 2020 may have changed significantly, in terms of the technologies available and potentially the partnerships we engage with, but fundamentally unilateral support and a continued shared commitment will contribute to quicker, more efficient and more effective disaster response, using communications as a lifesaving tool.

Photo: SES Headquarters in Luxembourg, host of the 34th WGET

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