Candidate Number: 18902

MSc in Development Management 2010

Dissertation submitted in partial
fulfilment of the requirements of the degree

The Impact of Web 2.0 Tools on the Humanitarian Aid Industry:

A Case Study of the Response to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake

Word Count : 9996

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Change before you have to.

Jack Welch. CEO General Electric, 1981-2001.
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Table of Content

Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4

Chapter 1: Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5

Chapter 2: Literature Review …………………………………………………………………………………………… 7

 Introducing Web 2.0 ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7
 ICT4D Optimists and Sceptics ………………………………………………………………………………… 8
 Theoretical Assessment of 2.0 for Humanitarianism: Solutions to Key Challenges ……
10
 a) Centralisation…………………………………………………………………………………………… 11
 b) Expertise …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 12
 c) Accountability ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 13
- Downward Accountability ………………………………………………………………………………... 13
- Upward Accountability …………………………………………………………………………………… 15

Chapter 3: Case Study ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17

 Methodology ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 17
 Results ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 19
 a) Web 2.0 General Usage 19
 b) Aid and Beneficiaries 20
 c) Aid coordination 21
 d) New Technologies’ Management 22
 e) Downward Accountability 23
 f) Upward Information Flows and Accountability 24
 g) Audience and Flows From the Civil Society 26
 h) Organizations’ Internal Practices 27
 i) Organizational Relations 27

Chapter 4: Discussion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 29

 On Complexity and Centralisation………………………………………………………………………… 29
 On Expertise ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 31
 On Accountability ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 32
 On Organizational Practices ………………………………………………………………………………… 33

Chapter 5: Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 35

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 37
Appendices …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 49
 Appendix 1: List of organizations contacted ……………………………………………………………. 50
 Appendix 2: List of Respondents ……………………………………………..……………………………… 54
 Appendix 2: Online questionnaire …………………………………………………………………….…….. 55
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Abstract

The response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake is identified by many as a turning point in the
use of technology for disaster. Parallel to this, Web 2.0 increasingly offers tools
especially applicable to the management of complexity and the humanitarian challenges
of over-reliance on expertise, bureaucratic inefficiency and accountability deficits. This
study assesses the ways in which Web 2.0 tools impacted the humanitarian aid industry.
Drawing from qualitative insights from humanitarian workers, it shows that 2.0
opportunities problem-solving purposes are far less embraced by the industry than 2.0
communicational aspects. This outlines a new compromise within the ICT4D debate.
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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the following people for their time given in interview:

 Wayne de Jong, Director of Disater Response & Rehabilitation, Christian

Reformed World Relief Committee, Canada;
 Mark Kaech, New Media Specialist, Food for the Hungry, USA;
 Tiffany Kuehner, Vice-President, Hope for Haiti, USA;
 Patrick Nicholson, Director of the Communications, Caritas Internationalis, Italy;
 James Shepherd-Barron, Haiti WASH Cluster Coordinator, UNICEF’s Asia-Pacific
Shared Services Center, Thailand;
 Anonymous respondent, Senior Global Marketing Specialist, USA.

and the following people for the time taken to fill out the online questionnaire:

 Kim Chapin, Director of Education and Child Sponsorship, Haiti Foundation

Against Poverty, USA;
 Sarah Cool, ex-Logistics Coordinator, Beyond Borders; USA & Haiti;
 Joan DeFrances, Director of Finance, Haiti Marycare, USA;
 Chiqui Flowers, Marketing Coordinator, Medical Teams International, USA;
 Kallista Green, Program Manager, International Rescue Committee, USA;
 Frank Schott, Global Program Director, NetHope, USA;
 Martin Silbernagel, Communications Advisor, Samaritan's Purse Canada;
 Beat Wagner & Karl Schuler, Head of Communication & Head of Communication
International Cooperation, Swiss Red Cross, Switzerland;
 Nigel Woof, Chief Executive, MapAction; United Kingdom
 Anonymous respondent, International Volunteer Specialist, USA;
 Anonymous respondent, Emergency Field Worker, United Kingdom;
 Anonymous respondent, Haiti Desk Officer, USA;
 Anonymous respondent, Campaign Specialist, USA;
as well as six other respondents that have asked for total anonymity from organizations
in the USA and Haiti,
and finally Carole Leman, Director of Development, Agape Flights; USA for her email
contribution.

The author also thanks the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture as
well as the Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport du Gouvernement du Québec
for making this possible through their financial support.
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Chapter 1: Introduction

In 2001, the term ‘Web 2.0’ made its appearance to describe a new generation of Web
initiatives (Creeber & Martin 2009). Five years later, the Time Magazine chose ‘You’ as
its person of the year, the ‘you’ that controls the information age (Time 2006). This rise
of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) has reached a new level
last July when the icon of the 2.0 generation, Facebook, has reached 500m users thus
creating, if it were a physical nation, what would be the third biggest on earth after
China and India (The Economist online 2010).

In parallel to this, another observable trend arise: natural disasters are affecting a
growing number of people and becoming costlier, in addition to disproportionately
affecting developing nations in relation to their gross domestic product (Parker 2006, 1).
This situation is addressed by the humanitarian aid industry via dozens of different types
of relief activities, more than sixty for the World Bank alone (2006, 2).

The earthquake that struck the region of the Haitian capital on January 12 th 2010 has
made unique contribution to bridge those seemingly distinct issues for it generated an
information and communication technologies (ICTs) response until then unprecedented
for a humanitarian emergency, which makes many identify the event as a turning point
in the use of technology for disaster operations (US Department of State Humanitarian
Information Unit 2010; Hattotuwa & Stauffacher 2010). Hence, building on the
conjuncture of such phenomena, a question arise: how did Web 2.0 tools impact the
humanitarian aid industry? Using the case study of Haiti, this paper aims at drawing the
picture of the ways in which 2.0 influenced humanitarianism.

This dissertation will contribute to the ‘ICT for development’ (ICT4D) debate by linking it
to a field previous studies failed to address adequately, humanitarianism. To do this, the
2.0 ICTs present themselves as an interesting element of study for their distinct features
make them especially applicable to emergency environment. In addition, this study finds
a new compromise within the ICT4D debate between technology optimists and critical
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voices, going beyond the polarisation of cataloguing technology as being either a tool or
a burden. By disaggregating the various roles ICTs have in the emergency aid industry,
this study reveals in which aspect 2.0 instruments are perceived as useful, and in which
they are rather considered a promise that fails to deliver. It will do so by analysing the
perceptions, collected via interviews and questionnaires, humanitarian organizations
workers have of the 2.0 tools’ influence on their work for Haiti.

It will be demonstrated that the humanitarian industry mainly profits from the
communicational aspects of the 2.0 generation of instruments, in their networking
between organizations and in their relation with civil society. Ignorance, lack of trust,
and technological deficiencies restrain the use of 2.0 opportunities for problem-solving
and coordination. Hence, the aid beneficiaries only benefit indirectly from the rise of
2.0.

After briefly exposing the constituents of the Web 2.0 concept and the ICT4D debate
building blocks, the next section will expose the theoretical benefits of the 2.0 features
for humanitarian purposes.
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Chapter 2: Literature review

Introducing Web 2.0

Since its debut the Internet has evolved considerably, and many authors now use the
term ‘Web 2.0’ to embody the changes seen in the last decade. As Creeber & Martin
(2009, 3) define it, “this concept of Web 2.0 is distinct from Web 1.0 in that its websites
allow users to do more than just retrieve information; it includes a social element where
users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and reuse.” In
others words, Web 2.0 includes instruments that take users out of their passive position
to give them both consumer and producer role; this is a ‘prosuming’ role 1. Even though
there is no consensus on how to define Web 2.0, this research captures Web 2.0 as
including: social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious);
photos and videos-sharing sites (e.g. YouTube, Flickr, etc.); blogs (regular web entries
with which users can interact); wikis, i.e websites facilitating the creation & editing of
interlinked web pages (e.g. Wikipedia); web applications (e.g. Google Documents,
Google Groups); crowdsourcing, i.e. outsourcing a task to a large amount of people via
an open call (e.g. Ushahidi, txtEagle, CrowdFlower, mCollect); user-generated content
(UGC), i.e. media produced by end-users (e.g. member's pictures); as well as all potential
mashups of the above.

The 2.0 generation raises many hopes as it exposes various advantages. In addition to
the general advances in terms of frequency, speed and affordability, 2.0 brings extreme
decentralization of information and the creation of virtual communities and networked
commonalities (Creeber and Martin 2009) which creates opportunities for more
egalitarianism in communication (Preston 2001, 208) and participatory culture (Hills
2009). However, many critics stress the drawback of New Media: the increased
surveillance and repression opportunities (Deibert 008; Morozov 2009; Sussex
Technology Group 2001, 220), the unrealistic expectation and overwork generated by
24h-always-on interactions (Middleton 2007, 175), the possibility for oneself to retreat
from the outer world (Jennings 2007, 179-180) into a state of ‘cultural autism’ (Bull
1
This term has its origins in the book The Third Wave (Toffler 1987, 265).
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2000, 181), the rise of controversial social online practices such as happy slapping
(Nightingale 2007), commercial intrusions and social exclusion due to poverty (Moyo
2009). This “celebratory/condemnatory matrix” (Hills 2009: 112) is also found in the
discourses on Informations Communication Technologies (ICT) applications to
development, the ICT for Develoipment (ICT4D) stream of literature.

ICT4D Optimists and Sceptics

The ICT4D debate presents itself, as noted by Avegrou (1998, 16), as an opposition
between optimists and pessimists. ICT optimists tend to be situated within a
modernization discourse, while pessimistic views are derived from post-colonial
development discourse and dependency theory (Schech 2002). Many key publications
support ICTs’ potential for socio-economical development for instance major
publications from the Center for International Development at Harvard University and
the World Bank’s World Development Report from 2002 (Avegrou 2003) and 1999.
Similarly, Eggleston et al. (2002) expose theoretical benefits of ICTs as a “gift that keeps
on giving” tool increasing market efficiency by strengthening coordination and imperfect
information problems. In addition, many advocate the role ICTs can play in leapfrogging
important phases of technological, social and economical advancement. For instance,
Eduardo Talero, an expert of the World Bank, believes that:

“the new information and communication technologies can help people fight poverty,
reduce the isolation of rural areas, educate children, support lifelong learning, create
efficient, accountable and transparent governments, increase economic reforms, monitor
and protect the environment, promote small and medium-sized enterprises and
participate in global trade” (Wilson 1998 about Talero 1997).

However, many authors deplore the failure of those promises to materialise in

developing countries. Critical voices arise to denounce the linkage between ICTs and
developmental outcomes they fear is becoming a truism. Indeed, the literature on
Information Systems in developing countries tends to assume ICTs’ potential for
economic growth as well as their role in enhancing social institutions’ performance
(Avegrou 2008, 139). Mansell brings the danger to light: “many of today’s ICT initiatives
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sponsored by the private sector or by donor agencies continue to be predicated on the
assumption that the spread of technological innovations of this kind is a ‘good thing’
insofar as inclusiveness within such networks is assumed to be entirely beneficial for all”
(2006, 902).

Various scholars elaborate on the absence of empirical evidence connecting ICTs and
growth or socio-economic development (Akpan 2003, Avegrou 1998, 2003 & 2008).
Wade goes as far as saying that the literature offers no more than “a potpourri of
anecdotes and correlations” (2002), a lack of evidence that will be confirmed by this case
study. Wade also accuses ICTs of enlarging the North-South divide, as do Rodriguez and
Wilson (2000) and Heeks and Kenny (2002). The latter argue that in developing countries
ICTs’ costs outweigh the benefits. Heeks further criticizes the Millenium Development
Goals (MDG) filter widely applied to ICT and development policy for being hegemonic,
one-size-fits-all, and denying the South paths previously taken by the North. Similarly,
Thompson (2002) demonstrates that the ICT discourse expands a Western perspective of
development, while others have focused on the role if ICTs as instruments of power
(Mansell 2006; Schech 2002). If this case study confirms that the benefits of 2.0 mainly
reside within the western domains of the humanitarian industry, the conclusion that
costs outweigh benefits will be challenged. Finally, Wilson argues that the technological
revolution is as political and institutional as it is technological (2004), which will find
resonance in the discussion on taxpayer accountability.

Throughout those debates, and following the ICTs they are studying, ICT4D studies
evolved from 0.0 to 2.0. While before the 1990s they focused on Information
Technology (IT) in internal administrations of the developing countries’ governments,
the introduction of the Internet led to an increased interest in ICTs (Heeks 2008). As
ICT4D failures brought new emphasis on sustainability, scalability and evaluation,
current ICT4D 2.0 also accentuates the ‘para-poor’ component, a focus on participation
that characterizes the 2.0 generation, as well as the ‘per-poor’ approach, with poor
communities themselves becoming innovators, as 2.0 users become producers (Heeks
2008). Although ICT4D studies have embraced 2.0, they have so far largely failed to
address the field of humanitarian emergencies. Despite their particularities, one
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humanitarianism and development must not be taken as disconnected, for “they need to
happen simultaneously” (Fisher 2010; 3) and the frontier between them is artificial. This
gap is additionally surprising when one considers the numerous characteristics
presented by the 2.0 generation to deal with key challenges faced by humanitarianism.
The next section outlines those, providing a theoretical picture of the 2.0 contribution to
disaster responses, a picture latter challenged through this case study of Haiti 2010.

Theoretical Assessment of 2.0 for Humanitarianism: Solutions to Key Challenges

The 2.0 concept brings to the front many features easily applicable as potential solutions
for humanitarianism’s main adaptability challenges, namely the over-reliance on
expertise, the rigidity of centralisation and bureaucracy, and accountability deficits. For
each of those, 2.0 instruments have promising characteristics. As Moore’s law 2 presents
no sign of slowing down, organizations need to accept change as a constant status to
keep pace, like a river “owes its entire existence to adaptability” (Kohtes 2008). The
flexibility and resilience offered by 2.0 tools should be especially valued in
humanitarianism for it deals with complex or chaotic situations, namely because of the
numerous emergences3 of novel events and behaviours during a disaster and the need
for rapid response (Snowden & Kurtz 2003; Snowden and Boone 2007). Yet, aid agencies
manage their response via systems that fail to address complexity and the media depict
the situations as simple X-Y relationships (Belloni 2005, p.19;
morealtitude.wordpress.com 2010). Hence, it becomes imperative to look at the
possibilities theoretically offered by 2.0 to address criticisms related to the issues of
centralisation, expertise and accountability deficits, so that humanitarianism tackles
complexity with tools designed for it.

a) Centralisation

2
Moore’s law established the exponential growth in computing hardware innovation (Moore 1965)

3
Studies relate the emergence of new tasks, networks, organizations and behaviours before, during and
after disasters (Drabek and McEntire 2003; Quarantelli 1996; Barsky et al. 2007; quoted in Sutton 2009, p.
3-4)
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Marxists and Communists revolutionaries like R.Luxemburg or A.Kollontai highlighted the
cost of centralised hierarchy as loss of creativity and innovation. Critics of the
bureaucratic Weberian model like Michel Crozier (1964) and, later-on, advocates of New
Public Management (NPM), have underlined further problems in terms of incentive
mechanisms, flexibility and responsiveness. This resonated within development studies
(Easterly 2008; Moyo 2009; Whittle & Kuraishi 2008; Browne 2006) and the
humanitarian domain, where bureaucratic approaches are described as falling within
rigid strategies and standard operating procedures that prevent the creativity,
improvisation and adaptability necessary in disaster contexts (Sutton 2009, p.4; Kendra
& Wachtendorf 2003; Neal & Phillips 1995; Britton 1991, 1989). Similarly, it has been
argued that networked teams are faster and more accurate than hierarchical teams in
the management of information in difficult crisis scenarios (Schraagen et al. 2010).

The 2.0 tools offer decentralisation strategies. Indeed, one of the main 2.0 features is
collaborative intelligence, also known as crowdsourcing or distributed cognition, i.e. the
decentralisation of tasks to a crowd. This is based on the concept of the wisdom of
crowds popularised by Surowiecki (2004), which implies that the average of collective
judgements on a certain topic should be better than the solution a group of experts
would find, if the key conditions of information diversity, independence, decentralisation
and aggregation are satisfied.

Crowdsourcing has already found many applications for development such as txtEagle,
through which various corporations pay users for completing small tasks on their
mobiles, or mCollect, which allows stakeholders to share market price information
(Sharma 2010). The most famous application of distributed cognition for humanitarian
purposes are crowdsourced mapping platforms, the most prominent being Ushahidi. The
latter is an open source project that allows volunteers from anywhere on the planet to
contribute to mapping crisis information. They translate and aggregate on the same
editable online map any crisis information found on websites, social medias and sent by
mobile text message, as long as the information is locatable. For instance, information
shared includes locations of people trapped under rubble, food shortages, medical
needs, security threats, etc. (Ushahidi 2010). This is a form of non probability sampling
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that has the advantage of quickly increasing the sample, a speed needed in times of
emergency (Meier 2010a). Open systems are designed to be adaptable, another key
component of emergency responses. They can easily mutate and their intelligence is
spread throughout the system (Brafman & Beckstrom 2006). Examples of
decentralisation in the field of monitoring and evaluation are also emerging. Peer Water
Exchange is a project that uses crowdsourcing to allow sanitation projects’ beneficiaries
to monitor and evaluate the outputs via their mobile phones (Sharma 2010, 6), a
situation that could easily be applied to post-disaster efforts. Hence, crowdsourcing acts
as a good illustration of the usefulness of decentralisation. Despite this potential, this
study will demonstrate that distributed cognition seemed to have little weight in the
response, is not known nor trusted enough, and suffers from inaccuracies, and that
decentralised communication produces silo effects.

b) Expertise

Parallel to centralisation critiques, the status of the expert manager has been
increasingly challenged since the ‘80s (Murphy 2008; Pollitt 1990, pp. 134-7; Dunleavy
1985; Martin 1983; Illich 1971). Development and humanitarianism expertises are
accused of continuing neo-colonial subordination, sustaining adevelopment elite,
creating false apolitical neutrality and operating through frameworks of control (Cooke
2004; Minear, p.154; 2002; Crewe 1998, Craig & Porter 1997). Calls arise for
practitioners to politicise expertise and becoming more reflexive (Abbot et al. 2007;
Eyben 2003; Crewe 1998;). Belloni (2005, p. 21) explains:

Humanitarians justify their lack of contextualized knowledge by arguing that they

are ‘professionals’ with technical skills applicable everywhere, and not area
specialists with narrow and ultimately less useful contextual knowledge. […]
Instead, professionalization reinforces a view that the outside expert knows how
best to address the causes for domestic distress. Instead of sustaining local
development, this approach reinforces a form of control.

Directly in response to such critique, the 2.0 generation offers new trends that dethrone
the value of the expert to focus on new qualitative techniques and the production of
meanings by vast audiences (Creeber & Martin 2009, 8; Gauntlett 2007, 2008). The
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nature of the authority previously placed in institutions, academia and expertise is
shifted towards the process of information creation. Wikipedia constitute the most
famous example, as its degree of accuracy relies on the fact that it is subject to
continuous checking and updating from thousands of people from different background
and without money in return, unlike anything published in writing (Shirky 2006, 2008,
quoted in Gauntlett 2009). The same applies for crowdsourcing.

Moreover, 2.0 implies a paradigm shift toward convergence of content within the
consumer culture where content expands across multiple interdependent media types,
like photos on blogs, radio available on the web, etc (Bell 2009, 36) . As tools like
YouTube do not distinguish or rank the different types of sources, a video of a Haitian
citizen, a reporter or the chief executive of the Red Cross all carry the same weight, until
user viewings come in to give them a certain classification. More than ever before, the
amateur voices compete with those of experts. However, this case study will address
the contrast between the acceptance of interaction with constituencies contrasting and
the scepticism on the place of amateurs within emergency intervention itself.

c) Accountability

Downward Accountability - Accountability beyond the concept of responsibility became

prominent on agendas in the 80s with the rise of New Public Management and its
emphasis on measurable targets (Gregory 2003, 564). Since then, the development
industry has often been critiqued for its lack of accountability to victims and
beneficiaries of aid. The combination of greater public awareness of the aid industry
difficulties and the publication of multiple studies4 doubting the effectiveness of aid,
including various papers putting the value of humanitarianism into question 5, has led to
increasing demands for accountability (Wenar 2006, p.5). Indeed, while firms are held
4
Wenar (2006, p.5) rightly gives the following examples: Mosley 1987; Boone 1996; Burnside &
Dollar 2004; Roodman 2004; Edwards & Fowler 2002, 90; Rajan & Subramanian 2005.

5
See for instance: De Waal 2007; Slim 1997; Stoddard 2007; Dubois 2007; Pantuliano &
O’Callaghan 2006; Belloni 2005; Rief 2002; Boltanski 2000; Rajasingham-Senanayake 1999; Keen
1994.
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accountable and kept efficient through exit and voices mechanisms outlined by
Hirschmann (1970) and governments are made responsive through voting instruments,
the third sector (solidaristic organizations) lacks such embedded mechanisms to insure
the link between the beneficiaries and donors as well as taxpayers (Brett 2009; Lewis
2007; Kilby 2006; Ebrahim 2003; Keohane 2002; Spiro 2002). Here again, the
accountability deficit is also criticised within humanitarianism, in terms of liability for
civilian suffering, democratic accountability, participatory approaches, information
sharing and transparency (Branch 2008; Stein 2008; Davis 2007; Bryant 2004; Raynard
2000; Hilhorst 2002; De Waal 1997), despite aid industry’s accountability improvements
(Vaux 2001, p.204). This echoes the previous section since it is the humanitarian
industry reliance on technical expertise as the mean for efficient delivery that restrains
the recourse to democratic accountability methods (Branch 2008, 170).

Hence, through the levelling down of expertise, convergence, and decentralisation of

tasks to the public, crowdsourcing and social media provide hope for beneficiaries to
improve their voice. Whilst social media facilitate the production of information online
and dialogue between stakeholders, other initiatives allow the aggregation of help
request sent from Haitian mobile phones. Ushahidi Project 4636 mobilizes online-
volunteers to aggregate and translate phone texts messages sent to this unique
shortcode. Flows go both ways since users can subscribe to customized sms alert, in
case of a outbreak of violence in their region, for instance. Whilst some project like
Ushahidi existed prior to the earthquake, other emerged in the wake of the event, like
NOULA, an Haitian call centre that also acts as an interactive platform mapping crisis
needs and online database (noula.ht; Kurt, quoted in Khelladi 2010). This is to say that
there is an emergence of situations in which citizens bypass humanitarian experts to
voice their concerns and to receive help.

However, this case study will suggest that such voice opportunities mainly present
themselves to a minority of beneficiaries already at advantage, or suffer from technical
deficiencies, while democratic accountability still relies on traditional methods.
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Upward Accountability - Power (1997) established that in our contemporary society
characterized by mistrust, there is an explosion in audit. Verification and controls are
now social norms, and problem solving is done through constant assessment. However
he underlines the danger of accountability measures becoming ritualistic, bringing
legitimacy merely by doing it. Simply ‘doing it’ does not make it valid since there are
many pitfalls for organizations engaging with accountability practices, such as diffusion
effects obscuring aid outcomes, simple models for complex worlds, and retrospective
biases where events are reconstructed a posteriori (March & Sutton 1997). Also,
organizations encounter attribution and endogeneity measurement problems. They also
face multiple perverse incentives like underestimating potential to increase the
likelihood of impressive performances, valuing quantity over quality to meet quantitative
donor targets, or restrain from excelling when donor thresholds are met (Hirshmann
2002). This comes in addition to the facts that transfers from performance numbers to
facts are often negotiated, and that performance is socially constructed (Harper 2000).
Gregory (2003) further underlined the role of accountability as an instrument of control,
the incentive to hide bad results, the tendency to reward public servants for their
conformity, and the challenge of assigning blame to concrete individuals. Humanitarian
reporting is not immune to such shortcomings.

Nevertheless, the aspect of upward humanitarian accountability on which the most ink
has been spilt is probably the “symbiotic relationship” (Rieff 2002, 84) humanitarians
maintain with the media, giving a skewed feedback of their work to civil society and
privileging interests over accountability. “Where there is no camera, there is no
humanitarian intervention”. This quote of Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Médecins
Sans Frontières (UNDP 2006, 9) illustrates it well.

This symbiosis becomes of enhanced importance with the 2.0 era since 2.0 brings a new
form of networked journalism that blurs the divide between alternative and traditional
media and increases the non governmental organizations’ (NGOs) participation into the
practice of generating news content (Beckett 2009). Such shift was made possible by a
conjuncture of recent related phenomena: the rise of amateurism; decreasing costs of
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modes of productions and accessibility of instructions on how to use them; and the
formation of vibrant online communities (Howe 2008).

This increasing media role of NGOs is furthermore critical since media are crucial in
shaping the dynamic response of civil society to a disaster, guiding people’s compassion
or scepticism (Bruna Seu quoted in Beckett 2009). Indeed, media-conveyed disaster
imagery is decisively related to compassion fatigue (Moeller 1999), foreign policy
(Perlmutter 1998), victim dehumanization (Lissner 1979; Benthall 1993),
cosmopolitanism, imagined communities and mediation (Chouliaraki 2006, 2008). This
novel weight of the humanitarian media role will be confirmed by this case study, and
further explored.

In brief, theoretical roles of 2.0 instruments for the humanitarian industry abound.
Literature allows us to depict a portrait of the 2.0 impact on humanitarianism as a
generally beneficial one that addresses the main challenges of adaptability, bureaucracy,
over-reliance on expertise and accountability shortfalls. Hence, it becomes essential to
contrast this to an empirical appraisal in order to see if the benefits of 2.0 technologies
are confirmed or infirmed. However, taking such a stance would be too polarized and
would fail to disaggregate the various function of technology. If “what is key to the
phenomenon of New Media is our relationship to it”, not the web in itself (Creeber and
Martin 2009, 4), then the next section tries to present humanitarian industry’s
relationship to 2.0. As we deconstruct 2.0 into its multiple functions, closer insight of its
impact is found. The methodology used is first explained, followed by the results of the
research.
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Chapter 3: Case Study

Methodology

The case study of the aftermath of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on
January 12th 2010 was chosen because the extent to which ICTs were used in the
response was unprecedented and identified by many as a turning point in the use of ICT
for humanitarianism (US Department of State Humanitarian Information Unit 2010).
“Almost all relief agencies, UN agencies and military actors including the US Southern
Command embraced Twitter, Facebook, wikis, websites and mobiles in their work, to
coordinate, collaborate and act upon information from the ground generated by victims”
(Hattotuwa & Stauffacher 2010). As Haiti is not a complex emergency involving conflict,
this aspect of humanitarianism is not involved in this study.

The influence of Web 2.0 on humanitarianism being an especially recent concept, the
aim of the chosen methodology was to provide a first overview of the phenomenon. As
the operations in Haiti are still ongoing, this research does not evaluate the outcomes of
2.0 instruments on the emergency response or their measured effectiveness. It rather
seeks to uncover their functions within the humanitarian industry by gauging the ways in
which those are perceived to have affected the various aspects of the industry, according
to humanitarians themselves, in order to contrast the theory with the reality of the
workers. In others words, the study aims at identifying the domains and factors
composing a complete picture of understanding, as depicted in Figure 1. The domains
are here defined as the main groups of stakeholders, i.e. aid beneficiaries, the
humanitarian organizations, and the citizens and civil society. The latter encompasses
public and private donors, organizations’ members and constituencies, interest groups
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and media6. The factors are defined as the interactions between the domains, as
illustrated by the arrows in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The interaction between the main stakeholders of emergency aid

To document this, data collection was conducted in July and August 2010 and consisted
of semistructured interviews and an online survey. To conduct the analysis, an
abductive approach is used, i.e. various phenomena were identified and then related to
larger concepts. Such methodology is best-suited for the high level of novelty implied in
the present research (Coffey & Atkinson 1996, Dubois & Gadde 2002, Ruuska 2005;
quoted in Teigland 2010). In addition to maximizing participation by offering choice,
adopting this double methodology gives complementary insights on the question. The
6
The place of the media as part of civil society is debated (Spurk 2007), but as this paper particularly focus
on the development-support roles media can play, not their role in the market, it is here included it as part
of the civil society, as do other authors (such as Tongeren et al. 2005, Berger 2002, Wanyande 1996;
quoted in Spurk 2007). This is especially appropriate when the concept of civil society is taken broadly, as
defined by the London School of Economics Centre for Civil Society: “Civil society refers to the arena of
uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional forms
are distinct from those of the state, family and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state,
civil society, family and market are often complex, blurred and negotiated.” (Center for Civil Society 2004).
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semi-structured interviews confirm or invalidate the validity of the factors found in the
literature, and add supplementary ones (Schensul et al. 1999, p.150), while the survey
constituted a way to get an exploratory overview of the relative weights of various
viewpoints. However, a rigid questionnaire would have been ill-suited to assess a novel
phenomenon, as domains and factors are still to be discovered. Instead, the
questionnaire was constituted of open-ended questions with both multiple choices,
positive and negative, and essay boxes. While the latter allowed freedom in the answers,
the multiple choice fulfilled a function similar to the probes normally sent during an
interview discussion and constituted additional inputs to help the appropriate
understanding of the questions. A little over one hundred organizations active on the
field after the earthquake were contacted (Appendix 1). Despite the fact that only one
type of stakeholder could be interviewed, the participants represent various levels of the
industry. While eleven out of the total 26 informants have a position related to
communications, marketing, finance and campaigning, twelve have work related to the
field of development, logistics, disaster response and cluster coordination. Finally, three
have executive positions.

The questionnaire (Appendix 3) comprises ten questions elaborated according to this

organigram. Each question addresses a different component of the organigram 7,
numbers on Figure 1 representing the survey questions associated with the domains and
factors. Each question could be answered positively or negatively by the respondents.

Results

a) Web 2.0 General Usage

The instruments most reportedly used are social media (100 percent of the
respondents), amongst which Facebook and Twitter appear to be the most popular,
which is consistent8 with global usage (Social Media Watch). More than 80 percent of
7
Question 1 and 2 are absent of the schema as they addressed simple contact details and general Web 2.0
usage.

8
MySpace actually holds the second rank, but is mostly famous for being the world's largest music
community (MySpace 2010)
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the respondent use photo and video-sharing tools, and the same proportions reported
using blogs. The latter seemed to have entered the industry earlier, with 3 respondents
having reported using blogs before 2008, but none for social networking and media
sharing websites. Overall, the majority uses all three tools and have implemented their
use in prior to the earthquake, except for one respondent joining after.

The wikis and crowdsourcing instruments remain overwhelmingly unused. The reasons
seemed to vary between ignorance, scepticism and lack of resources. Eight respondents
reported using user-generated content.

Interviewed respondents seemed to have adopted 2.0 merely because it was a fad, to
stay afloat amongst other organizations doing it. However, 2.0 now appears to be used
on a regular basis and appreciated, although mainly, as detailed below, for
communication purposes rather than coordination and problem-solving. Informants also
expressed financial concerns of benefiting from the opportunity to reach audiences for
free. More importantly, none of the respondents consider the existence of 2.0 as a
whim. Two of them explicitly used the terms “paradigm shift” to describe the
phenomenon, a trend that they said the aid world needs to follow.

b) Aid and Beneficiaries

With regards to aid beneficiaries, no form of intentional or blatant discrimination seems

to have emerged via 2.0. However, pre-existing biases potentially have been reinforced.
In the words of Sarah Cool, ex-Logistic Coordinator for Beyond Borders, “those served
were already at an advantage: strong men in urban areas, those who were ‘rich’, literate
and educated”. Nigel Woof, Chief Executive for MapAction, an emergency mapping
service, furthermore suggested that Project 4636 may have emphasized search and
rescue activities and brought inclinations to direct aid towards groups that self-
highlighted their needs via 2.0, instead of more objectively-defined victims. He notes the
absence of any proper evaluation to this day.
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Yet, the majority of respondents downsized the role of 2.0 instruments in modifying
types of aid, channels and beneficiaries. Many respondents rather emphasized the value
of in-person assessments and Haitian networks previously built by their organization as
their strongest medium of need appraisal, especially by faith-based organizations that
rely heavily on religious community networks. Tiffany Kuehner, vice-president of Hope
for Haiti, suggests that Ushahidi might have been more useful to newer organizations
that lack such contacts.

c) Aid Coordination

The influence of 2.0 on the emergency coordination is surprisingly weak. One third of the
respondents felt that overall 2.0 made no difference on the coordination effort, an
opinion echoed in the interviews. Some however explained their indifference as a
balance of positive and negative effects. It is also important to note that respondents
who chose the “no difference on coordination” answer also reported not using
collaborative maps. Instead, they mainly use social medias, which are more associated
with outside-Haiti purposes. Few praised or even discussed crowdsourcing, and only one
informant mentioned NOULA.

Despite this, some trends do appear. The most cited benefits of 2.0 are the expanded
amount of available information, the fact that it is more detailed, and the speed it brings
to information management. Interestingly, those are all more characteristic of the
general web era than 2.0. Respondent reported nearly no effect on accuracy, flexibility
and resilience, all of which are prominent 2.0 features. The only characteristic
emblematic of 2.0 that was more widely chosen (44.4 percent) is the role 2.0 played into
bolstering collaboration between organizations on the ground, which is consistent with
the findings about networking functions discussed further below. Finally, a minority of
organizations appreciate using social media, wikis and applications like Google groups to
facilitate internal communication.
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Besides, 2.0 brought emphasis on information customization, a feature underlined by a
few respondents that appreciate the option of tailoring disaster information flows to
their organization’s needs (by region, by topic, by expertise). Nevertheless, a Haiti Desk
Officer also brought to light an important pitfall, explaining that an excess of
customization can create, to a certain extent, a silo effect in the coordination effort.

d) New technologies’ management

With regards to 2.0 ICT on the ground, several points of discontent emerged. Many
technical deficiencies were reported, ranging from telephony and internet dysfunctions,
to physical equipment problems due to humidity and sand, to more specific user
interface deficiencies from both Ushahidi and InterAction maps. The incompatibility of
various geospatial data was also blamed, one respondent saying crowdsourced maps
were “useless” since an important proportion of the mapped needs were inaccurately
localised in the ocean.

Furthermore, the issue of information overload was chosen by one third of the
questionnaire respondents. Hence a separate issue arise: the coordination of 2.0
instruments themselves. Many commented on the mass of “random data” and “noise”.
A respondent summarizes: “I think that the amount of information and the lack of
coordination between many channels created less efficiency in the response between
NGOs and on the ground.”

Such information surplus was additionally criticised by some interview respondents who
specified that the burden mainly came from the unvalidated nature of the data flowing
in. Authenticating data, screening 2.0 resources and distinguishing between competing
sources of crisis information was a time-consuming burden, especially for organization
whose staff was not familiar with 2.0. De-duplicating new data was also arduous. Hence,
the benefits of the innovations must be weighed against the potential nuisance of the
amount of ICT novelties. Nigel Woof writes:
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“Most web 2.0 projects don't add value in our work, but one or two add big value.
The rapid availability of new OpenStreetMap data was of substantial benefit to our
work, while screening other web 2.0 channels involved an opportunity cost. The
main problem here was that many of the web 2.0 resources sprang up during the
emergency and therefore required time and effort to check out to find out if they
were relevant/useful - most were not.”

Linked to this is the fact that respondents implied that sources with long-established
credibility were favoured over more technologically advanced ones for decision-making.
Trust seemed to be an important factor in the choice of web tools usage. For instance,
the United Nation online cluster system and maps were often mentioned and received
general approval. Hence, web 2.0 then seem to act as a second choice or an add-on. If
OpenStreetMap, a collaborative editable online map, was widely used, Frank Schott,
Global Program Director for NetHope thinks it was “in part because there were no other
good alternatives”. Finally, the recent nature of the tools might also be part of the
general mistrust and lack of use of 2.0 tools for coordinating purpose. Schott underlined
the ineffectiveness of new devices in emergency situations, explaining that tools must be
implemented before the disaster to maximize their benefit.

e) Downward Accountability

Underlining access and illiteracy reasons, respondents report little interaction of 2.0 with
the beneficiaries other than a few anecdotal examples. Still, for one respondent, the
stories of Haitians posting their opinions online or sending mobile text messages for help
is significant of the “ability for Haitians to better voice their desire for accountability”.
However interviewees confirmed that use of 2.0 by the Haitians themselves was very
rare. Yet, some respondents noticed an increase in the diaspora web activity, mainly
criticizing the relief effort via social media, criticism to which they could respond via the
same instruments. James Shepherd-Barron from UNICEF’s Asia Pacific Shared Services
Centre (APSSC) explains that democratic accountability is still done via traditional
methods such as village meetings accompanied by translators.
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When a shift in accountability was sensed by respondents, it was an indirectly one, via
the impact 2.0 had on media coverage. Indeed, eight online respondents answered that
Web 2.0 improved it. Reflecting this, none of them chose to answer that Haitian had
more control over disaster communications nor that more Haitians had such control,
even though four respondents answered 2.0 gave more voice to Haitians and three
observed improvement in diaspora’s voice. Some respondents stressed how the
abundance of new tools did nothing to change the mainstream media coverage of the
marginalized, or even created a new bias towards the Haitians with access to Internet
and mobiles. Interestingly, organizations mainly did not refer to a change in
conventional journalism, but rather to the expansion of their own coverage. Seven
online-respondents reported increasing their media role. Ten (52.6 percent) believe that
with social media allows them to tell more complex stories of aid, which interviews
corroborated. Moreover, ten answered that Web 2.0 will allows the Haiti story to
continue to be told when the short term media leave, thereby giving more coverage of
the aid actions for the reconstruction phase.

f) Upward Information Flows and Accountability

An Haiti Desk Officer informant wrote: “I think that accountability was high profile and
was more public in this disaster - probably more so than other disasters since the SE
Asian Tsunami. “ Indeed, many embrace the possibility offered by 2.0 to respond to
mainstream media and citizen criticisms, not only through simple articles, but, as noted
by a Campaign Specialist, with photos, videos and stories (a 1.0 feature made more
wide-reaching via social medias sharing options).

Wayne de Jong, director of disaster response and rehabilitation for the Christian
Reformed World Relief Committee, underlined the importance of the frequency
permitted by social media. Repeatedly exposing constituencies to a message constitutes
for him an effective way to combat information overload. He described how this
frequency is combined with the power of having a supplementary channel, since when
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members are confronted with the same content via church bulletins, e-news, paper mail
and social media, information “sinks in”.

Improvements in details, frequency and longer term information results in an aid

reporting where, in the words of one marketing specialist, “content is now king”. Yet,
two informants underlined that this depends on the people’s interaction with the
content. If they only read a post, then they get simpler stories. Only when they reach
contents hyperlinked to the image, icon or post, do they actually get more complete
information. Social media brings potential numbers. This raises the question of
monitoring: do organizations know if users actually reach for the detailed content?
Aside big organizations like UNICEF, almost no informant reported having proper
schemes or staff dedicated to systematic social media monitoring. Some organizations
do try to tailor their content to the public’s interests by asking about their preferences,
although it appears to be through informal channels. Only two questionnaire-
respondents reported using 2.0 to measure their constituencies’ interest, although many
interviewees expressed the desire to be able to do so in the future.

On the contrary, a respondent from a UN organization exposed a view that contrasts

with the ones of smaller private organizations, explaining they voluntarily do not seek
dialogue with their constituencies. He first highlights the non-existence of a single UN
first person voice. There is only UN invoice. Only regional chapters can adopt a personal
two-ways interaction. He secondly expressed doubtfulness on the relevance and
logistical feasibility of a UN branch having to deal with thousands of amateurs’ opinions
on the way aid should be managed. Through their use of social media, they are rather
interested in letting other people dialogue and learn from their content, and are not
meant to be a democracy. UNICEF’s APSSC Shepherd-Barron is equally doubtful of
initiatives that would allow anyone to jump in the decision-making arena, and specifies
the UN must be very cautious of hacking attempts. However, an open online dialogue
to which different kind of professionals can freely contribute, i.e. bounded
crowdsourcing, seemed to him the best solution for technical problems. But he believes
that such technique has a caveat that has yet to be solved: publicly acknowledging that
you need help.
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Shepherd-Barron addressed more specifically the issue of accountability to donors and

taxpayers and questions the validity of the current system of reporting. He explains that
less than half of the organizations under its aegis are regularly reporting their activities
to the cluster coordination staff, and that this monitoring gives only a partial overview of
what is really happening on the ground. This partial knowledge is then communicated
through reports, biased by default due to the viewpoints of the authors and the
aforementioned incentives to hide failures. Consequently, he legitimately asks whether
if, in presence of such poor quality and inexact science, reporting would not be more
representative by making the primary data (daily updates on social media) available to
the world and there to be analysed by everyone.

Finally, nine online-respondents answered that 2.0 allowed them to increase their
advocacy role. Patrick Nicholson, Director of the Communications for Caritas
Internationalis, said that 2.0 is perfect for aid agencies because they get more voice on
the international agenda. However, only three people chose that 2.0 enlarged their
watchdog role, which might be linked to the lack of consistent social media strategic
foresight.

g) Audience and Flows From the Civil Society

The most widely celebrated feature of social media was definitely its opportunities for
free visibility and fundraising. However, it is important to underline that such
enthusiasm might result from the fact that eleven out of the total of 26 informants have
a position related to communication, campaigning, marketing and finance.

In terms of visibility, ten out of nineteen people answered 2.0 broadened their audience,
and the same amount reported new types of audience. Most of the people interviewed
however did not seem to grasp the demographics of those, aside from sensing they
target a younger generation. One media specialist specified that different social media
seemed to be targeting different audience. One Senior Global Marketing Specialist more
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generally explains that, before social media, the “dry” and “scientific” content of a UN
website would mainly reach doctors, policymakers and good will people, but now
penetrating a citizen audience. He stressed the unprecedented exponential transmission
of content through friends of the friends. For instance, he explains how the month
following the earthquake saw their Facebook fans increasing by 45 000 users, and their
Twitter followers more than tripled within the same period.

Ten online-respondent reported having more feedback, but only five report different
types of feedback. Six feel that the interaction and increased visibility allows them to
built trust amongst their members. With regards to fundraising, eight reported an
increase in citizen donors due to 2.0, versus only three choosing an increase in corporate
donors. Donors results echo the audience expansion, as Tiffany Kuehner explains that
social media have allowed a younger generation to get involved at a smaller but still
important level. Mark Kaech, New Media Specialist for Food for the Hungry, also notices
a faster engagement, which is moreover interactive for the first time.

h) Organizations’ Internal Practices

Unlike other technologies, the tools brought by the new web generation do not seem to
imply major opportunity cost. Thirteen out of nineteen online-respondents answered
that 2.0 tools simply complemented other aspects of their work, the typical costs
reported being an additional staff member for larger organizations, and time burden for
the others. However, nobody expressed any strong annoyance with such additional
burden, except on the field for the tools screening and data validation aforementioned.
Six online-respondent specified that implementing 2.0 implied benefits that outweigh
the costs, while no respondent chose only the opposite (one respondent chose both,
explaining that it depended on which 2.0 tool). Five online-respondents answered that it
implied new organizational ethics, however none of them chose to specify in what way.

i) Organizational Relations
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When asked if they thought that Web 2.0 tools modified their relations with other
organizations, networking came out as an important answer. It generated the strongest
result of the whole study, with fourteen of the nineteen (73.7 percent) online-
respondents choosing this answer. Also, ten respondents reported changes in their
relation with other humanitarian organizations. Nine believe 2.0 tools act as a forum,
and seven reported that 2.0 instruments bring new partnerships. Six considered it
modified their relation with the media. Five reported a change in their relations with
corporate donors, and the same number noticed a change with the private sector
outside Haiti. Mark Kaech explained that social media particularly helped its
organization to strengthen their partnerships with small corporate start-ups, for instance
in the field of web design or t-shirts products. Social media allow them to promote each
other. Kaech also specified that he feels the communication with traditional media is
still separated from social media tools, but that change is underway. If four informants
agreed that the easy accessibility and gratuity of 2.0 tools raises more competition as
little organizations now have easier access to the public, this was not perceived as threat
or major concern, but rather as a reason to stay wired and engage with 2.0.

Building on those results, the next section will discuss their implication in relation to
theory. It will also draw a picture of the observe impact of 2.0 on the overall interactions
of the humanitarian industry, and highlights important implications needing for further
investigation.
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Chapter 4: Discussion  

In chapter two, it has been argued that in theory 2.0 seem to offers many benefits for
key challenges faced by humanitarianism. These are reviewed in light of the
humanitarian workers points of view exposed in chapter three.

On Complexity and Centralisation

“At the end of the day, just leaving it to the free market and chaos is not going to work,
that is what Haiti showed.” This quote from an informant sums up the many difficulties
of implementing 2.0 innovations.

On the ground, the coordination of the abundance of new tools and data is problematic,
and it seems that supplementary chaos is being added to disasters previously defined in
chapter two as chaotic or complex. The use of problem solving through distributed
cognition and collaborative tools that offered potential to deal with such complexity
came out to be the exception rather than the norm, due to ignorance, lack of trust, and
disappointment with the platforms that are causing the low attention given to those
instruments. This would be well worth investigating.

First, common ignorance imply a need for platforms like Ushahidi to market themselves
differently, potentially outside the 2.0 channels and networks of people to reach smaller
and less wired organizations. Secondly, lack of trust for recent instruments underlined
by certain respondent is compatible with the common institutionalization of older
behaviours slowing down the response to new elements (Lieberman & Asaba 2006).
This is to say that a tool that allows more flexibility does not in itself address the issue of
organizational rigidity if an organization is reluctant to risk implementing change in the
first place. Also, this puts forwards the need to familiarise the workers with 2.0 before
the need for them arises, as disaster management leave little time for new skill-building.
A third possibility is disappointment with the tool, which was also expressed in the
sample as complaints on user interface, GPS accuracy and data validation.
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Data verification was indeed a big problem and has since been discussed regularly by
Ushahidi people (Dutta & Chan 2010; Meier 2010b; Meier 2010c; Ushahidi blog 2010),
notably through their evolving collaboration with SwiftRiver, a “software platform that
uses a combination of algorithms and crowdsourced interaction to validate and filter
news” (drupal.org/project/swiftriver; Hersman 2009; Gosier 2010) that arose from the
need. The effectiveness of such validation is thus to be further examined as it develops
within the next months. However, one element of disappointment put forward by the
informants has yet to be addressed: the extent to which the mobile alerts and
crowdsourcing methods are inducing a bias in the response towards victims that are able
to self-highlight their need because of their access to technology (mobiles and
computers). From a deontological perspective, any life is worth saving and hence any
additional information or life saved is welcomed. On the other side, it is imperative to
question the ethics of such functioning since informants also suggested that those aided
by disaster response technologies were mainly people already at advantage. This
strengthens the ICT4D sceptics argument that technology leads to divergence more than
convergence in equity. There is a need to evaluate whether 2.0 crisis response
platforms further marginalizing the less privileged.

Also, the aforementioned criticism that the media tend to oversimplify the complexity of
aid appears to be modified. If Beckett affirms “there is a limit to the ability of the
mainstream media to tell such a complex story” (2009), this seems to be altered by the
media production role adopted by humanitarian NGOs, via the detail, frequency,
persistence overtime, and interaction that storytelling through social media offers them.
The traditional media, on its part, is not perceived as escaping a coverage of
stereotyping, image recycling, and “parachute journalism” (Allen & Schomerus 2008).

Moreover, the question persists: more complex information might be available, but to
what extent is it thoroughly read and understood? Organizations must address social
media monitoring to ensure their effort is valuable. If complexity is now produced, the
next step is to evaluate its reception and scale. Moreover, one must be careful when
analysing social media numbers. Multiple interactions do not equate with an equal range
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of audience, especially because a small minority of microblog users account for a striking
majority of interactions (Cheng & Evans 2009; eMarketer.com 2010), and because in the
sphere of social media, popularity is not strongly correlated with influence (Romero et al.
2010).

One questionnaire informant raised the issue of the silo effect resulting from over-
customizing communications. This corroborates the ICT4Peace report on crisis
information management in Haiti that also highlights problems of ICTs isolation
(Hattotuwa & Stauffacher 2010). If decentralisation has many theoretical advantages, it
can also be mismanaged and result in remoteness and overlaps. There is here a danger
to go full circle: by decentralising to gain flexibility and innovation to such an extent that
decentralised islands only address specific unconnected issues, the knowledge
exchanges needed to innovate are lost, as is the diversity of inputs. This shows that 2.0
tools are indeed merely tools that are, as underlined by Hope for Haiti vice-president,
only “as good as their users”. According to Sarah Cool from Beyond Borders a master
plan was lacking after the earthquake and six months later is still absent. Hence, if no
adequate coordination is in place, we must guard ourselves against magical thinking that
ICTs or decentralisation will make it happen.

On Expertise

If 2.0 broke away from authority in expertise to introduce trust in the process of
information management, this case study showed that such trust needs to be nurtured
for humanitarians will primarily rely on long-established sources such as human
networks or international organizations’ material seen as more legitimate. The levelling
down of expertise outside the industry leaves humanitarians sceptical. Indeed, in the
case of data validation, the crowd is said to be the best means to filter collaborative
information (Howe 2008, 223-246). Yet, APSSC Haiti WASH Cluster Coordinator James
Shepherd-Barron raises a crucial question: will the crowd always be there, and will the
validation process be fast enough? Even acknowledging that crowdsourcing does not
solely depends on volunteers (also on the diaspora for instance), Shephard-Barron
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believes that if people are not paid for their effort, the solution is not sustainable. This
is conversant with Sharma’s framework of crowdsourcing that places the crowd’s motive
alignment and participation at the heart of success (2010). Hence, will there be enough
people to filter the data in less ‘popular’ disasters? As those lines are being written, the
international lack of engagement for the floods ravaging Pakistan (Zaidi 2010; Sheerin
2010) accentuates the relevance of the question. Shepherd-Barron however praised
online collaborative problem-solving, when done amongst specialists. This is to say that a
balance must be found between opening aid decisions to unfiltered amateurism and
confining the debate between experts. However, expertise might be decreasing in terms
of audience if, as reported, the scientific content is now reaching normal citizens
whereas it previously was only read by academia and policymakers. A step forward in
awareness is a first step towards improved accountability.

On Accountability

Our case study has shown the small weight of the 2.0 instruments interaction with
Haitians, minus a small proportion of the diaspora. In light of the Network Readiness
(which indicates the capability of citizens, businesses, and governments to leverage the
potential of ICTs) rank of Haiti in 2003-04 9, 100th out of 102, this is not especially
surprising (Dutta, Langevin, Paua 2004). It corroborates the conclusion made by
ICT4Peace that the majority of Haiti victims were outside the ICT effort (Hattotuwa &
Stauffacher 2010). Likewise, this means 2.0 tools so far fail to classify as ‘per-poor’
(Heeks 2008) initiatives, and are rather working alongside poor beneficiaries. However,
indirect beneficiaries’ accountability is modified through the allegedly improved media
coverage done by humanitarian NGOs. Yet, it is important to question the natural biases
of activists’ news production. Are NGOs really producing more quality information, or
are they merely marketing themselves to a new degree?

Furthermore, while many report increasing their media role, only a small minority of
informants seemed to be concerned with new media ethics. There is a need in the
9
no more recent ranking available for Haiti
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industry to address issues currently debated within the media field: privacy versus
freedom of expression, assumed agreement of the individuals on published content
taken from user-generated material, media literacy deficits, liability of individuals’ blogs
for employees of organizations, enforcements measures for breaching ethics codes,
policies on fake and official accounts, etc (for instance Hussain 2010; Bell 2010; WOMMA
2009). Addressing the demand for ethics is especially important since “reputation can be
strategically exchanged for trust” (Wreschiniok 2008, 46) and because digital natives are
accustomed to a new degree of transparency (Brogan & Smith 2009, 9).

With regards to upward accountability, and in an era described as a paradigm shift, the
aforementioned thoughts of James Shepherd-Barron regarding reporting inaccuracies
should elicit consideration. As 2.0 multiplies the opportunities for dialogue and
communication, why should we continue to rely on biased intermediates to report
humanitarian activities to us? Why not construct of picture of the aid effort directly
from the cloud of raw data available about the project we decided to finance? Even
though linearity is becoming outdated, donors and policymakers’ love of quantitative
data and pie chart restrain their incentives to follow the trend of 2.0 clouds of data.
Hence, it might become the role of citizens-donors and taxpayers to push for change. In
addition to question the accuracy of current reporting methods, we now need to
conceive its potential obsolescence.

On Organizational Practices

In addition to contrast theoretical benefits of 2.0 for humanitarianism with their realities
on the ground, this case study has shed light on organizational practices related to 2.0.
With regards to their adoption, the fact that many humanitarian organizations first
implemented 2.0 to be part of the times is representative of phenomena addressed by
the literature on organizational behaviour that highlights herd effects, and desires to
keep a competitive edge and limit rivalry (Lieberman & Asaba 2006). However,
arguments in favour of implementing 2.0 technology strategies are also rational and
based on economical concerns of savings. Finally, underlying political argument of
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promotional self-interest are perceived at the organization level, and potential hidden
career interests at the individual level, which is also conversant with theory (Comptois et
al. 2004). Self-interest is also visible from the fact that the tools favouring fundraising
and general visibility are largely more embraced than problem solving ones like
crowdsourcing platforms.

The study also revealed that the networking between humanitarian organizations
appears to be enhanced by 2.0, as are partnerships and forum interactions. Since the
study also stressed the importance of human networks built before disasters, it is not
impossible to conceive that organizations could indirectly coordinate need-assessments
by uniting their respective networks. It would be interesting to investigate whether such
a practice of ‘networking networks’ exists, and what value this conveys.

In brief, 2.0 possibilities for the wisdom of crowd still have a long way to go before being
mainstreamed, but the industry nevertheless embraced social media communications.
Hence, the factors of beneficiary type, aid type, aid channels, aid coordination and
downward accountability seem to carry less weigh in the influence of 2.0 on
humanitarianism than the factors of organizations’ relations, NGO media coverage,
visibility, audience, donor relations and upward accountability. Thus interestingly,
despite the fact that 2.0 presents features especially applicable to complexity and
emergencies, the benefits found do not reflect factors specific to humanitarianism, but
rather those also found in development organizations in general.
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Chapter 5: Conclusion

This paper has sought to gauge the influence of the 2.0 generation of tools on the
industry of humanitarian aid. It explained that ICT4D debates failed to adequately
address this field of development, despite the fact that 2.0 ICTs theoretically offer
features that are especially applicable to emergency responses. The study showed that
2.0 characteristics address key challenges found in criticisms of development and
humanitarianism, namely lack of adaptability, hierarchical rigidity, over-reliance on
expertise, and accountability deficit. Hence, this study has first sought to disaggregate
the functions of 2.0 ICTs to find a new compromise within the polarized ICT4D debate,
has secondly aimed at linking 2.0 theory and humanitarian applications, and as a result
painted a portrait of the importance of 2.0 tools within various fields of
humanitarianism. To do this, six semi-structured interviews have been conducted and
an online questionnaire has been filled by nineteen workers from various departments
of humanitarian organizations.

The main findings are that distributed cognition initiatives for coordination and problem-
solving are far less embraced by the industry than the social media enabling new types
of communication within humanitarians as well as with their constituencies, mainly for
reasons of ignorance, lack of trust, and technological deficiencies. This is to say that
currently, the domains of humanitarian organizations and civil society influence the
industry more than the domain of beneficiaries. The case study finds more influence of
2.0 on the following factors, all related to the relation between the industry and civil
society, or between humanitarians themselves : networking, media coverage done by
humanitarian organizations, visibility, constituencies’ feedback and fundraising, upward
accountability.

This contributes to the ICT4D debate and brings a new compromise. If 2.0 technologies
have not yet become a clear benefit for chaos management and humanitarian aid on the
ground, they might still indirectly impact the field positively by its resonance within
DV410 Page 36 of 67
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organizations themselves and in their relation with civil society. Unfortunately, this
implies that the matter is again situated in Western hands.

Chapter four has introduces many questions to be addressed as well as further avenues
for research, namely in the fields of 2.0 data validation, taxpayer accountability relying
on primary data, the need for humanitarians to address social media monitoring and
ethics, the blurring of the frontier between media production and humanitarian self-
marketing, and the feasibility of finding a balance between the reliance on amateurism
and the dogma of expertise.

Finally, one last key future trend for 2.0 and humanitarianism is to assess its
development for the long-term reconstruction effort. Despite their shy reliance on 2.0
tools on Haitian ground, what is striking is the number of respondents who nevertheless
expressed their faith in the potential of such Web innovations for the future. As one
informant wrote, they are “optimistic that as the country rebuilds more Web 2.0 tools
will be used for future coordination”. Crowdsourcing and collaborative mapping can be
used, amongst other things, for income earning via micro task outsourcing
(crowdflower.com; txteagle.com) and as vulnerability alert systems (Meier 2010d), and
fundraising for Haiti and humanitarian organizations in virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life) is
already reality (Teigland 2010). The potential is thus not fictitious. Seven months after
the earthquake, the ongoing recovery effort have yet to tell if such high expectations can
be met, or if the oscillating pendulum will lean towards the ICT4D sceptics camp.
DV410 Page 37 of 67
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DV410 Page 38 of 67
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Wenar, Leif. 2006. Accountability in International Development Aid. Ethics &

International Affairs. 20 (1), Spring: 1-23.

Whittle, D. & Kuraishi, M. 2008. Competing with Central Planning: Marketplaces for
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Wilson, Ernest J. 1998. Globalization, Information Technology, and Conflict in

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Appendices
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Appendix 1: List of organizations contacted

1. Action Against Hunger Canada
2. Action Against Hunger France
3. Action Against Hunger Spain
4. Action Against Hunger USA
5. Action Against Hunger UK
6. Agape Flights
7. Airline Ambassadors International
8. American Red Cross
9. American Refugee Committee
10. American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
11. American Jewish World Service
12. AmeriCares
13. Baptist Haiti Mission
14. Beyond Borders
15. B'nai B'rith International
16. CARE
17. Caritas Internationalis
18. CarmaFoundation
19. Catholic Relief Services,
20. Childcare Worldwide,
21. Church World Services,
22. Clinton Foundation,
23. Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
24. Concern Worldwide,
25. Convoy of Hope,
26. Croix-Rouge française
27. Cross International
28. CRUDEM Foundation
29. CRWRC
30. Direct Relief International
31. Episcopal Relief and Development
32. Feed My Starving Children
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33. Food for the Hungry
34. Food for the Poor
35. Friends of WFP
36. Friends of the Orphans
37. Global Aid Network USA
38. Global Aid Network Australia
39. Habitat for Humanity
40. Haiti Children
41. Haiti Foundation Against Poverty
42. Haiti Marycare
43. Haitian Health Foundation
44. Handicap International
45. Healing Hands for Haiti
46. Hope for Haiti
47. International Child Care,
48. International Medical Corps
49. International Rescue Committee
50. International Relief Teams
51. Islamic Relief USA
52. K.I.D.S. (Kids In Distressed Situations)
53. Lions Club International Foundation
54. Lutheran World Relief
55. MapAction
56. Médecins du Monde
57. Médecins Sans Frontières - France
58. MSF - Doctors Without Borders- USA
59. Medical Benevolence Foundation
60. Medical Teams International
61. Meds and Food for Kids
62. Mennonite Central Committee
63. Mercy Corps
64. Merlin USA
65. Mission of Hope Haiti
66. National Nurses United
67. National Religious Broadcasters
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68. Nazarene Compassionate Ministries
69. NetHope
70. New Life for Haiti
71. Operation Blessing
72. Operation USA
73. Orphans International America
74. Oxfam America, Inc.
75. Oxfam Canada
76. Oxfam France
77. Oxfam NOVIB
78. Oxfam UK
79. Pan American Development Foundation
80. Partners in Health
81. Project Hope
82. R.A.P.I.D.
83. Red Cross
84. Relief International
85. RHEMA International
86. Rural Haiti Project
87. Salvation Army
88. Samaritan's Purse
89. Samaritan's Purse Canada
90. Save the Children Federation, Inc
91. ShelterBox
92. Télécoms Sans Frontière
93. UN Central Emergency Response Fund
94. UNFPA
95. UNICEF
96. UNICEF USA
97. United Methodist Committee on Relief,
98. United Way
99. UNWFP
100. World Concern
101. World Hope International
102. World Relief
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103. World Vision
104. Yele Haiti
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Appendix 2: List of respondents

Interviews
Name Title Organization Country
Wayne de Jong Director of Disater Response Christian Reformed Canada
& Rehabilitation World Relief Committee
Mark Kaech New Media Specialist Food for the Hungry USA
Tiffany Kuehner Vice-President Hope for Haiti USA
Patrick Nicholson Director of the Caritas Internationalis Italy
Communications
James Shepherd- Haiti WASH Cluster UNICEF’s Asia-Pacific Thailand
Barron Coordinator Shared Services Center
Anonymous Senior Global Marketing -- USA
respondent Specialist
Online questionnaire
Kim Chapin Director of Education Haiti Foundation USA
and Child Sponsorship Against Poverty
Sarah Cool Logistics Coordinator Beyond Borders USA
Joan DeFrances Director of Finance Haiti Marycare USA
Chiqui Flowers Marketing Coordinator Medical Teams USA
International
Kallista Green Program Manager International Rescue USA
Committee
Frank Schott Global Program Director NetHope USA
Martin Silbernagel Communications Samaritan's Purse Canada
Advisor Canada
Beat Wagner & Head of Communication Swiss Red Cross Switzerland
Karl Schuler & Head of
Communication
International
Cooperation
Nigel Woof Chief Executive MapAction United
Kingdom

Anonymous International Volunteer -- USA

respondent Specialist
Anonymous Emergency Field Worker -- United
respondent Kingdom
Anonymous Haiti Desk Officer -- USA
respondent
Anonymous Campaign Specialist -- USA
respondent
Six other another anonymous respondents from organizations in the USA and Haiti
Note: One email communication with Carole Leman, Director of Development, Agape
Flights
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Appendix 3: Online questionnaire

The Impact Of Web 2.0 Tools On The Humanitarian Aid Industry
INSTRUCTIONS, DEFINITIONS & CONTACT DETAILS
- PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE ANSWERING –

• Research overview: 
Web 2.0 tools had never been used for a humanitarian crisis to such an extent before the
earthquake in Haiti 2010. Hence, the general idea of this research is to get an overview of
humanitarians' feeling towards social technologies: tool or burden? This questionnaire
assesses the role such technologies take in various aspects of your work. 

• Length:
The questionnaire is made of 10 questions, addressing: 
- your contact details and your organization’s general usage of Web 2.0 technologies (2 Q)
- your perception of Web 2.0’s impact on your work in the field in Haiti (4 Q)
- your perception of Web 2.0’s impact on organizational and strategic concerns (4 Q)

• Important - How to answer the questions: 

The questions are VOLUNTARILY VAGUE to allow any kind of answer to come up, POSITIVE
OR NEGATIVE. 
Indeed, questions 3-10 are open-ended and provide both multiple choice answers and
open essay boxes. You can answer with the multiple choice answers if you feel they are
appropriate, however those should only act as SUGGESTIONS or probes that help your
reflection and understanding of the question. Hence, feel free to dismiss the provided
choices and come up with new ones or add more answers in the text box. Please
comment and explain your choices. 

DEFINITIONS
The questionnaire addresses the impact of Web 2.0 technologies. Even though there is no
consensus on how to define Web 2.0, this research takes Web 2.0 as including:
- Social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious)
- Photos and Videos-sharing sites (e.g. YouTube, Flickr, etc.)
- Blogs (Regular web comment-entries with which users can interact)
- Wikis (Websites facilitating the creation & editing of interlinked web pages, e.g.
Wikipedia)
- Web Applications (e.g. Google Documents, Google Groups)
- Crowdsourcing (outsourcing a task to a large amount of people via an open call, e.g.
Ushahidi, txtEagle, CrowdFlower, mCollect)
- User Generated Content (media produced by end-users,e.g. member's pictures)
- Mashups of the above
in brief: 
a web that allows users to do more than merely retrieve information. Web 2.0 users are
both consumers and producers, they can generate and distribute content.
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CONTACT DETAILS (1 Q)
#1 Please enter your name and information before you start.
1. Please complete:

Name:
Surname:
Organization:
Country of the organization:
Job title/ Function/ Position:
Can your name be mentioned in the
dissertation? (Y/N):
Can your position or title be mentioned
in the dissertation? (Y/N):
Can your answers be quoted directly in
the disertation? (Y/N):
If you want to receive a copy of the
final dissertation, please enter a contact
address here:

WEB 2.0 TOOLS USAGE (1 Q)

#2. Does your organization use the followings, and if so, since when?
Example: -Blogs- yes. Since 2008.

 Photo and Video Sharing tools (e.g. YouTube,

Flickr):
 Blog(s):

 Wikis:

 Web application(s):

 Crowdsourced maps (e.g. Ushaihidi):

 User-generated content:

 Other (please specify):

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ON THE GROUND: Web 2.0 FOR THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE IN HAITI (4Q)

-Reminder -
WEB 2.0 TOOLS = 
- Social networking sites
- Photos and Videos-sharing sites 
- Blogs 
- Wikis 
- Web Applications 
- Crowdsourcing and collaborative maps
- User Generated Content
- Mashups of the above

#3 Do you feel Web 2.0 tools TARGETED certain groups of beneficiaries in Haiti? (You
can choose many answers, and add others)

The rural Children

The urban The elderly
The uneducated The religious
The educated The local private sector
The illiterate Local small businesses
The literate Foreign businesses
The media literate Local government (public sector)
The poor Geographical group (e.g. a certain neighborhood)
The rich I think technological tools made NO
difference on the beneficiaries of aid
Men
I don't know
Women
Please specify your thoughts and/or add any other answer :
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4. Did you feel any shifts in the TYPES or CHANNELS of aid sent or carried out in Haiti,
due to Web 2.0 tools?
Did those tools:
(You can choose many answers, and add others)

Focused on products (food, medical supplies, etc.)

Focused on infrastructure (collapsed buildings, etc.)
Focused on delivery (shipments, schedules, etc.)
Focused on events (shortages, deaths, violence outburst, etc.)
Highlighted new needs
Highlighted more needs
Highlighted certain needs to the detriment of other
Changed the information and involvement of the Haitian diaspora
made NO difference on the channels and types of aid delivered or carried out.
I don't know
Please specify your thoughts and/or add any other answer:
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5.  What kind of change did Web 2.0 tools bring in the COORDINATION of the
emergency response in Haiti?
(You can choose many answers, and add others)

More efficiency □ Less efficiencyefficiency

More detailed information More problems of: lack of standards

More accuracy More problems of: lack of code of
conduct
More flexibility More problems of: lack of complaint
mechanisms
More resilience More problems of: isolation between
different technologies
More speed More problems of: fraud
More empowerment More technical problems
(interoperability, carrying capacity,
cascade failure, frequency spectrum,
etc.)
More participation Information overload
More customization More refusal to exchange information
between organizations
More collaboration with other I think Web 2.0 technology made NO
organization difference on the coordination
More decentralization I don't know
More problems of: lack of code of
conduct
Please specify your thoughts and/or add any other answer:
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6. Did Web 2.0 tools modify the ACCOUNTABILITY opportunities for the victims and aid
BENEFICIARIES in Haiti?
(You can choose many answers, and add others)

Haitians had more voice Web 2.0 fragmented media

coverage
More Haitians had voice
Web 2.0 tools lacked complaint
The Haitian diaspora had more voice
mechanisms
Haitians had more control over disaster
Voice was biased towards Haitians
communication
with access to mobiles and Web
More Haitians had control over disaster
Technology complicated Haitian
communications
feedback
Haitians needed less humanitarian
Technology took time/resources
intermediaries to communicate with civil
that could not be allowed to
society
accountability
Web 2.0 improved media coverage
Accountability was NOT
significantly modified
I don't know

Please specify your thoughts and/or add new answers:

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ORGANIZATIONAL AND STRATEGIC CONCERNS (4Q)

-Reminder -
WEB 2.0 TOOLS = 
- Social networking sites
- Photos and Videos-sharing sites 
- Blogs 
- Wikis 
- Web Applications 
- Crowdsourcing and collaborative maps
- User Generated Content
- Mashups of the above

7. Does using Web 2.0 tools imply particular efforts WITHIN your organization? For you
they imply:
(You can choose many answers, and add others)

practice change costs that outweigh benefits

time trade-off benefits that outweigh costs
physical resources trade-off They simply complement other aspects of our work
human resources trade-off They do NOT bring any significant change within the
organization
new organization technology ethics
I don't know
Please specify your thoughts and/or add new answers:
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8. Do Web 2.0 tools modify your relations with OTHER organizations?
(You can choose many answers, and add others)

Yes, with other humanitarian They act as a forum

organizations
Yes, with the medias They act as a networking tool

Yes, with the Haitian government They bring new partnerships

Yes, with the private sector in Haiti They bring more competition as little
organization now have easier access
to the public

Yes, with the private sector outside They make NO significant difference
Haiti

Yes, for corporate funding I don’t know

Please specify your thoughts and/or add new answers:
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9. 
Do you feel any shift, linked with Web 2.0 usage, in the flows you RECEIVE from civil
society (citizens, members, donors), especially regarding your work for Haiti?

(You can choose many answers, and add others)

More amounts of feedback We now use User Generated Content

Different type of feedback We feel we build trust with our

members

Broader audience We are more criticized

New type of audience We are more watched

We perceived new modes of caring Rising expectations are hard to

for the distant other manage

More citizens donors Our expert status is challenged

More corporate donors There is NO difference in our relation

with civil society

New types of donors I don't know

Please specify your thought and/or add new answers:

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10. Do you feel any shift, linked to Web 2.0 usage, in the flows you SEND to civil society
(upward accountability to citizens, members and donors), especially regarding your work
for Haiti?
(You can choose many answers, and add others)

It allows us to ASK what the public We can be more transparent more

wants to read/ us to do easily

It allows us to MEASURE what the It is too resources-consuming

public wants to read/ us to do
We increased our watchdog role The new "always-on/24h" media
type is very challenging

We increased our advocacy role We are afraid of overflowing

audience with information

We increased our media role Web 2.0 is a trend, so we try to

invest a minimum in it

We are able to tell more complex Web 2.0 makes NO difference in our
stories of aid than through upward accountability
conventional medias
We are able to do longer campaigns I don't know
(less compassion fatigue)
Web 2.0 will allows the Haiti story to continue to be told when the short term
media leave
Please specify your thought and/or add new answers: