The following HTML text is provided to enhance online
readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML.
Please use the page image
as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy.
The GDIN Transition Team should focus initially on establishing a national DIN (i.e., with a U.S. focus), but the model should be extended to a global process (GDIN) as soon as it can be demonstrated that a DIN is technically and organizationally feasible. The team members represent agencies with generally limited international missions and experiences. It would be advisable to concentrate on development of a national process where agencies are most familiar and information technologies are well advanced. The process could be extended as soon as the U.S. model works reasonably well both technically and organizationally. Disasters are worldwide issues, and many of the relevant phenomena are global in nature. The International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction1 has heightened global awareness of the value of disaster information and opened lines of communication relevant to disaster issues, factors that should help facilitate extension of a DIN from U.S. to global proportions.
