Sanjana Hattotuwa and Daniel Stauffacher

 

From October 2007 to February 2008, representatives from the ICT4Peace Foundation met informally with a number of high-level representatives at key agencies based at the United Nations in New York in preparation for a stocktaking exercise on crisis information management capacities and best practices. These meetings with heads of agencies, units and departments, IT administrators and key Knowledge Management (KM), Information Management (IM) professionals and consultants gave vital insights into some of the best practices and key challenges facing crisis information management at the UN including the gaps and needs that had already been identified, the challenges facing KM and IM and ideas for meaningfully addressing some of these challenges. 

 

The authors express their sincere thanks for those who shared their knowledge and insights. This report captures pertinent observations on crisis information management based on the discussions we had over February 2008 in New York and subsequently over email. An official stocktaking questionnaire circulated to all members of the CEB in April 2008. A draft report was tabled at a meeting held on 8th July 2008 in New York at the United Nations, where respondents and other high level participants were invited to engage with the preliminary findings and observations. Their input and feedback at the meeting and via email is incorporated in this final draft.

 

This report is presented as an anchor for on-going interaction and conversation within the United Nations and is strictly not for public dissemination.

 

The responsibility for any faults, omissions and mistakes, as inevitably there are in this report, lie solely with the authors.