United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)Mobilise and Coordinate effective and principled humanitarian assistance in partnership with

national and international actors in order to:

     •  alleviate human suffering in disasters and emergencies     •  advocate for the rights of people in need     •  promote preparedness and prevention

     •  facilitate sustainable solutions.

ISDR & PreventionWebBuilding the resilience of nations and communities to disasters

   Prevention Web: a new tool to increase knowledge on disaster risk reductioninformation”

• Supporting the work of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), and the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action ; Providing a common information platform for the disaster risk reduction (DRR) community to connect, exchange experience, share information on DRR

ReliefWeb Serving the information needs of the humanitarian community

   ReliefWeb mandate:“Strengthen the response capacity of the international humanitarian community through the timely dissemination of reliable information”

• Latest Updates on complex emergencies & natural disasters; Early Warning/Preparedness; Humanitarian Policy and Issues; Appeals and Funding• Maps; Professional resources i.e. communities of practice, vacancies, Training, Directory

RedhumRedHum is a Latin American regional disaster information service in Spanish,

comparable to and supported by ReliefWeb

Lead by the OCHA Regional office in Panama, this project is spread between six country offices, making it Regional and National in scope.

 Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) is a web-based platform that combines existing web-based disaster information management systems with the aim to alert the

international community in case of major sudden-onset disasters and to facilitate the coordination of international response during the relief phase of the disaster.

DACS is comprised of the following elements:         • A set of standards to ensure interoperability between existing alert and response coordination systems

• A set of working procedures to ensure predictability and reliability of information creation and exchange during crisis response• Stakeholders that commit to provide related information according to the standards and the working procedures

Virtual OSOCC• Virtual OSOCC facilitates decision-making for international response to major disasters though real-time information exchange by all actors of the international disaster response community.

• All Virtual OSOCC users have the opportunity to create e-mail and sms messages that are sent automatically to subscribers to inform about critical situation updates during disaster response operations.

• Through the Virtual OSOCC the United Nations Assessment and Coordination Team (UNDAC) can be mobilised effectively through on-line workflow procedures including sms and e-mail.

• Virtual OSOCC facilitates management of UNDAC, INSARAG and UN-CMCoord training, meetings and workshops through e-mail notification, on-line participant registration and discussion of background material.

• Virtual OSOCC provides its users with a discussion forum for any area of interest, including information exchange on best practice and lessons-learned after disaster response operations.

• Virtual OSOCC includes a photo library where users can share disaster and other related photos as documentation or presentation material or souvenir of a joint mission.

Humanitarian Information Centers• Humanitarian Information Centers (HIC) support the co-ordination of humanitarian assistance through the provision of information products and services.• The HIC supports the decision-making process at headquarters and field level by contributing to the creation of a common framework for information management within the humanitarian community.

Who does what ?Process Owner

OCHA- Overall coordination, preparedness & initial response,

Service ProvidersUNICEF - Common Data Services

(Internet Connectivity, Wireless, Internet Hotspots)

WFP - Common Security Telecommunications

Emergency Telecommunications Cluster

• Coordination - Service Providers, other sectoral leads, agencies, & UNDAC;• Ensuring ET standards are established and applied;• Consolidating lessons learned and refining process definitions;• Managing assessment missions and requesting the intervention of the Service Providers whenever appropriate;• Activation of the ETC response• Identify Gaps in and limitations in common services and respond to fill in such gaps• Managing the establishment of initial ET services until a TCO is appointed.

–relies on the operational capacity of the Service Providers, and/or other partners, for the actual implementation and provision of the initial services as regulated by pre-defined technical agreements;

• Information Management - establishing collaboration tools, web pages, repositories, links, and templates, (HIC);• Fund raising – ensure the availability of funding for stand-by equipment, staff, preparation of appeals, discussion with donors;• Advocacy for the ET sector;• Preparedness – ensuring that sufficient staff, stock and funds are on stand-by for emergency deployments, training and contingency planning; and• Inter-sectoral linkages and alignment of sustainable common response and deployment strategies with the other humanitarian common services

Emergency Telecommunications Cluster

UNDAC – UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination

HEWSWEBA Global Multi-Hazard Watch Service to Support Humanitarian Preparedness

HEWSWEB is an inter-agency partnership project aimed at establishing a common platform for humanitarian early warnings and forecasts for natural hazards.

The main objective of HEWSweb is to bring together and make accessible in a simple manner the most credible early warning information available at the global level from multiple specialized institutions.

Humanitarian Information Networks

Building communities of practice among IM and ICT professionalsGlobal Symposium +5 built upon a process that began five years earlier in 2002, at the Symposium on Best Practices in Humanitarian Information Exchange, held in Geneva, where the Statement on Best Practices for Humanitarian Information Management and Exchange was endorsed. It was further developed in a series of regional Humanitarian Information Network workshops in Bangkok, December 2003, Panama City, August 2005, andNairobi, May 2006.

UN Geographic Information Working Group (UNGIWG)

UNGIWG aims to: • improve the efficient use of geographic information for better decision-making; • promote standards and norms for maps and other geospatial information; • develop core maps to avoid duplication; build mechanisms for sharing, • maintaining and assuring the quality of geographic information; • provide a forum for discussing common issues and emerging technological changes.