Redesigning the ReliefWeb: the redesign process of the humanitarian community's main information management system provides a model and lessons for others contemplating a website redesign.

• Author: Sebastian Naidoo

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"People need information as much as water, food, medicine, or shelter. Information can save lives, livelihoods, and resources. It may be the only form of disaster preparedness that the most vulnerable can afford. The right kind of information leads to a deeper understanding of needs and ways to respond. The wrong information can lead to inappropriate, even dangerous interventions."

--International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, World Disasters Report 2005

The mid-1990s marked a seminal moment for humanitarian information management (IM)--the advent of one of the last century's worst crises, the 1994 Rwanda genocide and conflict in Africa's Great Lakes region and, at the same time, the rapid growth of a new medium of communications, the Internet.

This convergence led governmental and non-governmental humanitarian agencies to examine how web-based systems could signal the emergence of new crises and escalation of existing ones. They developed a range of IM tools to support humanitarian workers in preparing for and executing coordinated relief efforts. Among those were three United Nations (UN) tools:

1. A humanitarian news and analysis service, Integrated Regional Information Networks, www.irinnews.org

2. An emergency-specific, data-exchange platform, the Humanitarian Information Center, www.humanitarianinfo.org

3. The ReliefWeb, www.reliefweb.int

   Succeeding two pre-Internet initiatives developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s under the UN Disaster Relief Organization, ReliefWeb's web-based prototypes provided background information on crises. But the 1995 "ReliefNet" conference of UN, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and donor representatives called for a much more ambitious system. The system's mandate at its 1996 inauguration was "to strengthen the response capacity of the international humanitarian community through the timely dissemination of reliable information." The UN's General Assembly of 185 member states endorsed ReliefWeb's mandate in 1997 Resolution 51/194.

   The majority of ReliefWeb's funding is from voluntary contributions from the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, European Commission, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Canada, Italy, and Switzerland. During the last 10 years, its income has grown from just under $500,000 (U.S.) to approximately $2 million.

   The ReliefWeb, along with other IM and coordination tools--notably the Consolidated Appeals Process (www.reliefweb.int/cap) and the Central Emergency Response Fund (http://cerf.un.org)--was central to the UN's increasing role in mobilizing the action of the multi-faceted and often divergent humanitarian community. Its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has worked with operational partners, including both UN and non-UN humanitarian agencies, to reach agreements on joint action in emergency situations and streamline activities to ensure the most effective possible delivery of aid. ReliefWeb's pooling and management of relevant information from all humanitarian response agencies support these efforts.

   Reflecting the member-state environment and the principle of state sovereignty, ReliefWeb information is organized by country. In its early years, site pages were updated daily with an average of 25 documents and maps on 10 conflict-related crises, or "Complex Emergencies" for which governments were receiving international assistance. One of those, Africa's Great Lakes crisis, remains today as one of ReliefWeb's 26 Complex Emergencies, containing more than 28,000 documents and maps dating back to May 1996.

   ReliefWeb's First Five Years

   Between 1996 and 2001, the number of ReliefWeb's information partners grew from 250 to more than 800, comprising UN and other international organizations, governments, NGOs, the Red Cross/Red Crescent, news agencies, and academic research institutes.

   Nine information managers in OCHA's Geneva and New York offices monitored partner outputs, processing information in the two time zones using hierarchical-style databases in Lotus Notes, the UN's standard platform and one of the few online collaboration tools at the time. After receiving information through e-mail submission and website scans, information managers selected relevant material according to detailed IM guidelines, created a Lotus Notes record, entered and formatted the text or map graphic, and applied comprehensive metadata. The record was then proofed...