Growing the Surge Information Management Support (SIMS) community to respond to emergencies
Back in December 2019 the British Red Cross hosted a global Surge Information Management Support (SIMS) workshop in London, UK.
IFRC SIMS is a network of Information Management (IM), GIS (mapping) and data specialists who develop, coordinate and implement IM for global Red Cross and Red Crescent disaster response operations. SIMS is one of the global IFRC response tools which when activated remotely supports in-country disaster operations response teams with IM products and services.
SIMS specialists, who include staff and volunteers from National Societies globally and the IFRC, help operations leverage the power of mapping, data collection, data management, and visualization tools to support decision making and enhance reporting to make our disaster responses more efficient and effective.
SIMS is organised as a decentralised Red Cross Red Crescent and IFRC network and thrives on openness, inclusiveness, collaboration and shared learning.
Since SIMS was officially established in 2013, up to the end of 2019, we’ve provided remote support to 43 disaster responses.
The British Red Cross’s GIS team is a principle member of SIMS, with the continued support of BRC’s Emergencies Team. The key role the team plays with other National Societies globally have seen the community grow and the IFRC SIMS network go from strength to strength.
Our workshop was hosted by British Red Cross and facilitated by British Red Cross, American Red Cross and IFRC. It aimed to build and improve capacity in the network and focussed on strengthening remote IM support in preparation for any future disaster responses where SIMS is activated.
We brought together current and prospective SIMS individuals as an opportunity to learn together, share knowledge, and establish and improve ways of working together as a community. We also used the time together as an opportunity to identify gaps or areas to improve over the coming year — although these plans have since been somewhat interrupted by the Coronavirus response!
We also spent time hosting Collaborative Working Sessions, where we initiated dialogue and made preliminary outputs that are aimed at improving SIMS coordination, guidance materials and outputs, and reviewed our work to date and what next steps we could take as a network.
A global community
In total 33 participants from 17 National Societies, the IFRC, and IFRC Regional and Country Offices attended, ranging from Indonesia and New Zealand to Kenya, Honduras, Venezuela and Canada — this event was truly global.
We also had the joy of inviting members of the newly created British Red Cross Information Management Register, who were beginning their development journey to becoming remote and deployable IM specialists.
Over the week, we worked on several activities to deliver on what we set out to achieve:
Simulating a disaster response
We role-played a number of disaster response operations that have happened over the years. We segmented each operation into sections — from setting up remote SIMS support at the outset of an activation; to support in the first and second weeks of an operation and beyond; to handover or close-out of a remote operation. We explored who is involved in a disaster response and its structure, common products and services that are offered by remote SIMS support, as well as common challenges and opportunities.
Community:
SIMS is both a network of individuals and a remote global IFRC response tool. Since its founding, one of SIMS’ guiding principles has been its open community. In the workshop, we revisited what it means to be part of a community, how to work as a remote team, how to learn from one another and give effective feedback to continually improve who we are as a network, and how we interact with each other and those we are supporting. With the massive breadth of knowledge across the National Societies who are part of SIMS (there are currently more than 250 members on our Slack workspace), we also looked at how to better identify and be able to know when to use individuals’ skills and knowledge within the network.
Data Protection:
Information Management delegates and SIMS remote support can often work with data that is sensitive. We had the privilege to have the IFRC Senior Legal Counsel and Data Protection Officer join us. We covered principles of data protection and worked through practical examples of data collection, analysis and presentation during a response and examined how these related to our past and current SIMS processes. As IM delegates we work with a range of data and information regarding affected populations — this could be assessments and surveys, which can be at a household level, or even with health information, for example as we did in 2018, when responding to Ebola.
A deep dive into sectors:
“The more we can gear our Information Management products to the ‘so what’, the better [we do]”
In our post-workshop review this was voted as one of the top sessions! During a response, SIMS remote support and IM delegates support all sectors. This can include Cash, WASH, Shelter, Health etc. The needs, opportunities, challenges and solutions can vary between sector and response. We therefore took time out to focus on two sectors — WASH and Cash — identifying their main activities and where Information Management can support. We were walked through a recent operation, Cyclone Idai, with the WASH ERU (Emergency Response Unit) Team Leader, focussing on the main activities of the team, including assessment and planning, mapping, coordination, surveying, monitoring, community engagement as well as typical analyses, and how these all link to IM.
In plenary we asked, “what do you want/need more of in the future”? Emphasis was placed on moving away from outputs and towards impact and “so what”, to focus, for example, on not the number of latrines built, but on what the impact that latrine is. The more we can guide Information Management products towards ‘so what’, the better decisions we can make. Credit was given to Information Management and SIMS during Cyclone Idai for asking these questions and moving the dialogue forward during the operation. We also acknowledged the Information Management process is often iterative and in the words of the WASH team leader:
“data-driven decision making is the “obvious stuff” put into a practical and consumable format which can be complemented by the operational/sectoral teams”
Information Management in the IFRC and SIMS future direction:
We also looked at the state of Information Management in IFRC and across National Societies and how this related to SIMS. The IFRC IM team held a consultation session around the results from a survey on the progress IM has made in recent years as well gather inputs into the strategic direction for IM in future. We put a spotlight on the Mobile Data Collection Working Group, as well as the new features on IFRC GO, such as 3Ws, how that platform works in a response and the plans for it in 2020, including early warning and risk analysis modules. In addition, we had time to focus on DEEP, the secondary data analysis platform, and how it is used in disaster response to apply structured and unstructured data into a framework to identify gaps and consolidate existing sources. Lastly, we looked at the Information Management Profiles that can be deployed during a disaster response and how these interact with SIMS remote support.
What a week we had! It was only as I started writing this blog, that the breadth and depth of content we covered and collaborated on in the workshop became apparent! Ranging from sessions that simulated disaster responses, where unhindered by the action of an operation we looked at opportunities and challenges of IM; to hearing first-hand about the impact of IM in WASH and Cash; sharing knowledge on community mapping and discussing DEEP; plus gaining insight into the roadmap for IM in the IFRC. However, one point was clear — we all had something to give, learn, takeaway or build on — driven by SIMS guiding principles of being an open, collaborative community.
Since the workshop, it has also been great to see members of the newly created British Red Cross IM Register who attended, going on to support both domestic and international Coronavirus responses with IM skills learned and reinforced in the workshop.
We’re an open community! If you’re part of a National Society and want to become involved in SIMS get in touch here, or email the IFRC IM team at im@ifrc.org
I’d like to thank all the participants and facilitators who attended and supported this workshop and thank all those who were involved in previous workshops, which helped to guide and develop this workshop.
