BANGALORE: A group of the world's leading charities have launched the India chapter of an information initiative that is expected to benefit millions of people affected by disasters and wars.
Tsunami, South Asia earthquake, conflicts in Africa and other humanitarian emergencies have demonstrated that one of the blocks in ensuring appropriate humanitarian response is improper flow of information.
Smoothening this flow is NetHope (www.nethope.org), an alliance of 19 of the world's largest aid agencies wired together by state-of-the-art hardware, software and telecom technologies, thanks to their tech partners.
"The benefits of technical collaboration and innovation that have significantly benefited NetHope members globally will now be applied to the special needs of field offices in India," said Mr. Dipak Basu, co-founder, relief programmes director and the convenor of NetHopeIndia chapter, at the launch on Friday.
Representatives of leading humanitarian organisations like ActionAid, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, Plan International, Wildlife Conservation Society, Opportunity International, CARE India, Children International, Christian Children's Fund etc. were present at the launch meet.
"Collaboration between technology firms and humanitarian agencies can improve the response," said Mr. K. Parameswaran, international IT head of ActionAid, the local host.
Elaborating further, ActionAid International's emergencies and conflicts advisor Dr. Unnikrishnan P.V. said: "South Asia earthquake attracted 86 minutes of TV coverage on US networks and raised over US$ 300 per targeted beneficiary. Meanwhile, Somalia and Côte d'Ivoire attracted no TV coverage at all and raised just US$ 53 and US$ 27 per beneficiary."
In its six years of existence NetHope has networked over 100 monitored satellite locations including an internet telephony trial. Broadband solutions for fixed and mobile relief sites in disaster-affected regions of Iraq, Iran, Liberia, Afghanistan, Chad, Indonesia and Pakistan have also been deployed.
