When a disaster strikes, Time and Collaboration are crucial to support the people in need.
In 2004 the United Nations and the European Commission joint their effort to develop the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) to alert the humanitarian community that an event can evolve into a disaster and to improve the coordination of the humanitarian preparedness and response.
The 3 components of the system aim to provide the information needed to decision makers to take informative decision: the Multi-Hazard Early Warning System to promptly alert the humanitarian community, the Virtual On-Site Operational Coordination Centre (Virtual OSOCC) to real-time exchange disaster information, and the Satellite Mapping and Coordination System (SMSC) to support coordination amongst different mapping groups providing satellite imagery analysis and maps.
For the last 20 years, the system estimated the impact for more than 170 000 events and provided a collaboration platform to share real-time information for more than 30 000 humanitarians around the world.
Innovative technologies are evolving fast, and GDACS is continuously adapted to fit for porpoise, but the key component is always the same: “Collaboration is crucial to improve the effectiveness of disaster response”.
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