Disaster response in an urban environment presents a wide variety of challenges. Humanitarian organisations often have more experience of disaster response in rural settings, and local authorities and community organisations may have little experience of planning and executing large-scale activities in response and recovery.

This policy brief is about the value of information and communication to disaster-affected populations. It provides background, examples, and recommendations for agencies to "mainstream" this kind of communication as a priority emergency response in serving disaster victims.

This paper aims to provide a distillation of the learning from thirty years of humanitarian response to earthquakes. It concentrates on issues of particular relevance in earthquakes. The paper assumes that readers are already familiar with the more general lessons in the aid sector such as the key roles of needs assessment, effective coordination, accountability and consultation with the affected population. The main intended audiences are operational decision-makers and relief programme managers working in the response to such sudden-onset natural disasters.

This 11-page document distills lessons learned from the NetHope consortium's experience in addressing information and communication technology (ICT) deployments for its members during 8 major disasters in 10 countries in the course of its first 5 years. NetHope is an open, collaborative working group of information technology professionals from international non-governmental organisations dedicated to ICT solutions to help with emergency relief, human development, and conservation programmes in more than 150 countries.

This book is part of the effort to improve technical capacity in the Region of the Americas and has been developed from lessons learned and practical experience gained in countless disasters. The manual provides recommendations on dealing with the context and conditions where information is needed, guidelines on producing reports and distributing information for different audiences, how to manage communication media, and planning the work of communication during emergency response. It complements other PAHO/ WHO efforts in communicating for risk management.