Humanitarian Geospatial Decision-Evidence Counsel — Crisis Response

The mandate

The governing board repeatedly asks when satellite, mobility, social and partner data are reliable enough to redirect scarce crisis resources, especially where the least connected populations are also least visible. Operational briefings often display precise maps but compress collection delay, cloud cover, access constraints, population movement and deliberate misinformation into a generic confidence caveat that directors cannot translate into a decision.

The adviser will reserve two days monthly for chair preparation, evidence challenge and scenario review, with attendance at five Emergency Information Committee meetings. During a formally declared emergency, an initial response to a material evidence question is expected within twelve hours, capped at four additional hours monthly. Sustained operational support requires a separate mandate and cannot be absorbed into the retainer.

The appointment starts in January 2027 and lasts ten months. At month eight, the committee will assess whether its decision notes consistently expose affected-population visibility and uncertainty. The board may approve one six-month renewal, but management cannot extend the term or convert unused days into continuing crisis support; renewal requires a refreshed conflict and security review.

This role provides influence only and carries no line authority, executive responsibility, resource-allocation vote, data-controller role or command in an emergency. The adviser cannot approve a map, release sensitive coordinates or direct field teams. Accountable programme and protection leaders retain decisions, and advice must not be represented as independent validation of source truth or operational safety.

The adviser may hold two other non-conflicting appointments and must disclose work for governments, defence or intelligence bodies, geospatial vendors, telecommunications firms and agencies operating in the same crisis. Access to one belligerent party’s non-public data, or financial interest in a vendor under review, may make recusal inadequate and require the appointment to end.

Why the board wants this voice

Directors have emergency and protection experience but lack someone who has personally governed geospatial inference under active access denial and population movement. Analysts can explain their products, yet are not positioned to challenge the organisation’s appetite for apparent precision. The board needs a practitioner who will expose who is absent from the evidence before a map reallocates aid.

What you will own

• Press the board to identify which allocation, access and protection decisions depend on geospatial evidence and what error would cause irreversible harm.
• Test how cloud, revisit rate, device access, displacement, administrative boundaries and source incentives distort apparent coverage and recency.
• Challenge confidence statements that aggregate independent uncertainties or conceal systematic absence of disconnected, displaced or threatened populations.
• Shape minimum decision notes covering source provenance, collection time, corroboration, excluded populations, alternative explanations and reversal triggers.
• Probe sharing proposals for re-identification, sensitive-site exposure, group harm, compelled access and downstream use beyond the humanitarian purpose.
• Frame emergency scenarios where rapid action, imperfect evidence and do-no-harm duties point toward different release or allocation choices.
• Coach committee members to record accountable judgement and dissent without substituting the adviser’s view for operational command.

Candidate qualifications

• Governed geospatial or remote-sensing evidence in humanitarian response, public health, disaster management or conflict-affected operations.
• Challenged a precise crisis map because collection bias or invisible populations materially changed the underlying allocation conclusion.
• Combined satellite, mobility, survey, partner and field-observation sources while preserving time, provenance and source-protection limitations.
• Made responsible-data recommendations involving sensitive locations or vulnerable groups where aggregation did not eliminate plausible harm.
• Presented uncertain evidence to a governing board or emergency leadership without delaying action through unattainable certainty.
• Managed conflicts and security boundaries across aid agencies, governments, technology providers, researchers and affected-region partners.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend five Geneva committee meetings in person and meet the stated emergency response window despite the otherwise remote arrangement.
• Will disclose government, defence, intelligence, vendor and crisis-region relationships before receiving non-public operating information.
• Accepts that resource allocation, data release and field safety remain with accountable executives and programme leaders.
• Must have used geospatial evidence during live crises; general GIS leadership in stable commercial settings is not sufficient.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a crisis map whose visual precision concealed a population important to the operational decision.
2. 49 words maximum. Which present government, vendor or emergency-response relationships could conflict with this network’s work?
3. 49 words maximum. How would you advise action when recent satellite evidence is strong but field corroboration excludes disconnected communities?