The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) initiated a Global Symposium in recognition of the centrality of information management to effective and timely response to humanitarian disasters. The Global Symposium brings together more than 300 information professionals and policymakers from the broad humanitarian community including NGOs, IGOs, Governments, Private Sectors, and Academia.

The first Global Symposium was held on February 5-8, 2002 in Geneva. The aim of this first meeting was to (i) take stock of achievements in the humanitarian information management field, (ii) document best practices in humanitarian information activities, (iii) raise awareness about humanitarian information in the international community, (iv) identify critical challenges, and (v) agree on the steps forward. Participants identified and discussed some major issues related to humanitarian information management, including (i) the need for information principles to guide humanitarian information management and exchange (ten principles were identified), (ii) preparedness, (iii) field-level cooperation among agencies, and the involvement of local governments and organizations in planning activities, and (iv) funding. Participants also identified a set of best practices they considered to be essential to future success of humanitarian information management and exchange.

The Geneva 2002 meeting was followed by a series of regional workshops in Bangkok (2003), Panama (2005) and Nairobi (2006). While the issues confronting the humanitarian community are global in scope, there are regional differences in both the types of problems as well as the appropriate solutions. Each workshop focused on information initiatives and tools in their regional context, each region with its different vulnerabilities and response capacities. The goals of these workshops were to (i) bring together regional information management professionals in order to strengthen the professional community of practice, (ii) discuss the principles and best practices in information management, especially those which have been developed at the regional level, and (iii) deepen understanding of the regional issues and priorities that will help build a plan for improving information exchange in the region. The recommendations from these workshops reinforced the need for attention to the promotion of standards, user requirements, quality of information, appropriate responses, tools and technology, and strong partnerships.

Five years after launching its humanitarian information coordination body, Global Symposium+5 was convened in Geneva in October 2007 to take stock and discuss the way forward. The Symposium reaffirmed the outcomes of the 2002 Symposium as well as those of the three regional humanitarian information network workshops.