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“Information and communications technology must be recognised as a form of aid in itself.” – Tony Vaux, World Disasters Report 2005

Yesterday the Red Cross launched its annual World Disasters Report. Each year the WDR takes an issue to focus on and presents a series of case studies by independent researchers. The report is intended for a general audience, not just the professional community, so it’s more accessible than many similar publications.

I went to the press launch in London, which was attended by a variety of journalists, all of whom wanted to know if the Red Cross was criticising the UN for a poor response to the tsunami. After about 2 hours of saying “No” in various ways, the press went away disappointed, forced to lead with poor alerts ‘raised tsunami toll’.

It’s a shame, because that coverage obscures the main thrust of the report; that “Information and communications technology must be recognised as a form of aid in itself.” The “accessible ICT” that I covered in my paper on Hurricane Katrina isn’t just accessible to US citizens; mobile telephones are becoming ubiquituous globally, and internet access is spreading to many areas that we would previously have considered off the net entirely. Technology (and therefore information) still tends to be the preserve of elites, and the poorest of the poor still have very limited access; but the technology is there. The only question in how to use it to best advantage.

The World Disasters Report is available online at the IFRC website.