Hans Zimmermann

United Nations

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Geneva

Dear fellow participants of the Jamaica Seminar:

It was a great pleasure to attend in the Seminar in May, and I would like to thank all of you for sharing with us their experiences in the use of ICT in disaster management, as well as their ideas for the further development of these valuable tools. In the same way as already in the 1997 Regional Workshop on Disaster Communications, the seminar showed once more, that the Caribbean Region can and must play a lead role in this field

Further to my own presentation in Ocho Rios, I would now like to provide an up-date on the on-going work towards the un-hindered use of what technology offers the disaster manager. A favourable regulatory environement depends on te speedy ratification of the "Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations", and I am again asking all of you for your support on this urgent task.

Article 12 of this international treaty stipulates, that the convention shall enter into force thirty (30) days after the deposit of instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or definitive signature by thirty States. So far, 13 States have deposited the respective instruments. Article 12 furthermore indicates the deadline for the entry into force, 21 June 2003.

This means that we have less than one year to obtain the necessary number of ratifications. 52 countries have signed the treaty, and thereby given their consent in principle to the purpose and the content of the Tampere Convention. In many cases, the principles Convention have furthermore been applied and referred to in bi- and multilateral agreements covering specific humanitarian operations in the past 4 years. The reason for the so far insufficient number is therefore not a lack of consensus about its usefulness, but in most cases rather a lack of attention to the need to complete the ratification process.

It is on this point, that the providers as well as the beneficiaries of international humanitarian assistance need the support of the emergency managers. Those who participated in the Jamaica Seminar are of course among those who are most aware of the key role of ICT in disaster relief operations, and are thus in the best position to raise the necessary awareness among the policy makers in their respective countries.

We therefore ask you, to bring this matter to the urgent attention of your counterparts in the respective departments, in particular the telecommunications authorities and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs. We shall be glad to provide any documentation or other information and assistance you may need in this context. Background information and guidelines are available at URL <http://www.reliefweb/telecoms> under the menu item "Tampere Convention", and copies of the official texts and of the rules and regulations concerning the procedure for ratification are also available in hard copy. We shall be glad to mail the necessary quantity of such documents to you and/or directly to any address you may wish to indicate.

Please keep us informed, by e-mail to <zimmermann@un.org> and <kaiser1@un.org>, about the status of ratification or any problems encountered, and let us have any suggestions you may have on how we can assist you and your government in the process of ratification by your country.

Many thanks in advance and best regards

Hans Zimmermann