Humanitarians in the sky?
Discussion details
Hello,
I recently read a very interesting article about using UAVs (unmanner aerial vehicles, a.k.a. drones) for disaster response. I am reposting a link to it here. It argues that while satellite imagery has played an important role in relief operations for more than 15 years, it has a number of limitations that nowadays could be easily overcome by more innovative solutions such as UAVs. The article details several interesting examples of successful use of UAVs in disaster response, but the key question it raises is that of regulation. While several international organisations (e.g. UN OCHA, IOM, ICRC) have already used and/or endorsed the use of UAVs in disaster response and relief operations, the use of UAVs continues to be a controversial issue due to concerns regarding UAVs risk and regulation, as well as lack of clarity of applicable legislation.
What do you think? Is the humanitarian context different from other contexts of application of UAVs, such as precision agriculture or film making? Can we allow over-regulation to stand in the way of humanitarian principles?
Please share your thoughts!
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Dear Alexandre,
Thank you very much for your detailed analysis - it's very useful to shed more light on the issue.
It's clear that the potential benefits of using UAVs in humanitarian response (certainly in disaster response, if not yet in conflict settings, as you highlighted above) are indisputable, but legal and regulatory issues (including standards, policy and code of conduct) remain open. It would be interesting to know the outcome of the upcoming EC inter-service meeting in that regard.
Looking forward to keeping the discussion going,
Katya
Many thanks for sharing my blog post on "Humanitarians in the Sky", Katya.
And thanks, Alexandre, for linking to the Experts Meeting at the UN in NY last November. The report is now available on the Humanitarian UAV Network website: UAViators.org. Peter Spruyt, who you mention, is also on the Advisory Board of the Humanitarian UAV Network. Thanks also for linking to my other blog posts on Humanitarian UAVs. I hope ECHO will be able to join the 3-day policy workshop on Humanitarian UAVs this July in Bellagio, Italy.
In the meantime, perhaps folks at ECHO may be interested is this training and certification course on UAVs specifically geared towards humanitarian professionals, which I am co-organizing with VIVES. Please feel free to share widely.
Thanks again,
Patrick
Author of Digital Humanitarians
http://www.digital-humanitarians.com
Hi Patrick, welcome to capacity4dev! Happy to see you've joined the community.
Thank you for letting us know about the training and certification course on UAVs; please feel free to create an event for it in this group so it can reach more people through the capacity4dev events calendar.
Best regards,
Katya