Page 171 - ITU Kaleidoscope 2016

ICTs for a Sustainable World

4. DISCUSSION Red Cross Society

4.1 Stakeholder Engagement
Philippines NWC: Philippines NDMO:
The project partnered with a National Government PAGASA; Office of the Civil Defence
Organization in each country to lead with the multi- Philippines Institute of (OCD)
stakeholder participatory approach with the design and Volcanology and
implementation. They were the Maldives National Disaster Seismology
Management Center (NDMC), Myanmar Department of
Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH), and the Philippines Philippines Response Orgs: Department of Social
Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Administration Welfare and Development; Local Government Units,
Service (PAGASA). Table 1 identifies the list of SAMBRO Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Councils
Cross-Agency Situational-Awareness platform primary
beneficiaries. Table 1: National beneficiary Organizations

4.1.1. Warning Practices
Another inherent characteristic is the National EWS is that
Currently, the warning dissemination practices in the three they have not developed an integrated approach to EWSs to
foster an all-hazard approach. Each Organization is
countries are similar. Typically, the NWC issues a bulletin
that is received by the NDMO and other focal agencies. The developing their own early warning dissemination
NDMO would use a phone tree to disseminate the messages mechanism forcing the public and Response Organizations
from the National nodes to the branches and then eventually to interface with multiple data feeds. For example, each
agency will host their own twitter and Facebook accounts to
to the leaf nodes. The method is reliable but slow and
laborious because they use telephones, fax, and VHF radios. share their information; opposed to a single source
Some social media and SMS is used. Such practices are publishing warnings on all-hazards; i.e. a “one stop shop”
acceptable for slow onset hazards such as disease outbreaks, approach.
Any entity that has privileges to edit CAP messages, can
cyclones and floods that provide a long warning horizon. relay a received CAP message allowing them to change the
Present day warning dissemination practices in the three
countries are inefficient in serving rapid and sudden onset content (e.g. description and instructions) and rebranding
hazards such as dam burst, tsunami, or storm surge, with the message with qualifying elements associating them as
the message sender. The relay function extends beyond
very short warning horizons. SAMBRO removes the messages issued through the SAMBRO system. For
laborious paper and manual hierarchical tree structure and
provides a hub and spoke architecture. The SAMBRO example, SAMBRO can receive any CAP message
software works much faster than human-based procedures published by any other system in the world and offer the
relay feature to the users of the SAMBRO instance. All the
involving multi-phase message relays. National stakeholders might consider collaborating to make

full use of such features offered by SAMBRO that brings
Maldives NWC: Maldives NDMO: efficiencies to coordinating early warnings.
Maldives Meteorological National Disaster
Service Management center 4.2 CAP Implementation Strategy

Maldives Response Orgs: Maldives National Defense The common practice is for NDMOs to lead and be
Force (Coast Guard and Fire Search and Rescue mandated with warning dissemination. The NWCs are
Department); Maldives Red Crescent Society; Local mandated with detection and monitoring. Meteorological,
Atoll Councils; Local Island Councils; Maldives Police; Hydrological, and Seismological agencies, serving as
Maldives Red Crescent Society; Department of Health; NWCs, would feed daily information bulletins and hazard
Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture; Ministry of event information of significant interest to the NDMOs. The
Education NDMOs would, then, transform and disseminate those
messages to the closed user group alerts or public.
Myanmar NWC: Myanmar NDMOs: Relief SAMBRO was designed to serve such a workflow.
Department of and Resettlement Realizing, this important relationship and workflow,
Meteorology and Department; General SAMRBO was designed for NDMOs to own and operate
Hydrology Administration SAMBRO and for NWCs to interface with SAMBRO
Department; through CAP information feeds.
Even though it is in their mandate and best interest to foster
Myanmar Response Orgs: Department of Irrigation; such a platform, the project learned that NDMOs (Myanmar
Department of Health; Department of Agriculture; RRD and Philippines OCD) expressed interest but were less
Department of Fisheries; Department of Inland inclined to operationalizing a CAP-enabled situational-
Transportation; Fire Services Department; Myanmar awareness platform. Maldivian NDMC proved the contrary

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