Esha Chhabra
Humanitarian aid is criticized for being disorganized, late, and inefficient. A new UN project, in partnership with San Francisco-based Frog, the global design firm, is changing that perception.
The recent Nepal earthquakes on April 25th and May 12th are benefitting from this new technology — HDX, or the Humanitarian Data Exchange.
Last June, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) piloted HDX, a data-heavy Wikipedia for the humanitarian community.
Its aim was straightforward: simplify and streamline access to important data in disaster relief situations. That is, rather than ploughing through Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and Word Docs, create one source and one format for all the data.
Frog’s Creative Director Michael DelGaudo realized that aid workers don’t have a “typical day” but they do need data at every point of their journey — from understanding the history and context to the latest updates. That’s why HDX catalogues basic info on countries: its population, its poverty index, etc. But in cases of emergency, like the Nepal earthquake, it builds more time-sensitive data.
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The UN first put it to use in the Ebola outbreak, collecting info on public health clinics, new cases, and those killed by the virus.
HDX is now focusing on the Nepal earthquakes, which damaged remote communities and shut down roads. With access limited, first responders needed maps, information on geography and topography of the region — and in easy-to-access files. Working without electricity or the Internet, the files could be downloaded and passed along to the ground teams to help them navigate the terrain. Data on the poorest areas of the region provided some guidance to international organizations on where the damage could be the worst.
The HDX website is minimalistic, almost as if it were designed for a Silicon Valley startup, not a massive international bureaucracy. Organizations register to upload data. Each one is vetted and approved beforehand. By the end of May, over 1,686 datasets have been uploaded by 263 sources on 244 locations around the world.
Photo Courtesy of HDX.
There are 73 datasets on Nepal specifically. Some of the earliest data posted on the site after the first earthquake provided a breakdown of Nepal’s roads, health clinics, and settlements — the basics for relief operations.
With so many organizations rushing to Nepal, it’s critical to see who is doing what — for donors who want to give and for smaller organizations looking to help. HDX provides a “Who’s Doing What Where” chart listing the organizations by their activities.
Photo Courtesy HDX
More recent datasets show the migration patterns after the quake and lists of impassable roads. Working with partners such as OpenStreetMap, the “free Wiki world map,” HDX generated issue specific maps. For instance this one illustrates IDP camps, or the internally displaced due to the quake.
Photo Courtesy of HDX
HDX was funded by DFID, the UK’s development agency, the Swedish aid ministry, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Humanitarian Innovation Fund, a grant-making fund that focuses on tech for humanitarian projects in the developing world.
Can HDX become the go-to data platform for international organizations, not just in disaster relief circumstances? Can HDX finally make dense data easier to digest for the entire social sector?
It’s too early. But HDX certainly has plans to grow. Currently in Beta version, the focus is on compiling data that will help disaster relief happen faster and more efficiently, avoiding unnecessary overlap and critical hours wasted translating maps and data.
Nepal is a massive test: if the data can truly speed up response times there, HDX will have a solid case to move ahead.
Forbes, 31 May 2015