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Disaster information systems in Latin American Print E-mail
Written by Sylvia Cadena   
Wednesday, 16 February 2005

At a regional level, the Regional Disaster Information Center CRID by its acronym in Spanish, is a common reference through out the region. It promotes the development of a culture of prevention in Latin American and Caribbean countries through the compilation and dissemination of disaster-related information, strengthening sub regional, national and local capacities to establish and maintain disaster information and documentation centers, promotion of the use of electronic technology for the provision of information services, and contribution to the development of the Regional Disaster Information System, a co-operative effort to improve risk management in the Region.

At a global level, ReliefWeb, an online gateway to information on humanitarian emergencies and disasters, specifically oriented to assist the international humanitarian community in effective delivery of emergency assistance, providing timely, reliable and relevant information as events unfold.

CRID Centro regional de información sobre desastres
http://www.crid.desastres.net

Review: This portal identify the organizations working in each one of the countries in the LAC region using a map interface which offers complete contact information, record of distasters, both natural and technological. It offers a vast collection of documents in different formats (text, video, audio) focused mainly in educational aspects of disasters prevention. Six different databases can be accesed by a very flexible search engine. They have been trying, since 1999, to articulate the efforts, structure and launch a regional emergency network but according to the information available at their website, this initiative is not in place yet. All interfaces are bilingual (Spanish and English). Full text available in the original language of the document, most of them in Spanish, Portuguese and English.

Relief Web
http://www.reliefweb.int/

Review: The portal has an extremely powerfull search engine and a vast repository of information basically original documents and maps, but there is little information available from the Americas region. The majority of documents posted came from NGOs and international agencies, although there is a space created to host and disseminate documents produced by governments regarding their policies and strategies to deal with emergencies, so apparently they are not participating as actively as other members of this coalition. Another type of a very common set of documents are press releases, which offers information about the disaster in question. It offers a place to advertise the funding campaings to support the people affected by the disaster, requests for volunteers, but it does not provide information about the prevention and mitigation strategies in place in each country. All interfaces are in English, and only selected information is available in Spanish. It was launched in October 1996 and is administered by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).