SUMA in Real Time
January 18, 2001

The Panamanian National Civil Protection System, in coordination with the Embassy of El Salvador in Panama, has installed several collection centers. Information about the supplies donated is being recorded in several SUMA Warehouse Modules and will be sent via Internet to the SUMA CENTRAL point in El Salvador even before the consignments arrive. It will also be stored in electronic media and sent along with the convoy, facilitating considerably the management of emergency supplies in El Salvador.

The Salvadoran Red Cross and their colleagues from the Canadian Red Cross, among others, are using the SUMA System to manage the information about the arriving emergency supplies. Use of the software in real-time conditions has made it possible for these two national Red Cross societies to evaluate the SUMA System, so far with very good preliminary results. A few months back, the Salvadoran Red Cross had organized a SUMA training course using their own trainers, who had been the beneficiaries of a training-the-trainers initiative.

The SUMA Team in El Salvador comprises three international experts and over 40 nationals. Three Field Units are already in operation at the Comalapa International Airport's Air Force Base, where all the foreign assistance is arriving. SUMA CENTRAL is working with the National Emergency Committee (COEN) at the International Fair facilities. This CENTRAL Unit consolidates the information gathered by the Field Units at the Airport and the Warehouse Modules that have been installed in other locations. The Ministry of Health has begun to process the arriving medical supplies. Donors and the diplomatic corps are already receiving SUMA Reports about the aid that has arrived and how it is being distributed.

GBM, a Central American IBM subsidiary, is supporting the SUMA System with the loan of computer equipment and the production of a Web site on the emergency. The Web site will publish information about the supplies that have been processed by SUMA at the various points of entry, and can be displayed by country of origin, organization, or date of arrival.