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Improving communication resilience for effective disaster relief operations

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Abstract

The objective of this paper is to identify strategies to improve the resilience of interagency communication between relief organizations and the community when dealing with an emergency. This research draws from frameworks including information theory, organization design, and how the private sector has learned and evolved from the challenges of information flow to provide guidance to disaster relief agencies. During times of emergency, private organizations as well as public authorities must coordinate in real time to create an effective response. When coordination is absent, failure results, as was seen after Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti Earthquake. Using data that the authors collected immediately after these disasters, two case studies of systemic failure are presented to extract lessons that might be used to improve communication resilience through coordination between parties in humanitarian relief operations. Recent emergency response trends are identified, and the paper argues that the persistence of response failures is not surprising, in part because response organizations normally operate independently, and their operations evolve at different rates. As a result, the organizational interfaces that enable rapid integration during a disaster naturally degrade and may be weak or absent. Integrating the literature on information processing theory and organization design with the data from the two case studies, the paper proposes that increasing the resilience of disaster response systems can be achieved by (1) improving the interoperability and information flow across organizational boundaries; (2) increasing the synergies between organizations on adapting new technology such as social media for the coordination of structured and unstructured data for use in decision-making, and (3) increasing the flexibility of relief organizations to use external resources from areas not affected by disasters on an opportunistic basis. The paper concludes by discussing resilience enhancing solutions including boundary spanning investments and argues that effective emergency response does not result from sporadic or intermittent efforts but rather requires sustained investment, continuous monitoring, and data collection.

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Notes

  1. We thank an anonymous reviewer for the suggestion to bring this thesis up early in the manuscript.

  2. We are a grateful to two anonymous reviewers for suggestions to improve Figs. 3 and 8.

  3. An evaluation of the volunteer effort was commissioned by a student group instrumental in the Ushahidi Haiti Project (UHP) deployment. A “user focus” was requested for the evaluation, and the team conducted a series of preliminary interviews with primary stakeholders to identify an about 8 main questions appropriate for the evaluation to address the most pertinent questions for future crisis mapping implementations—refer to Sect. 4.1.

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Appendix

Appendix

1.1 Disaster relief agent/administrator interview guide

In this “Appendix,” we provide an example template for capturing key information from agents or organizations during or after a disaster.

Responder background during your career, have you ever worked or been involved in any major disasters? If yes, what roles did you play? Did you participate as an individual or with a relief agency, a government entity, or as a member of a faith-based organization?

Nature of the disaster describe the nature of the disaster: was it a hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, flooding, industrial accident, or terror attack? How were you involved?

Relationship of your job to the relief operation Does your regular day job involve any emergency response or first-aid response? If not, how did you acquire the skills to enable the response you provided?

Added knowledge Using this experience, describe how your spontaneous reactions or contributions to the relief align with that of the relief organization that you joined or worked for. How were your activities coordinated? What provided the mechanism for different responders’ activities to be integrated?

Operational challenges what challenges did you face in your role as a first responder? Did any prior knowledge come in handy? If you had no prior knowledge, what challenges did you face? Can you give specific examples?

Boundary spanning challenges what challenges did you observe as different organizations coalesce to coordinate for a common goal? Did you face any boundary spanning problems due to the different operational modes or approaches from different response agencies? How were these differences addressed? Can you give examples? Probe: did language or cultural differences (especially with international agencies) present any obstacles? Provide stories on specific incidents: need stories on jargon and procedures)?

Coordination challenges When organizations have conflicts on approach or strategy, how were they resolved? Please give an example or two. Which mechanisms seem most effective in resolving conflicts? (How do you measure effectiveness?) Probe (only if interviewed after survey): Do you ever use the following: standards, joint meetings, co-location (in which direction?), shared information systems, dedicated personnel? Probe: if there were shared information systems with other organizations or agencies, what are the systems employed, and are they standard or modified. Probe: what has your experience been with using standards? Could you give some examples?

Other personnel What kinds of experiences or background help make you or other people effective at relief coordination? Please give an example or two. What sort of training does your agency or organization offer? What was your experience with the “soft skills” training, if any?

Curriculum If we were to design management program that focused on relief supply chain management and integration, what types of skills (or courses) would you suggest that universities concentrate on? Please give some examples of why you would include these skills or courses.

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Shittu, E., Parker, G. & Mock, N. Improving communication resilience for effective disaster relief operations. Environ Syst Decis 38, 379–397 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-018-9694-5

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