Intricacies of implementing an ITU-T X.1303 cross-agency situational-awareness platform in Maldives, Myanmar, and the Philippines

Maldives, Myanmar, and the Philippines are vulnerable to natural disasters [1]. Sendai Framework1 of Action calls for risk reduction by implementing early warning systems [2]. A prevailing challenge is for authorities to coordinate warnings across disparate communication systems and autonomous organizations [3]. Cross-Agency Situational-Awareness platforms and the ITU-T X.1303 Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)2 interoperable data standards presents themselves as solution for diluting the inter-agency rivalries and interconnection disparities [4]. The Sahana Alerting and Messaging Broker (SAMBRO) was designed to overcome these issues by providing a Common Operating Picture and a platform for all Stakeholders to share early warnings. To that end, the CAP-on-a-MAP project is implementing SAMBRO and the CAP standard along with the policies and procedures in the Maldives, Myanmar and Philippines. The project is applying an agile development methodology with a design, build, test, and redesign strategy for implementing the cross-agency situational-awareness and warning system in the respective countries. This paper discusses the country context implementation challenges and discusses strategies fostered through the introduction of the CAP content standard for warning system designers to consider for overcoming similar challenges.