How distributed geodata solutions improve emergency management efficiency

Being prepared for natural and complex emergencies is a top priority for the UN World Food Programme (WFP). In order to efficiently provide adequate support, WFP has a strong local presence, with more than 80 Country Offices (CO) around the world. The WFP Emergency Preparedness team, in strict cooperation with leading academic institutions and technology experts, develops innovative early warning systems and rapid impact analysis tools and products. An emergency response phase requires an extremely well-organized communication between different actors, providing information timely and in an immediately understandable and not misleading format. WFP acquires, analyzes, distributes and displays data and information, gathered either on the field or retrieved from global monitoring systems. Data retrieved from global monitoring systems are managed centrally at WFP HQ, but need to be accessible to local offices. Similarly, data acquired on the field by local staff should be available at headquarters level for further and global analysis. This organizational model requires the set-up and maintenance of an effective solution for data managing and sharing: the adoption of a common data model further improve data sharing mechanisms, data interpretation and analysis. Additionally, Standard symbology rules and automated map templates helps in enforcing a brand perception and in increasing output quality, timeliness and readability.