HUSIKA- The ICT solution that will address Early Warning Systems in drought
What is the HUSIKA Multilayered information management system?
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in more than 40 years. The most hit countries are Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and the Karamoja region of Uganda, affecting over 18million smallholder farmers and pastoralists. In order to increase the resilience of smallholder farmers and pastoralists to climate change risks mainly those related to drought, GWPEA, in partnership with the Sahara and Sahel Observatory and the Adaptation Fund, have devised feedback mechanisms to establish appropriate early warning systems and implement drought adaptation actions in the IGAD region through the DRESS-EA project. One of such mechanisms is called the HUSIKA Multilayered Information Management System (MIMS).
During a stakeholders' training which was held in Nairobi, Kenya, on how the HUSIKA MIMS operates, the participants were introduced to various applications under which the HUSIKA operates on both the web and mobile devices as well as SMS.
The HUSIKA MIMS is a mechanism that enables information on Early warning to be disseminated through a common platform. It is a functional, agile and robust multilayered information management system that is a key driver for ICT to propel disaster resilience and climate change mitigation & adaption. The specific challenges that the system addresses are Early Warning system and knowledge and awareness
The system was developed by the Bunifu Technologies, which was contracted by IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Center (ICPAC) to provide feedback and survey modules, featuring a web application, mobile application & SMS, bringing innovative & sustainable ICT solution towards disaster resilience in the greater horn of Africa.
How does the App work?
The National Entities where the DRESSEA project is implemented (Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda) will have the administration privileges to this application, which will trickle down to the regional users, the local users and lastly to the target groups (end users) who are the smallholder farmers.
The end users will be availed with well curated information and alerts through a Short Messaging Service (SMS). The information could be early warning messages e.g, weather forecast, drought updates or any other information which keep users in the know about what is happening around them and how to avert risks if any of the events happening around them pose any kind of danger. A user can also reply the messages they receive. The messages sent can be used to further asses the situation on the ground or fetch more information regarding the issue at hand. This forms a basis of crowd sourcing of data and also enhances collaboration. The end users are added by the various organizations which subscribe to Husika MIMS.