May 22, 2006 - A website developed by a consortium including the World Bank to coordinate earthquake relief efforts and strengthen disaster management in remote regions of Pakistan last year has been recognized among the world's most innovative projects relevant to the Millennium Development Goals, winning a Stockholm Challenge Award.
The Relief Information Systems for Earthquakes – Pakistan (RISEPAK) website-built by the World Bank, Harvard University, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), World Online, and Pomona College – won the 2006 Stockholm Challenge Award for most innovative Information and Communication Technology (ICT) project in the Public Administration category. The award was presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on May 11, 2006.
To help relief efforts to penetrate remote areas in Pakistan more efficiently, the RISEPAK website provided field workers with current information about level of damage, demographics, and location and access, for more than 4,000 villages. It also fed back information from the field into a central, public database, which encouraged more targeted relief work, better allocation of resources, and greater accountability.
The Stockholm Challenge, a global networking program for ICT entrepreneurs established by the City of Stockholm more than a decade ago, aims to show how information technology can improve living conditions and increase economic growth in all parts of the world. Its ICT Award-given annually to innovative projects with widespread applicability-has evaluated over 3,000 project entries over the years.
"In Pakistan the earthquake affected many people over a wide area and many agencies were acting without coordination," noted the Stockholm Challenge jury, in reference to the Public Administration award. "This project has demonstrated the ability of ICT tools to respond rapidly and across a broad base to major disasters."
"RISEPAK's potential as a template for future disaster preparedness is rooted in its interdisciplinary approach," said L. Alan Winters, Director of the World Bank's Development Research Group. "In just twelve days, it pulled together development concepts from economists, detailed outputs from experts in geographical information systems, and a vast network of contacts from people working in the field."
Another factor contributing to the website's success was the degree to which people in Pakistan – from workers belonging to agencies such as Sungi, Islamic Relief, and the Al Khidmat foundation, to those actually affected by the quake – took ownership of the site and used it as a communication or reference tool.
"RISEPAK privileges both the experts and the real clients on the ground," said Jishnu Das, World Bank economist who worked on the site. "The concept was two-fold – to provide a public forum for people to post impressions, complaints and acknowledgements with minimal screening, as well as to set up a system that quickly collected all available information and presented it in a usable and logical format."
"Natural disasters like the October 2005 earthquake test the strength of a society's fiber, so I must commend Pakistanis from every walk of life who rose to the occasion from all around the world," said John Wall, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan. "The staff and students of Lahore University of Management Sciences deserve special mention as they worked 24/7 to bring information from far-flung villages to the notice of relief and rehabilitation workers."
Staff and students from LUMS in Pakistan traveled to remote villages themselves in several teams, surveying more than 3,000 households in what was easily the largest such exercise conducted after the earthquake. Besides serving an immediate need for accurate information, the survey contributed valuable inputs for the planning of long-term reconstruction in the affected areas.
"While the World Bank can play a catalytic role in developing tools such as this, local institutions can add to the momentum by making information flow in real time," said Tara Vishwanath, Lead Economist in the Bank's South Asia Region. "RISEPAK is a good practice example of what should be done early on, when catastrophes hit, to facilitate coordination of relief and reconstruction efforts."
Besides RISEPAK, other finalists in the Stockholm Challenge Award's Public Administration Category included FirstGov.gov, the US Government's official web portal for government information and services; and the Mexican Presidency Internet System, a two-way communication tool between citizens and the federal government. |
RSS