Voice, data, help desk: Meet the Syrian refugees' IT infrastructure chief

ETC2020

That’s where ETC is today, but the ETC vision is changing.

“As we look to the future the cluster recognises the need to provide services directly to affected communities building on our traditional service delivery focus towards humanitarian organisations. We call this vision ETC2020,” AbdelJaber told us.

“The ETC network will be used to deliver communications services directly to people affected by disaster. However, we are mindful that this is a significant increase in scope of the ETC and so will be more resource intensive. This is where the ETC network of partners is absolutely crucial.”

Robust networks let humanitarian organisations deploy technologies that drive efficiencies and better service to beneficiaries. These include the UNHCR’s use of iris-scan technology to verify the identity of refugees and the WFP’s use of smartcard vouchers to allow refugees to select what items at a store, instead of receiving a food box.

ETC2020 will extend provision of ICT services to other to a wider group of responders – for example, in the Ebola response ETC provided connectivity to health workers as well as humanitarians – and governments; and the affected populations, giving them the ability to communicate, make informed decisions, access information and services and provide feedback to humanitarian agencies.

Thus in the future, ETC role will less be focused on direct deployment of hardware and more on co-ordinating the response from a network of partner organisations.

That’s going to take working very closely with the private-sector tech firms who’ve so far delivered kit, changing the existing relationship.

“We are looking to connect technology and energy companies, humanitarian organisations, government, affected populations and emerging actors. We want to establish pre-agreed partnership agreements that can be activated to enable faster and more context-appropriate solutions in emergencies," said AbdelJaber.

“We also understand, however, that ‘partnering’ does not just mean ‘taking’ and we seek to develop relationships that are mutually beneficial. We are looking to tech companies to innovate, create and deploy alongside us for maximum impact in emergencies, and therefore maximum lives saved,” AbdelJaber added.