Localizing Digital Humanitarianism: Creating an IT (Information Technology) Asset for Refugee-Led Humanitarian Organizations
Open Access
- Author:
- Long, Hayden
- Area of Honors:
- Information Sciences and Technology
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Carleen Maitland, Thesis Supervisor
Steven R. Haynes, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Refugees
ICT
Informatics
Digital Humanitarianism
Localization
Refugee-Led Organizations
Human Centered Design - Abstract:
- The world is facing the largest refugee crisis in its history and the humanitarian system has struggled to keep pace. Structural inefficiencies and disadvantages inherent to the non-governmental humanitarian aid organization (NGO) led aid structure mean that, in its current form, this crisis may never be able to be mitigated. With the rise of digital humanitarianism, these problems have become ever more apparent. As the aid landscape becomes increasingly more globalized, the lack of efficient coordination and partitioning of resources have hampered efforts to respond to crises and create sustainable development in areas of need. Localization, the focus of investing in local communities to empower them to respond to crises on their own, rather than forcing them to depend on outside aid, has grown in favor in recent years and may prove to avoid the problems inherent in the non-governmental humanitarian organization (NGO) system. Among the most effective outlets for localization are refugee-led humanitarian organizations (RLOs), yet they are poorly documented, misunderstood, and often marginalized by grant-conferring organizations and NGOs. Furthermore, leveraging information and communication technology (ICT) can prove vital in the success of these organizations, but due to this lack of knowledge and information about these organizations, it is often unclear their abilities in this realm. Using existing literature, RLO testimonials, and personal experiences, the author, working in conjunction with a doctoral researcher, created an online repository of these organizations focused on refugee-usability as part of one of the first systemic analyses of RLOs. Through this process, we created a website to meet the needs of refugees and RLOs and complied general guidelines for digital design to these ends. This thesis serves to demonstrate this process and disseminate the results of this project.