July 2017. HumanitarianID. “Talking to Humanitarian Responders”

Sometimes the most basic things are the hardest to do, especially in emergencies. Have you ever had to manage a humanitarian contact list in a disaster setting or a protracted crisis? We asked humanitarian responders at the UNDAC Induction Course in Switzerland how they manage their own contact lists. Find out what they had to say:   If you would like to contribute to our series “Talking to Humanitarian Responders”, get your phone cameras ready and send us a clip on how you and your colleagues manage humanitarian contact lists. We’ll do a professional editing of your video, publish it on our YouTube Channel and share it through Twitter. Here are a couple of questions we had in mind:  Introduce yourself in 2-3 sentences: your name, organization, your job and the country where you work Tell us about your work in the humanitarian field. What challenges do you face? Describe how do you manage contact lists and how Humanitarian ID could help Now, just a couple of technical guidelines to help us in the editing process. Don't worry, it's not complicated: If you film using a smartphone, make sure you film landscape (horizontally) Film the person from the shoulder upward (like in the videos we’ve already shared) Try and use natural light so we can see you better Make sure we can hear you; try to be as close as possible to your phone or camera. Avoid areas that have a lot of background noise Try and keep your clip under 8 minutes (and don’t worry if you stumble - we’ll edit it for you) Once you’ve recorded your clip, get in touch with us at info@humanitarian.id And … action! Your Humanitarian ID Team

2017. FEMA Should Disallow $2.04 Billion Approved for New Orleans Infrastructure Repairs

The latest DHS OIG report is available on our website. FEMA Should Disallow $2.04 Billion Approved for New Orleans Infrastructure Repairs FEMA should not have awarded the City and S&W Board the initial $785 million, or the additional $1.25 billion to complete the repairs to damaged infrastructure, because the damages were not eligible for Federal disaster assistance funding. Even though FEMA attributed the damages to the water distribution system directly to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, we concluded that FEMA did not have sufficient documentation to support its decision. In fact, evidence shows that the infrastructure was old and in poor condition even before the hurricanes. Eligibility for FEMA funding requires that damages be the direct result of the declared disaster, and it is the applicant’s responsibility to show that the damages are disaster-related. Read Report No. OIG 17-97-D

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