| dc.description.abstract | This report is about the national training conducted in the country to build capacity for
disaster prevention in Uganda. It is a response to the many disasters experienced over
the past decade. With high sensitivity and limited adaptive capacity, weather-related and
geological hazards have resulted to many events such as the floods, landslides, flush floods,
droughts, earthquakes, tremors, volcanism and wildfires in most parts of Uganda have caused
deaths of hundreds of thousands and displaced close to five million inhabitants. One way of
enhancing the overall awareness and responsiveness is to combine citizen science and modern
technologies to bridge the gap. Technological advancement and innovation have created
new opportunities for enhancing disaster resilience and risk reduction. The project aimed at
supporting the development and integration of science-evidenced measures such as artificial
intelligence (AI) innovations, citizen science and gender-responsive actions into strategies and
action plans for disaster risk reduction in schools, communities and public sector institutions
in Eastern Africa. Among several outcomes, the project implementation targeted the state
and non-state institutions use and apply artificial intelligence in disaster response. In all, 240
trainees benefited from the project.
The project was a partnership between UNESCO and Japanese partners (Weather news Inc. and
LINE Cooperation) developed an Al Chatbot Smartphone Application for DRR that enables
users to receive early warning on future disasters and allow them to report any damage (with
pictures and georeferenced information) when disasters occur. The data is processed by AI to
generate a map so that relief agencies and government can utilize it for identifying the most
impacted locations that need urgent rescue. Throughout all the six different trainings, the
participants raised many issues ranging from internet, data, and applicability of the app. The
categories of disasters, fears about coordination problems from reporters and the involvement
of the department of disaster preparedness in the Office of the Prime Minister.
Among the recommendations proposed were those disasters be categorized according to
various sectors e.g., Education, where a specific application be developed for Disaster
reporting and response in the country without relying on the external application to which
the government has no control over, the various institutions concerned with disaster
prevention and management should work together at all times e.g., Uganda Police, Office
of the Prime Minister, UNATCOM and others, the institution (s) responsible for managing
the AI Chatbot, filtering and authenticating the information shared on the platform should
be clearly stipulated and given the mandate to ensure that the AI Chatbot serves the purpose
for which it was designed. The application should be customized and adopted by Uganda as
a disaster reporting platform and then uploaded to Ug Hub by NITA-U such that it is easily
accessed and managed. It was also recommended that the application should be user-friendly
to enable reporting of simultaneous events. It should also enable getting events in real-time,
allow for uploading of videos, real-time editing to add and subtract information and provide
for follow-up of the disaster reports sent. There is need for up-to-date maps for accurate and
quick response for team arrivals to the scene of disaster. The app should also be able to operate
off-line and should be made simpler to provide prompts for action. Also, participants urged
to come up with more innovations and new technology that can be applied in the field of
Disaster response and management. | en_US |
