Discovering GEM’s Beneficiaries’ Needs

As a follow-up to the User Needs Assessment carried out within the scope of GEM1, a complementary exercise is now being deployed, aiming at the identification of the needs of GEM Beneficiaries: individuals and organisations that could benefit from the output of GEM's risk assessment platform, but might be unaware or unable to access or use OpenGEM.

It is important, therefore, that GEM considers the needs of potential non-expert beneficiaries, so that its risk information can better be used to raise awareness and promote mitigating action.

In December 2010, an 18-month project led by Palo Alto, California-based GeoHazards International (GHI) was initiated with the goals of (1) discovering the needs of selected GEM beneficiaries in developing countries and (2) describing how GEM could most effectively communicate its earthquake risk information to these beneficiaries to promote mitigating action. The information gathered in this project will be used to complement and inform the work being done as part of GEM’s Social and Economic Impact Module.

Main Activities
The project revolves around four major activities:

1. Identify beneficiaries
Five main classes of beneficiaries have been identified for the focus of this research.

1. teachers and school administrators
2. business leaders
3. local government officials, such as mayors, city planners or emergency managers
4. health sector officials;
5. grassroots, community-based leaders, such as those representing faith-based groups or those working with vulnerable populations

2. Select representatives of these beneficiaries in cities around the world
The project team has selected representatives of the five classes of beneficiaries in 10 different cities around the globe. The following cities have been selected to ensure diversity in geographic location, national income, population size, and recent exposure to large earthquakes:

• Bhutan: Thimpu
• India: Guwahati
• Indonesia: Padang, Bandung
  
• New Zealand: Christchurch
• Peru: Lima, Pisco
  
• Turkey: Istanbul, Antalya
• United States: San Francisco
  

3. Elicit feedback from these representatives
The project team is currently conducting face-to-face interviews in the various cities with at least 10 representatives in each city (from all 5 categories) to better understand how GEM could most effectively communicate its earthquake risk information to them to promote mitigating action.

Based on the interviews, the project team will provide recommendations to GEM, such as: what community leaders need to initiate risk mitigating action, which individuals or groups in communities are most likely to use GEM’s tools, and how GEM can best communicate its information in ways that are readily usable by its beneficiaries.

4. Analyze the feedback and present recommendations
The project team will analyze the data collected for recurring themes and patterns and summarize the findings and recommendations in a workshop presentation and final written report to GEM.

Coordination
GHI’s Justin Moresco is managing the project under close collaboration with GHI President Dr. Brian Tucker. To contact Justin, write to moresco[at]geohaz.org
Dr. Lori Peek, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis at Colorado State University in the United States, is GHI’s key partner on the 18-month investigation.