BATINGAW, the disaster management mobile application launched in 2014 by the Office of Civil Defense-National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (OCD-NDRRMC) and Smart Communications, has been tapped as a tool for building resilience in the Horn of Africa.
During a recent trip to the Philippines, representatives of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) identified Batingaw as an innovative tool that can help strengthen early warning systems in the African region.
Through south-south cooperation facilitated by UNDP Regional Center for Africa and the Philippine Embassy in Nairobi (Kenya), Batingaw’s developer, Vincent Loremia, has been invited to travel to Nairobi to work with the IGAD team in developing a similar app for the Horn of Africa.
A Tagalog word for “bell,” Batingaw is a mobile application that provides government agencies, organizations and individuals, immediate access to disaster warnings, advisories, location data and disaster mappings. It features step-by-step instructions that can guide users to safety during disasters. The app also enables users to contribute information to emergency agencies more easily and quickly.
Batingaw was designed to run on smartphones and other mobile devices. It can be downloaded for free from Google Play for Android devices and from iTunes for devices running on iOS.
In his letter to Loremia, Dr. Guleid Artan, Director of IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Centre (ICPAC) said Batingaw, “could be the basis for the development of a similar innovative application for the Horn of Africa.”