Other

Other relevant questions on ESUPS.

How accurate is your model?

One of the most famous statistician of all times, George Box, decalred: “All models are wrong, but some are useful“, explaining that by definition a model is based on a set of assumptions and that all local context and variables cannot be considered. On that basis, we believe our model is useful to provide indications on improving the average response time and costs while recognising also that like any other model it will never be 100% accurate.

Do you consider the cash response in your model?

Not yet. While cash programmes are growing, they are still facing limitations to be really effective and making a large difference in the first 10 days of a response, leaving the Non Food items their relevance. However, as for the private sector capacities, we are discussing how this could be included in our model.

Do you include access constraints?

Not at the moment, the reason being that other platforms will already offer this information such as log:ie. By making the STOCKHOLKM platform connected to log:ie, the users should be able to apply access constraints to their response plan. It is complex to include access constraints in the preparedness model before a disaster occurs. However, we have engaged discussions with researchers specifically working on that question to explore how access could be also added as an extra variable in our model.

How does ESUPS account for the lack of proper item standardisation?

ESUPS created a functionality called Item Group. When a user wishes to register a new item, he/she can call it as wished and include as many information and details as necessary. However before saving the said item will have to be registered under an existing and agreed Item Group.
For instance, you want to register a jerrycan, 15l flexible: you can call it just like that but you will need to register it under the Item group “Water Containers”.

While those Item groups were initially defined by the Pacific regional technical cluster coordinators, recent discussion with the Global Cluster leads have been engaged to standardise the nomenclature of those Item Groups.

This functionality allows the aggregation of data to be filtered at different level of details required.