Technology and disaster management

Drawing on the experience of this year’s devastating floods in Mozambique, the UN’s Resident Coordinator highlighted the role of technology in disaster management in a presentation to the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in New York this week.

Emmanuel Diercky de Casterle said that in Mozambique it became “vividly clear that the response to natural disasters can and must make better use of technology.” In an address to the humanitarian section of the ECOSOC meeting, he said: “One of the important aspects of disaster management is access to technology knowledge: What is available, how to use it, and the approaches needed to build such technologies into national capacity structures.”

In Mozambique, where 534,000 people were displaced by two cyclones in February and March, the practical implications of technology utilisation included satellite communication systems, a meteorological capacity and better mapping systems. These devices, de Casterle noted, require a “substantial financial commitment” and he recommended supporting initiatives to solicit private sector support. A related facet of improved technology, he said, was the necessity of training people on the ground in its use, “as they are the ones who are faced with the devastation and responsibility for finding immediate solutions”.

De Casterle stressed that a flow of relevant information is vital to the success of disaster management. “In Mozambique, the aforementioned need was recognised, and special attention was given to assisting national radio with special broadcasts, repeated twice daily, for flood victims in the worst affected areas,” he said. The assistance also included the deployment of FM transmitters to improve reception, as well as getting journalists into the field to report on conditions.

In support of the information strategy, wind-up “Freeplay” radios were distributed to 7,500 beneficiaries in the flood-affected areas, de Casterle said.