Abrüstung setzt Mittel frei, die zur Bekämpfung der Armut genutzt werden können. Konversion sorgt dafür, dass diese Ressourcen zielgerichtet umgewidmet und bestmöglich genutzt werden können. Auf Grundlage von anwendungsorientierter Forschung leistet das BICC Beratungstätigkeit in den Themenfeldern Frieden und Entwicklung, Rüstung (Globale Trends, Exporte und Kontrolle), Kleinwaffenkontrolle, Rohstoffe und Konflikte, Migration und Sicherheit sowie Liegenschaftskonversion.

Als Bestandteil seines Projektes “Sicherheit, Rüstung und Entwicklung in Empfängerländern deutscher Rüstungsexporte” stellt das BICC auf der (Projektwebsite) verschiedene Grunddaten zu Rüstung, Militär, Sicherheit, Menschenrechten und Regierungsführung in 170 Ländern zur Verfügung.

Die Informationen sollen eine Einschätzung und Bewertung der deutschen Rüstungsexportpolitik erleichtern und orientieren sich deshalb an den Kriterien des 1998 von der Europäischen Unionen beschlossenen Verhaltenskodex für Rüstungsexporte, der 2008 zu einem gemeinsamen Standpunkt für Rüstungsexporte (Gemeinsamer Standpunkt 2008/944/GASP) aufgewertet wurde. Zum einen können auf dieser Seite ausführliche Länderportraits zu 21 ausgewählten Empfängerländern deutscher Rüstungsexporte außerhalb der NATO als PDFDokument heruntergeladen werden. Zum anderen wird in einer größeren Datenbank das Verhältnis von insgesamt 170 Ländern zu sieben Bewertungskriterien, die an den Gemeinsamen Standpunkt der EU angelehnt sind, untersucht. Die jeweiligen Länderbewertungen werden seit 2007 zudem in einer interaktiven WebGISAnwendung aufbereitet. Um zu den einzelnen Einschätzungen zu gelangen, fasst das BICC eine Vielzahl von verschiedenen Informationen zusammen, die u.a. vom Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), der Weltbank, den Vereinten Nationen oder Freedom House veröffentlicht wurden.

Die Diskussion um Rüstungsexporte leidet häufig unter einem Mangel an Informationen über die Lage in den Empfängerländern. Das beginnt häufig bei allgemein relativ leicht verfügbaren Daten, wie etwa der wirtschaftlichen Lage, wird kritischer bei politischeren Themen, wie der Lage der Menschenrechte, und gipfelt bei den fast ausschließlich in der Fachliteratur vorhandenen Daten zum militärischen Sektor. Durch eine bessere Verfügbarkeit und Aufbereitung von soliden Informationen soll eine bessere fundierte Bewertung der deutschen Rüstungsexporte erleichtert werden.

Die Umsetzung der Webanwendung durch die WhereGroup GmbH & Co. KG erfolgte auf Basis etablierter Web- und WebGIS-Technologien. Dabei ermöglicht die Verwendung von JavaScriptFrameworks wie Ext Js/GeoExt und OpenLayers die Gestaltung von modernen und sauber strukturierten Web 2.0-Oberflächen. Die Druckkomponente wurde mittels Mapfish realisiert. Die Visualisierung thematisch/geographischer Sachverhalte und die entsprechenden Informationsabfragen wurden durch die Kombination bewährter WebGISTechnologien wie WMS/WFS auf Basis von MapServer und Postgres/PostGIS umgesetzt.

Für Rückfragen bezüglich der technischen Umsetzung der Anwendung steht Ihnen Herr Toni Pignataro (WhereGroup) zur Verfügung. Fragen bezüglich Inhalt und Informationsdarstellung beantwortet Ihnen Herr Lars Wirkus (BICC).

Kontakt:
Lars Wirkus, Bonn International Center for Conversion, Email: wirkus@bicc.de
Toni Pignataro, WhereGroup GmbH & Co .KG, Email: toni.pignataro@wheregroup.com

With five hundred attendees representing over one hundred countries, the Understanding Risk (UR) Forum was a truly global event that brought together disaster risk management experts and practitioners from around the world.

Eine gedruckte Version ist nach Anfrage bei blyon@worldbank.org erhältlich.

Floods and Droughts: Predicting and Assessing the Risks

The conference website is http://disasterresearch.net/.

Call for Papers

Papers are invited on disaster-related themes for oral presentation. Abstracts not exceeding 500 words along with title, author(s) and complete address including e-mail and telephone contact numbers should be emailed to the Convener at drvc2011@gmail.com.

The due date for abstract submission is January 5, 2011.

After submitting the abstract, authors are encouraged to prepare full-length papers not exceeding 5000 words (see template) including Graphs, Tables and Figures in .doc or L A T E X format. The deadline for submitting the full-length paper is January 20, 2011. The selected papers after peer-reviewing would be published in an ISBN volume of high standard. Email intimation of full paper acceptance would be given by latest on January 25, 2011.
Important Dates

Abstract Submission: January 5, 2011
Full length Paper Submission: January 20, 2011
Intimation of Full length paper Acceptance: January 25, 2011
Registration Deadline: February 10, 2011

Registration

Interested participants can register @ Rs.1000 for academicians and professionals and @ Rs.500 for students. The registration fee covers conference bag, publications, lunch, tea and local transport. Accommodation needs should be intimated well in advance and expenses have to be borne by the participants. Registration fee may be remitted either by Bank Transfer or by Demand Draft drawn in favour of the Convener, DRVC 2011, payable at State Bank of Travancore, MG University Campus Branch, Kottayam 686 560, Kerala. Post your registration forms and DD.s to Dr A.P. Pradeep Kumar, Convenor, DRVC 2011, School of Environmental Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam 686 560, India.

Click here to download the Registration Form for DRVC 2011.

Regards

Dr. Pradeepkumar

http://disasterresearch.net/

Introduction

WHO or the world health organization is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries, monitoring and assessing health trends (WHO website, 2010).

It is required to provide up to date spatial data to decision makers at all of the levels that are concerned with the public health system. Therefore, GIS or Geographic Information Systems is an essential tool for such an organization. GIS and remote sensing data are necessary for WHO in order to keep the surveillance and control of infectious diseases, the determination of geographical distribution of diseases, analyzing spatial and temporal trends of diseases, mapping populations at risk, stratifying risk factors, assessing resource allocation, planning and targeting interventions and monitoring diseases and interventions over time (WHO website, 2010). Realizing the necessity of GIS for public health information matter, The WHO has developed a program named the WHO public health and GIS programme in 1993. Therefore, the main goal of the present study is to explore the present GIS programme, services and options offered by WHO in their website for public health mapping.

History of GIS in WHO, goals and strategic objectives

The public health and GIS programme used by WHO was firstly developed in 1993 with UNICEF to push the attempt to prevent the spread of the guinea worm disease that occurs in isolated, poor rural areas. The main goal of this program was to strengthen the capacities of infectious diseases and public health programmes at local, national and global levels through the use of GIS and mapping technologies (WHO website, 2010). The programme has two main objectives:

• To strengthen national surveillance, prevention and control activities through the delivery of user-friendly data collection, management and mapping applications.
• To strengthen the management, analysis and monitoring of priority infectious diseases at global levels, through the development of rapid electronic surveillance systems supported by user-friendly web-based mapping.

WHO GIS services

The World Health Organization has developed some GIS related tools, applications and services that are intended to help, create and manage critical spatial information that relates to infectious diseases and public health programmes. The tools and services are explored below

The health mapper

The health mapper is a GIS tool developed by WHO to provide critical information concerning with WHO infectious disease programmes at national and global levels. It is a user-friendly data management and mapping system customized specifically for public health users. The system facilitates data standardization, collection and updating of data on epidemiology and on interventions and provides immediate visualization of data in the form of maps, tables and charts. The purposes of the health mapper tool are given in the next page (HealthMapper 4.3 Learners Guide part 1, 2008):

• To Give public health users a readymade standardized digital database containing information considered essential by most of them including boundary maps, environmental factors (such as lakes, rivers, elevation) as well as vital information on basic population and basic health, school and water infrastructures.
• Provide the user with user-friendly icon driven functions to automatically create maps, tables and charts of their data.
• Provide a simple data management interface in which the user can easily enter and update public health indicators in a standard geographic format.
• Make the system coherent to operate at both local and global levels.
• Provide the above to the users at low or no cost.

The system used by this tool is based on Map Objects, so this tool is compatible with ArcView. The data formats it supports include shape files, .tif, .jpg, and .bmp. The database it uses is Microsoft Access. As stated in the Health Mapper documentation there are some key features of Health Mapper tool (see fig.1), it is possible to:

1. Create thematic maps
2. Create interactive graphs/charts (line graphs and bar charts)
3. Create interactive reports of data
4. Create, save and retrieve a set of favourite maps
5. Selection, measurement zoom in and out, and panning capabilities
6. Overlay additional layers
7. Buffer creation around selected features
8. Ability to create interactive graphs from maps to help asses trends over time.

With all the functionality stated above the Health Mapper tool is intended to support and make decision making more efficient, easier, faster, and more reliable, as it will be based on the information or facts gathered and complied by this tool. The tool will help in the assessment of resource allocation, monitoring geographical distribution of the disease, determining the relationships and correlation between diseases help to determine intervention targets, make the data collection, analysis, and management more reliable, and monitor diseases and intervention over time.
The Health Mapper tool is also equipped with a data management tool. This tool enables users to incorporate program indicators to the geographic database. Also it facilitates users to integrate their own public health data.
Besides the data management tool, the Health Mapper tool consists of several extension tools, namely:

1. The shape editor
2. The import geographic data tools
3. The point to polygon tool

The Health Mapper also packages a database of core baseline geographic, demographic and health information, including the location of communities, health care and education facilities, accessibility by road, access to safe water and demography. The system is currently in operation to support a range of infectious diseases in over 60 countries in all regions of WHO. Key infectious disease programmes currently using the system include Roll Back Malaria, Lymphatic filariasis Elimination, Buruli Ulcer, Guinea worm Eradication, Onchocerciasis Control Programme, and Polio Eradication. In 2003, the system supported the implementation surveillance of HIV/AIDS/STIs, Tuberculosis, Control of Communicable Diseases in Complex Emergency Situations, Outbreak Alert and Response and Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (WHO, 2010).

WHO's HealthMapper tool interface

Part 2 is following!

This paper was originally published in: Franz-Josef Behr, Anakkathil Purushothaman Pradeepkumar, César A. Beltrán Castañón (Editors, 2010): Proceedings Applied Geoinformatics for Society and Environment (AGSE 2010). Publications of the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences, Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart, Volume 109 (2010), 206 pp., ISBN 978-3-940670-19-9

In his opening remarks, David Stevens of UN-OOSA welcomed the guests and remarked that this is a landmark booklet as it puts together some very interesting case studies. Marc Cygan, President, JBGIS, briefly dwelt on the rationale for the booklet and its intended audience. He was of the opinion that it would be useful not only for the present but for the future as well. Sisi Zlatanova, one of the editors, traced the process of the creation of the booklet and the challenges associated with writing for politicians who are the intended audience. Piero Boccardo, another editor, illustrated the approach of the case studies with the example of the Haiti earthquake.

At the press briefing chaired by T Doi of UN-OOSA, chairperson of the press briefing, commented that the booklet was the result of a partnership between UN-OOSA and JBGIS and its success indicated that there is a need to work together in the future as well. Orhan Altan, while responding to questions about open data policies, capacity building, integration with national and international disaster mitigation bodies, use of local information, etc indicated that it was still ‘work in progress’ and the booklet was the first of many such initiatives in the pipeline.

Geoinformation for Disaster and Risk Management: Examples and Best Practices is available for free download from the ISPR website.

Esri today announced a partnership with Ushahidi that will improve the collection and use of crowd-sourced information during large-scale emergencies. Ushahidi is a nonprofit organization that allows local observers to submit reports to the Ushahidi Web platform using their mobile phones or the Internet during a crisis. Esri is providing software, services, and training to support Ushahidi’s Web platform. The result is better information more readily accessible by decision makers and the public.

Both victims and witnesses of a crisis or disaster can request assistance or report conditions using text messaging capabilities from their personal phone or Internet-enabled device. These reports are collected, geo-referenced and then mapped on Ushahidi’s web-based map. Esri and Ushahidi will now work together to make this information available to more people, including those using Esri geographic information system (GIS) technology. This will provide access to Ushahidi information to relief and response organizations that use GIS analysis and modeling for humanitarian response and relief.

“Ushahidi has provided an invaluable information service during crisis events, such as the Haiti earthquake, by supplying a social media platform to capture and communicate critical information for response and relief services,” says Russ Johnson, director of public safety solutions, Esri. “Esri wants to support these efforts by making available GIS tools that assist in analyzing, displaying, and publishing critical information on the Ushahidi platform.”

“Our strategic relationship with Esri represents an important step forward for our combined user base,” says Patrick Meier, director of crisis mapping at Ushahidi. “Esri’s technology will provide Ushahidi users with access to extensive GIS data and advanced analytical tools. Esri users will also have the ability to contribute to Ushahidi mapping efforts in more seamless ways and use this data for further analysis.”

Ushahidi, which is Swahili for “testimony” or “witness,” first established itself by developing a Web site created in the aftermath of Kenya’s disputed 2007 presidential election. The site collected eyewitness reports of violence sent in by e-mail and text messages and placed them on maps. The free and open-source software platform developed for the site has since been improved and used for a number of events. For instance, in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, thousands of people sent text messages for help. That information was mapped and used by emergency responders to provide needed resources quickly where they were needed most.

Papers that deal with any aspect of geomatics technologies suitable for crisis management are invited. Authors should focus on the methodologies, tools, functionality, and/or interfaces that are being or should be provided to National and/or International Organizations involved with crisis response and management.

Invitation is also open for contributions that cover crisis management in any phase, intersection of phases, and/or integration of phases of Planning, Training, Mitigation, Detection, Alerting, Response, Recovery, and Assessment.

The language of the conference is English.

UN Dispatch charakterisiert Crowd Sourcing in folgender Weise:

Encompassing everything from gathering eye-witness reports for better media, solving problems through community expertise, or coordinating rescues of people trapped in earthquake rubble, crowdsourcing seeks to use the knowledge of large groups to change humanitarian aid.

Als kritische Punkte werden Genauigkeit und Verlässlichkeit genannt.
Über Crisis mapping heißt es:

Crisis mapping is the field of using geographical information to enhance crisis response. One example is the Ushahidi platform, which is also a crowd-sourced tool. Other forms of crisis mapping may not be crowdsourced at all. A single person or organization can use GIS coordinates to map events, locations of humanitarian response resources or other relevant factors.