Participation at UN OCHA wash-up meeting on Libya including ICT4Peace Wiki

On 15th June 2011, the Foundation was invited to an OCHA sponsored washup meeting to reflect on the lessons identified and learnt as part of the unprecedented collaboration between the volunteer task force and UNOCHA, also during the Japan earthquake. The goals of the closed door brainstorming as noted by UNOCHA were,

• To review actions taken during the two responses;
• To define how our engagement can be improved during the next emergency;
• To discuss possible formation of focused discussion groups (e.g. data licensing, definition of use-cases for volunteer usage, engagement by for-profit entities, transition, trainings, etc);
• To determine how to feed the lessons learned from Libya and Japan into upcoming events, such as the International Conference of Crisis Mappers later this year;
• To discuss how/if  V&TCs can support preparedness activities;
• To discuss possible tangible advancements towards recommendations from the Disaster Relief 2.0 report;
• To outline concrete next steps with assigned responsibilities.

Sanjana Hattotuwa represented the Foundation at this day long meeting, and contributed to its discussions by underscoring the enduring need for a comprehensive Crisis Information Management strategy at the UN, and the UN CITO’s work in this regard (as noted in United Nations core ICT strategy incorporates crisis information management by the UN and other output of the Foundation, such as Connecting Crisismapping to the United Nations) as well as flagging concerns articulated in the Foundation’s output anchored to critiquing the humanitarian aid community’s use of technology.

The meeting was conducted under the Chatham House rule, and a document was hosted by UNOCHA on Google Docs after the meeting to synthesise some of the key points that were raised. The Foundation’s extensive comments are the most in number, and most in-depth, featured to date in this document, clearly reflecting its thought leadership and engagement in this embryonic yet absolutely vital area of UN led, volunteer supported, tech oriented humanitarian aid world. UNOCHA is committed to making the final report, with suitable amendments, open to the public.

On the invitation of Patrick Meier from the Standby Volunteer Task Force, the ICT4Peace Foundation stood up the ICT4Peace wiki on Libya in late February, curating it daily for over a month until the end of the SBTF’s mandate with UN OCHA. It remains, as do all the CiM wiki that predate it, as an archive on the web, with enduring value for, inter alia, researchers, journalists, political scientists, commentators, analysts and historians. The wiki featured hundreds of curated resources on,