Principles of Humanitarian IM

Owned by Janet
Last updated: Oct 17, 2024 by FIS
5 min read

 

Overview

These 10 guiding principles were established in 2002 by participants in the Symposium on Best Practices in Humanitarian Information Management and Exchange and are included in the operational guidance documents for humanitarian information management.  

Accessibility: Humanitarian information should be made accessible by applying easy-to-use formats and tools and by translating information into common or local languages when necessary.

Inclusiveness: Information exchange should be based on a system of partnership with a high degree of ownership by multiple stakeholders, especially representatives of the affected population and Government.

Inter-operability: All shareable data and information should be made available in formats that can be easily retrieved, shared and used by humanitarian organizations.

Accountability: Users must be able to evaluate the reliability and credibility of information by knowing its source and having access to methods of collection, transformation, and analysis.

Verifiability: Information should be relevant, accurate, consistent and based on sound methodologies, validated by external sources, and analyzed within the proper contextual framework.

Relevance: Information should be practical, flexible, responsive, and driven by operational needs in support of decision-making throughout all phases of a crisis.

Objectivity: A variety of sources should be used when collecting and analyzing information so as to provide varied and balanced perspectives for addressing problems and recommending solutions.

Neutral: Information should be free of political interference that distorts a situation or the response.

Humanity: Information should never be used to distort, to mislead or to cause harm to affected or at-risk populations and should respect the dignity of those affected.

Timeliness: Humanitarian information must be kept current and made available in a timely manner.

Sustainability: Humanitarian information should be open sourced, preserved, cataloged and archived, so that it can be retrieved for future use, such as for preparedness, analysis, lessons learned and evaluation.

Confidentiality: Sensitive data and information that are not to be shared publicly should be managed accordingly and clearly marked as such.