Early-warning messages about impending hazards that could or may cause disasters must reach all citizens, including emergency response organizations, communities-at-risk, public safety organization, and others. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are an important and integral component of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS) that manage and deliver alerting messages to those in affected areas and wider at the national or international level, which allows them to take action to mitigate the impacts of the hazard.
MHEWS has the ability to address several hazards and/or impacts of similar or different types in situations where hazardous events may occur alone, simultaneously, cascading or cumulatively over time, while taking into account the potential interrelated effects.
To be effective, a multi-hazard early warning system should include the participation of different stakeholders and actively involve the people and communities at risk, in order to ensure that the system has an enabling environment, which incorporates the appropriate technology, regulatory and legal frameworks, adequate operational capacities, as well as clearly defined roles and responsibilities for all participating agencies. ICT accessibility is important in developing MHEWS. Vulnerable groups including persons with disabilities, older adults, people in marginal or remote areas without access or connectivity, women and girls, individuals with low literacy levels, indigenous peoples, and migrants are often at higher risk during the disaster, thus their needs should be taken into careful consideration when disseminating the alerts through mixed channels.
It is essential to raise awareness about the importance of risk knowledge, facilitate public education, disseminate messages and warnings efficiently, and ensure that there is a constant state of preparedness and that early action is enabled.
One-third of the world's population, mainly in the least developed countries and small island developing states, are still not covered by early warning systems. In March 2022, UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced
Early Warnings for All (EW4A) Initiative, that the United Nations will spearhead new action to ensure every person on earth is protected by an early warning system within five years. With the newly defined
action plan at COP27, ITU took the lead on the MHEWS pillar on 'Warning Dissemination and Communication", highlighting the use of multichannel dissemination alerting including "implementation of geo-located mobile early warning services using cell-broadcast and/or location-based SMS". The pillar will also focus on "promoting a regulatory approach, based on the model adopted by several countries including the EU, which has mandated the use of geo-located alerts using mobile networks" and engaging the private sector to implement mobile EWS systems.
