Interview with Hasibul Islam (ConvSDG x IFRC)

I met another expert on Geographic Indication System (GIS) mapping a few days ago too! This time it was Hasibul Islam, a consultant at the World Bank, and the members of its Capacity Building Project Implementing Unit (PIU). He's an ex-employee of the IFRC, where he analyzed geographic information on flood and cyclone risk before Early Actions were implemented.

During my interview with him, he told me about various technical aspects of how GIS works, how GIS can be improved further, the science and maths behind GIS, how he helped in the Capacity Building of BDRCS volunteers during his time with IFRC, and how to develop a vulnerability index to determine where the Early Action Protocol (EAP) should be implemented.

He highlighted that GIS was a visualization tool where geographic data is divided into 3 types: point, line, and polygon, and each location is also geotagged on a map. Post this many other tools can also be added to the GIS Software such as a vulnerability index (I was surprised that Hasibul had developed this vulnerability index himself, more on it in this post), the weather data (In this case the weather data was from the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD)), etc. This helps to take into account the socioeconomic conditions of different areas while deciding where to implement the EAP once the thresholds are crossed. Finally, his role comes in where he has to calculate certain factors which are not directly given by the BMD weather data post which he analyses the impact that the disaster is going to have in each area.

After this Hasibul echoed the same issues faced while using GIS that Hassan had talked about in my interview with him. Hasibul explained how the reliance on data from other agencies along with the lack of data (the data from other agencies is not enough) are major issues faced by him. He also discussed how GIS can be improved by making sure that it has a dynamic data model (one that can easily analyze dynamic data and not only static data). Along with this he also stated the need for more people to be trained in using GIS as he believes that there is currently a lack of people who are skilled in the usage of GIS.

Lastly, he also talked about how he had trained BDRCS Volunteers on how to collect the data necessary for the implementation of the EAP before a disaster hits. He explained that he integrated digital apps such as ODK Mobile app and Kobo into this data collection to make the process more streamlined. Further, he also talked about how creating a vulnerability index was a hard task as he had to analyze multiple factors such as poverty data, The Cyclone Prepared Program (CPP is a program implemented by BDRCS that makes sure that early warnings about cyclones are disseminated to people and people are moved to shelters, and are rescued from the areas as soon as possible) Data, data on the number of shelters in that area, etc.

I found this wonderful that so many people have worked towards the development of the Forecast Based Financing (FbF) program in Bangladesh, a tool that is essential in minimizing the impact of disasters in this vulnerable country.