Emergency Toolkit Laboratory (CSO 587): Introduction to the Course

What is an emergency? It is any out of the ordinary event which threatens to do harm or actually does harm to human well-being, life and property; or to the natural environment. All disasters are emergencies, but not all emergencies are disasters. Disasters are catastrophic/traumatic, critical events which occur because we haven’t, didn't or couldn't do anything or enough to prevent, mitigate or respond to them. 

What does the term toolkit mean in the phrase emergency toolkit? A toolkit is more than one tool. It is a combination (collection, array or repertoire) of tools used to respond to or preempt or otherwise manage a critical event or an emergency. But, given the practical challenges typically faced in emergency situations, there will probably be frequent need for something bigger than a kit: a toolchest, or even a container.

In the present context, the term tool refers to a range of practical resources: technologies – hardware, software and orgware (and even spiritware) – systems, processes, methods, procedures ("How Tos"), templates, standards, indicators, questionnaires, checklists, guidelines, forms, formats, formulae, plans, blueprints, manuals, records, reports and references.

An Emergency Toolkit is therefore a basket of emergency management resources available for use by specialized staff and others involved in the various stages of an emergency: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.

We title this course Emergency Toolkit Laboratory because a lab is where you scrutinize, open up, dissect, dismantle, unpackage (= disassemble, take apart or unbundle in a controlled way), test, tinker with, experiment with and/or repackage (= re-assemble in a value-adding way) high-value resources. 

In this lab, therefore, we will try to:

(a)   catalogue and describe the tools that we can identify from our readings, discussions or experiences;

(b)   "un-package" available tools and critically evaluate them as a preamble to modifying them or re-packaging them, or coming up with better or entirely new ones; and 

(c)   following all that, put together various toolkits and specify their uses based on (or in relation to) certain emergency scenarios that we will develop, and cases that we will cite and interrogate.

Note:

1. Orgware = the organizational contexts and/or ownership claims attached to specific tools or technologies of interest.

2. Spiritware = The spiritual dimensions, preconditions and/or connotations that emergency actors of one kind or another may attach to certain technologies or their use thereof.

Prof. Mauri Yambo, Department of Sociology, University of Nairobi

UPDATED: February 14, 2018