Humanitarian Relief Standards as Information Policy

Randall B. Kemp, PhD student in the Information School at the University of Washington

5/30/2008
(Original Publish Date: 6/5/2006)

This paper addresses the information policy issue within humanitarian relief organizations of standards as they apply to setting guidelines and self-regulation among the actors in this field. The paper begins with an overview of the context of natural disasters, the nature of humanitarian relief organizations working in the field, and how standards might be applicable. Following, the questions and challenges to the field are then discussed, using spatial information and related technology as a lens to frame these challenges. A group of standards-forming bodies are then described. A section analyzing these standards and their functioning in the domain of humanitarian relief follows the descriptions of standards in the field. I then provide a set of operational recommendations and a set of next steps and possible future research suggestions.