Agriculture-related Disaster Relief Information Management and Interoperability

Lack of good inter-organization development methodology often leads to failure in establishment of interoperability platforms needed for streamlining operations among government agencies. To overcome the challenge, this paper proposes a collaborative methodology and management approach that emphasizes the establishment of strong political support from highest-level policy decision makers; well-functional inter-agency collaboration and engagement; clear future processes, data and services blueprints to be achieved; and systematic project management based on the enterprise architecture concept. Development of an agriculture-related disaster relief information system (Aggie DRIS) is described as a case study to illustrate this concept. Aggie DRIS is an information management system collaboratively developed and implemented among seven public agencies and one government bank for handling timely financial assistance to farmers suffering from natural disasters. The Aggie DRIS manages and streamlines the processes including applications submission, information validation, data cross checking, approval, transferring financial assistance to farmers' bank accounts and also status tracking. Effective management of information interoperability enables data integration and better coordination among government agencies resulting in timely public services to farmers in time of natural disaster crisis.