In an increasingly unpredictable world, the role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in disaster resilience has never been more crucial. During a perspective workshop of the TRANSCEND pilot on Disaster Resilient Societies, led by the Austrian Red Cross, numerous CSOs presented relevant success stories. Speakers at the workshop included: Shaji Ahmed, CEO of Code for Pakistan, Thomas Seltsam, Head of National Disaster Management and Research at the Austrian Red Cross (who presented the Team Österreich project), Judith Schneider, CEO of Start with a Friend Austria and Kalina Bontcheva, Scientific leader of vera.ai. Case studies focussed on the positive impact of digital technologies on disaster resilience and how these technologies can become drivers of innovative strategies and approaches within security research. These points were presented from the perspective of CSOs positioned inside the security research landscape as bridges between citizens, communities, policy makers, researchers and technology developers. The benefits brought by CSOs to disaster resilience (and security research as a whole) range from facilitating community engagement to grassroots innovation and are explored further below.
Local Expertise and Deep Community Engagement
One of the most valuable assets that CSOs bring to disaster resilience is their deep and long-lasting connection to local communities. As we learned in the workshop, CSOs are embedded in the communities they serve, with different activities that can include citizens year-round, building strong networks that can be readily mobilised in case of a disaster.
Code for Pakistan, reported on the importance of building such ties. When deadly floods hit Pakistan in the summer of 2022 affecting more than 33 million people, Code for Pakistan launched Project Floodlight. Thanks to their ongoing activities involving tech-savvy citizens (such as hackathons and project mentoring), they could mobilise a team of developers who could deploy a community-mapping service to signal to citizens resources they could access on the ground. Their social media channels, already active and highly followed, played an important role in disseminating this resource, thus ensuring a successful circulation.
Advocating for Vulnerable Groups and Inclusive Solutions
Disasters do not have an equal impact. CSOs are at the forefront of advocating for vulnerable populations, ensuring they are not overlooked in disaster planning and response. The Austrian Read Cross with the Team Österreich project, brought an interesting reflection on the definition of marginalised groups in times of crisis. In fact, when a disaster hits, the traditional understanding of who is “vulnerable” may need to be reconsidered and adapted to the specific conditions of the disaster. For example, we often think of vulnerability in terms of well-defined categories, such as children, women, refugees, people with disabilities, or those living in poverty. However, as Team Österreich highlighted, new vulnerabilities emerge in different contexts. A person might not be considered vulnerable under normal circumstances, but a disaster can shift this. Mobility impairment, age, language barriers, and even unfamiliarity with technology can quickly turn someone into a vulnerable individual during a crisis. The work of CSOs plays an important role here in terms of bridging this understanding and creating grassroot technological solutions, such as the Team Österreich app, that can address these shifting definitions of vulnerability.
Building Social Resilience
While physical infrastructure is a key component of disaster resilience, social resilience, meaning the strength and cohesion of a community, is equally important. CSOs play a vital role in fostering this kind of resilience by engaging communities, facilitating training programs, and promoting cooperation among neighbours. A prime example is the Start with a Friend Austria program, presented during the workshop, which strengthens social bonds by pairing local volunteers with refugees in “tandems.” These tandems self-organise activities under the CSO’s guidance, fostering cultural exchange and creating stronger community ties. This network of mutual support helps build a more cohesive society, better equipped to respond to and recover from disasters.
Grassroot Innovation
The type of innovation that CSOs contribute often prioritises the well-being of communities and citizens, utilising technologies and solutions that are participatory in both their design and implementation. This bottom-up approach, grounded in local community knowledge, ensures that the innovations are relevant, inclusive, and directly responsive to the needs of those they serve. vera.ai was an interesting example of this innovation, creating tools that use Artificial Intelligence to combat misinformation and disinformation online. These tools were co-developed by both technology experts and information practitioners (researchers, journalists, fact checkers etc.) creating a positive feedback loop between these communities to ultimately serve the broader society in assessing and accessing quality information. Another useful aspect to highlight in grassroots innovation from CSOs is a regard for ethical approaches to technology. While developing Floodlight, Code for Pakistan used an open-source platform, Ushahidi. By using open-source tools, they ensured that the technology remained accessible, adaptable, and accountable to the public. This approach not only builds trust at the local level but also allows the project to contribute to the broader community’s knowledge base by sharing insights and improvements with others using the software, while facilitating wider dissemination of the project.
Building resilient communities in the face of disasters requires collaboration across sectors and stakeholders. TRANSCEND’s perspective workshop shed light on the numerous advantages of involving specifically CSOs stakeholders in security research, starting from the Disaster Resilient Society domain. Within TRANSCEND, we advocate for cross-sector synergies that address security from multiple angles, enhancing overall resilience and effectiveness, but most crucially the involvement of citizens. CSOs are a valuable stepping stone in this direction.
Written by Elena Falomo, Code for All
If you would like to learn more about this work, please feel free to contact us at contact@transcend-project.eu.
