New and emerging technologies have the potential to support a paradigm shift in the humanitarian system from reaction to anticipation by enabling earlier, faster, and potentially more effective humanitarian action, a new report published by OCHA has found.
The report – From Digital Promise to Frontline Practice: New And Emerging Technologies in Humanitarian Action – underscores that artificial intelligence can facilitate analysis and interpret vast and complex humanitarian data sets to improve projections and decision-making. Mobile applications, chatbots, and social media can create immediate feedback loops with people affected by humanitarian crises. And, as showcased by the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses, education, and health services can be shifted to virtual environments overnight.
But the report also highlights that such advantages come with complex challenges and risks. For example, inadequate data protection and privacy can cause harm, intensify insecurities and hinder the principled delivery of humanitarian assistance. Unequal connectivity, access to technology or digital literacy can exacerbate core vulnerabilities and intensify gender biases, while incomplete data sets about affected people can lead to digital discrimination.
Among the report’s conclusions is that technology is not an end in itself, and its adoption alone cannot shift a paradigm. Rather, investment in technology must be made together with efforts to ensure that it is responsible, sustainable, and inclusive and that it protects, above all, human life and dignity. Undertaken jointly with affected communities and partners across sectors, such converging efforts could powerfully enable transformation in the years to come.
