Humanitarian information management and systems

In times of major disasters such as hurricane Katrina or the Sichuan earthquake, the need for accurate and timely information is as crucial as is rapid and coherent coordination among the responding humanitarian community. Effective humanitarian information systems that provide timely access to comprehensive, relevant, and reliable information are critical to humanitarian operations. The faster the humanitarian community is able to collect, analyze, disseminate and act on key information, the more effective the response will be, the better needs will be met, and the greater the benefit to the affected populations. This paper presents fundamental principles of humanitarian information management as endorsed by the international humanitarian community, introduces generic systems design premises and presents two recent collaborative efforts in humanitarian information systems development.