The 3-day UN-SPIDER  workshop was notable in that it featured a number of German and international presentations on the themes of Session 1: “Space technology in support of risk and disaster management”, Session 2: “Vulnerability and Risk Assessment”, Session 3: “Contributions of space-based technologies to existing and proposed early warning systems”, and Session 4: “Disaster Medicine, Telemedicine and Integrated Vector Management (IVM)”. Natasha Udu-gama presented on “Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” during Session 3 highlighting the usage of WorldSpace Addressable Radios for Emergency Alerts (AREA) systems as appropriate for last-mile hazard information dissemination in the LIRNEasia pilot project “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination”. The presentation also presented sustainability models for WorldSpace in Bangladesh and Indonesia, while demonstrating the role of last-mile systems with national early warning systems for developing nations and the need for sustainable options for integrating space-based technologies in the last mile.

The workshop included a number of international experts from the remote sensing and GIS fields, as well as NGOs, national donor agencies, national disaster management agencies and health fields. The interest in the last-mile was a significant talking point during the workshop and HazInfo was recognized as a leading best practice in this regard. Moreover, the theme of sustainable funding and continuation of best practices came to the fore with many of the participants calling for UN-SPIDER and other related working groups to become better proponents of ensuring that sustainable options are investigated and invested in.

Natasha’s presentation is available here.

Natasha will make a presentation on, ‘Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination’ at a session entitled, ‘Contribution of space-based technologies to existing and proposed Early Warning Systems’. This session will examine how public-private partnerships (PPP) centered on space-based technologies can enable the development, establishment and embedding of early warning systems.

The event is organized by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), with the aim of providing a platform for brainstorming and in-depth discussion among decision-makers and experts from both the space technology and disaster management communities, academia and private companies.

The UN-SPIDER was established as a programme of the UNOOSA, with the aim of providing universal access to all countries and relevant international and regional organizations to space-based information and services relevant to disaster management.

The theme of the workshop is in line with LIRNEasia’s disaster-risk management research project, HazInfo, which explored the use of different types of technology, one of which included Addressable Satellite Radio, developed by WorldSpace Global Data Solutions, in designing effective last-mile disaster mitigation and early-warning systems.

Topics of this workshop will include (among others):

• Relevant space-based solutions and information for risk and disaster management support and emergency response
• Presentations and discussion of the contribution of space-based technologies to existing Early Warning Systems, development of Risk Modelling and Vulnerability Assessments, as well as in the field of Emergency and Disaster Medicine.

More information is available here.