Delegates to the World Conference on
Disaster Reduction are invited to a discussion of the "Native American
Project.
Supporting documentation:
Global Disaster Information Marketplace: A Proposal (1MB .pdf)
Disaster Information Service: A Proposal (7MB .pdf)
The project team is developing an indigenous
peoples disaster intranet as well as a disaster assessment self-survey tool.
Members of the team include experts from the Pueblo and Navajo peoples,
officers in NCAI (National Congress of American Indians), OECD (Organization
of Economic Cooperation and Development), GDIN (the Global Disaster
Information Network), the Canadian government, US federal and state agencies
and the private sector in Australia and the United States, such as Alan
Hodges Consulting, VISTA Technology Services. Primary responsibility for
the survey design rests with OECD, GDIN and various other partners, whereas
GDIN is the lead designer of the network. The team also benefits from
consultations with the South African government, UNICEF and OCHA experts and
the UN Working Group on Emergency Telecommunications. The team invites
experts from other nations with indigenous populations to also participate.
The goal of the survey is to help indigenous people to repeatedly
self-examine risks in a culturally sensitive manner.
The intranet will link tribes together, often for the first time and could
become a global intranet for indigenous or remotely placed people interested
in disaster reduction, management and preparedness. The concept was first
introduced at the GDIN2004 annual conference of the Global Disaster
Information Network at the US Department of State in the spring of 2004,
then again in October at a meeting in Cairo jointly hosted by the
International Telecommunications Union and the League of Arab States.
Tribes control their own data and work in partnership with national or local
authorities, as appropriate. The intranets will enable local disaster
managers to gain disaster early warning, mitigation, and response data,
especially when remotely-sensed from space in terms and formats meaningful
to their cultures, technology levels and governmental structures. Details
on the project will be posted on www.gdin.org after the World Conference on
Disaster Reduction. Primary responsibility for the survey design rests with
OECD, GDIN and various other partners, whereas GDIN is the lead designer of
the network. . The team also benefits from consultations with the South
African government, UNICEF and the UN Working Group on Emergency
Telecommunications, and hopes experts from other nations with indigenous
populations will also participate. The goal of the survey is to help
indigenous people to repeatedly self-examine risks in a culturally sensitive
manner. The intranet will link tribes together, often for the first time
and could become a global intranet for indigenous or remotely placed people
interested in disaster reduction, management and preparedness. The concept
was first introduced at GDIN2004 (annual conference of the Global Disaster
Information Network) at the US Department of State in the spring of 2004 and
then in October in a meeting jointly hosted by the International
Telecommunications Union and the League of Arab States in Cairo. Tribes
control their own information and work in partnership with national or local
authorities, as appropriate. The intranets will enable local disaster
managers to gain disaster early warning, mitigation, and response
information, especially remotely-sensed data from space in terms that are
meaningful to their cultures and governmental structures, while maintaining
control over their own data. Details on the project will be posted on
www.gdin.org after the World Conference on Disaster Reduction.