The World Food Programme, one of the first humanitarian organizations to explore the use of unmanned aerial vehicles back in 2007, hasn’t officially deployed any UAVs in responses this year. In fact, the agency’s drone count currently stands at zero.

Instead, the United Nations food assistance branch has been putting drones in the sky only as part of a project to establish clearer guidelines for the humanitarian sector at large.

It’s something internally we agreed. We don’t have a guideline for using this new technology. There are a lot of questions around privacy, data protection, perceptions of the communities, accountability to affected populations … so we decided we are not going to deploy any until we sort this out and establish a practice.

According to Haidar Baqir, information technology emergencies officer for the WFP’s Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau.

UAVs are increasingly being recognized by humanitarian organizations for their potential effectiveness in disaster response, helping teams safely observe situations in real-time during emergencies or quickly collect damage assessment information in remote areas. Drones can also provide “Wi-Fi in the sky” to get communities back online following a disaster, an idea the WFP has been experimenting with.

Read the full article on drones and humanitarian efforts by Kelli Rogers at Devex International Development