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.