Humanitarian Response Without Humans: How can we help, when we can’t get there?

COVID19 has made the global humanitarian context more vulnerable and complex than ever. In particular, it has already resulted in the situation where response to significant disasters, such as Cyclone Harold in Vanuatu, has been greatly impaired by the reduced ability to safely and responsibly deploy humanitarian responders when and where they are needed. These are, however, not new problems: COVID19 has only served to amplify the existing problems.In this paper, we explore how careful and strategic use of existing and emerging technologies can be used to mitigate this problem, by analyzing the humanitarian roles and functions that need to be provided, and then creating technology packages that can both meet those needs, and be boot-strapped in country, without the need for any personnel to deploy into the disaster zone. Or perhaps more realistically, how the need for deploying personnel can be simultaneously minimized, and be primarily met from personnel already in-situ. Among other contributions, we identify that technologies designed for remote support injection into disaster zones should embody self-evident function and value, self-sufficiency, self-configuration and self-regulation, to ensure rapid, effective and maintainable delivery of humanitarian assistance from afar.