The use of technology in humanitarian aid planning is on the rise. Photo: Esther Gibbons (Flicker)

2011 is over, but the impact technology had on humanitarian aid planning last year could be just beginning to emerge.

Humanitarian issues demand immediate solutions. In 2011, a lot of solutions to crises placed heavy emphasis on technology. Here are three notable examples:

Disaster prone Bangladesh turned to GPS to provide early weather warnings to fishermen.

Airtel, a private mobile operator in Bangladesh will provide early weather warnings to fishermen using its global positioning system via cell phones in partnership with the Center for Global Change, the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods and two international NGOs, according to IRIN.

More than half on Bangladesh’s population uses mobile phones. Early weather warnings could prove to be a life-saving tool. "75 percent of the country’s population lives in rural, disaster-prone areas, an ideal environment in which to exploit the potential of mobile phones to mitigate disasters," IRIN reported.

Technology has helped put Kibera on the map, literally.

Finding Kibera, a district of Nairobi, on a map before 2009 was not an easy task because it wasn’t on one. The location of schools, medical facilities, water points and other basic information was simply not available. As a result, The Map Kibera Project was created in order to provide this information. The goal: to train nine Kibera residents in using GPS devices to gather geographical information in a "citizen mapping" project.

Now this information is available on OpenStreetMap, a global map anyone can view and edit. Organizers plan to continue adding information on the map and eventually start mapping other communities.

Mobile phones have turned ordinary people into extraordinary philanthropists.

This past year, one of the worst famines in modern history struck the Horn of Africa. Humanitarian aid and donor government assistance poured in from all over the world. One campaign, "Kenyans for Kenya," set a goal to raise $5.28 million dollars in one month. Within 10 days, the goal was met and a bigger goal of $10.56 million set. By September 1, more than $7 million was collected, $1.6 million through private donations.
Contributions, most of them from Kenyan citizens and organizations, were made through a mobile phone money transfer service operated by telecom firm Safaricom. The money collected has been used to send money to affected areas through the Kenyan Red Cross Society, IRIN reports. This has been one of the most successful humanitarian fundraising campaigns Kenya has ever seen, and its efforts are ongoing.

These are only a few examples of how technology has positively impacted humanitarian responses to crises. Technology isn’t the answer to all the world’s problems, but it’s proving to be an effective tool.

Belu's eco-friendly, socially responsible bio-bottles. Photo: Courtesy of Belu

There are few things more satisfying than a cold drink of water. But for lots of people in the world, clean drinking water is hard to come by. A UK-based company called Belu is helping change this. Pronounced "blue," the nonprofit sells bottled water in their eco-friendly "bio-bottle," made from compostable corn plastic and capped with a PVC-free top.

For every bottle of water they sell, the folks at Belu provide one person in a developing country with clean water for a month:

In collaboration with Oxfam, WaterAid, and Fresh2O, Belu has thus far funded the installation of wells, hand pumps and rainwater harvesting technology in four countries: India, Mali, Bangladesh and Madagascar. These projects are rated to provide safe drinking water to over 43,264 people for at least fifteen years.

For a bottled water company, that's pretty refreshing.

Storms in Madagascar provide an added opportunity for embezzlement in education. Photo: lefthandrotation (flickr)

Mismanagement and corruption continue to hinder the progress of education in Africa, suggests a recent Transparency International report on primary education in several African countries. The report cites several examples where local officials wasted the funds of school systems, which raised the costs that parents were forced to pay.

One of more outrageous examples of such corruption came from Madagascar, where school officials use the annual cyclone season as an opportunity to embezzle funds. A Space for Transparency blog explained how they do it:

Every year the coastal areas, mainly in the north eastern part of the island, face an onslaught from seasonal cyclones. First warnings usually start airing on TV and radio a few days before the cyclone hits, which gives people time to put their corruption scams into action. It works like this: when the cyclone is confirmed, the person in charge of school procurements pays a local merchant to fabricate an invoice for school supplies. The wind and rains come and lo and behold the school storage room is inundated with water and all the supplies are damaged. The school then submits a reimbursement claim to the central emergency fund for school materials. It explains how the storage room roof leaked and the supplies were ruined. The fake invoice is included in the claim.

As the World Bank points out, It is particularly important to address such practices in primary schools because education is the key to achieving other development goals. If poor kids are to have a chance at getting the education that could help them lift themselves out of poverty, a strong start in primary school is imperative.

Holiday bakers, take note: Vanilla might be harder to get because of a deadly fungus attacking Madagascar’s vanilla crops.

The island off the coast of Africa produces 60 percent of the world’s vanilla, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Nearly 80 percent of the country’s plantations are affected.

It's bad news for Madagascar, too. Vanilla sales, primarily to the U.S. and Europe, typically yield hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Researchers say the fungus is a result of planting crops too close together, which spreads disease rapidly between plants. Replanting is an option, but because of vanilla’s five-year life cycle, it will take years to make up for the loss.

Better save enough of that gingerbread dough to last until 2013 — and hope Madagascar's farmers can sustain themselves until the next harvest.

Today the Economist posted a briefing on the 2008 Freedom of the World report published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, concluding that in recent years "African countries have made negligible progress liberalising their economies."

For the most part, although not without exception, the Heritage Foundation’s correlation between incomes per head and economic freedom holds good. Seven of the ten economically most free African economies (Mauritius, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Tunisia, Swaziland and Cape Verde) are, in fact, middle-income states. Uganda, Madagascar and Kenya, however, are very low-income countries.