Bridging ICTs and Environment - Innovations in Disaster Risk Management

The course builds upon existing UNDP experience in disaster management and risk reduction. The advances in ICT are increasingly empowering citizens to play a more proactive role in managing disaster risks and more effectively responding when disasters hit. The ability of development workers to tap into this local energy and know-how, go beyond the usual suspects (e.g. NGOs, think tanks) and partner with outliers (e.g. citizens, informal groups) and link their efforts with the institutional response and resources will play a major role in supporting communities' resilience. Therefore, applying innovations and the latest ICT advances in this regard will be the key topic of the program. A range of technologies will be presented including Remote Sensing, Geographic Information Systems, mobile technologies, data portals, etc.

 

The course will cover a number of themes, including ICTs for disaster risk reduction (DRR), innovation in climate risk management and disaster preparedness and response, integration of innovative solutions in climate risk management (CRM) and DRR into sectoral and municipal development, and more.

 

To increase the scope and impact of the event and its benefits for participants, this course will be collocated with an additional course (ICTs in Water Security) conducted at CEU under the “Bridging ICTs and Environment” framework. These courses are preparatory activities for the Eye on Earth Summit 2015 (http://www.eoesummit.org) and will feature joint sessions and exercises.