This is a guest post written by Imogen Wall, an independent humanitarian communications consultant currently advising UNOCHA.
Telecommunications specialists gather in Luxembourg to discuss new ways of ensuring services survive when disaster hits
When local news journalist Erel Cabatbat arrived in Tacloban in the central Philippines hours after the town took the full force of Category 5 Typhoon Haiyan, he was expecting to report on one of the biggest disasters ever to hit his country [1]. Instead, he found himself running an ad hoc family reunification service. Erel, who as a reporter had a working phone, found himself surrounded by survivors desperate to get a messages to loved ones. ‘I have pages full of the numbers of people who begged me to text their families and let them know they were OK, ’ he says. Other journalists returned from reporting trips with hundreds of scraps of paper, on which were scrawled the numbers of relatives [2].
Anyone who visited Tacloban in the early days of the Typhoon Haiyan disaster can be in no doubt as to the crucial importance of mobile phones for those survivors. From the desperate pleas with outsiders to use their phones to text loved ones, to the use of generators everywhere to power phone charging systems and the massive popularity (once the network returned) of free SMS services, connectivity was clearly an overwhelming priority for survivors.
As mobile phones become lifesaving tools, so telecoms companies are becoming providers of a key humanitarian service when disasters hit. The challenge of restoring services, providing assistance such as free calls, texts and charging services and preparing for future emergencies is being faced by an increasing number of MNOs. But how to go about this? What can MNOs learn from professional disaster responders, and vice versa? And what needs to be in place in advance?
This week, disaster response specialists from the UN, non-governmental organisations, private communications companies including MNOs, governments representatives will gather in Luxembourg courtesy of the Government of Luxembourg to discuss this and other key questions at the cutting edge of handling communications during disasters. The event, known as the WGET (Working Group on Emergency Telecommunications) supports the body responsible for actually delivering telecommunications in a disaster, which is the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), led at a global level by the World Food Programme.
This year, partly as a result of recent experiences in the Philippines and building on discussions at Mobile World Congress, the relationship between MNOs and humanitarians is at the top of the agenda. A clear lesson from the response to Typhoon Haiyan was not just the overwhelming demand for mobile services expressed by affected communities, but the challenges for mobile operators in restoring networks and services and coping with the impact on their own staff, and the increasing demand from humanitarians for mobile services: for example, support for SMS campaigns, access to data and assistance in establishing hotlines.
The importance of mobile connectivity to disaster response goes much further than basic communication services. The Haiyan response, together with recent experiences in Somalia and Haiti, also highlighted the importance of mobile money to cash transfer programming. Already, 50% of projects delivering emergency cash to survivors involve electronic transfer, a number that is set to rise. Two sessions at the WGET will look at handling such transfers in emergencies: experiences so far in delivering in crisis environments, and what opportunities will open up as mobile money increases in popularity in developing and disaster prone countries.
Mobile connectivity is also increasingly important for health responses, especially in countries where disease surveillance systems are SMS based (as in the Philippines). Indeed, rapidly developing technology is creating both opportunities and pitfalls: the increasing capacity of satellite communications, new web based tools and platforms will be discussed during the WGET, as will the challenges involved in handling privacy and security of data and cyber warfare.
From the humanitarian perspective, responders are starting to recognise both the level of priority placed on mobile access by disaster affected communities, and the challenges faced by the MNOs in delivering service in a crisis which may also have seriously impacted their staff and operational capacity. Smart Communications in the Philippines, will present their award winning programme of preparedness and their response to Typhoon Haiyan, including key lessons on what MNOs need from humanitarians to improve their capacity to handle emergencies.
Bringing all these strands together, a key overall theme of the WGET will be how humanitarians and MNOs can work together: what such partnerships look like in practice, how much needs to be done in advance and what support MNOs need in disasters, including what role the GSMA (which for the first time deployed to support MNOs as part of the Haiyan response) should look to play in future emergencies. Already, following Typhoon Haiyan, key issues such as the capacity of humanitarian logistics teams to transport telecoms equipment, relationships with governments and regulators and the need of telecoms staff to be trained in operating in disaster environment, which can be tackled in advance of disasters, have emerged.
Humanitarians recognise that MNOs are providers of a key service, responders in their own right and that operational partnerships are the only practical way forward. Following discussions at Mobile World Congress, the WGET is an important next step in ensuring that in the crises of the future, survivors have the mobile services they need to tell friends and family they are alive, connect with other survivors and reach out for help.