Disaster Relief - An interesting perspective

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What works and what doesn't work...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/19/frum.aid.risks.benefits/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

Some snippets from the article:

Washington (CNN) -- "Do you need anything from the pharmacy?" my wife asked. "I have to go early tomorrow to pick up a case of toothpaste."

"Why a case?"

"They are having a drive for Haiti at Bea's school. They are asking all the parents to drop toothpaste, blankets, and other emergency goods to be sent to the earthquake victims."

Maybe your church or your school has asked you to do something similar? If so, pause to think for a moment how crazy it is. You drive to the store. You buy individual items at retail prices. You deliver them to the church or school, where they will be boxed, dispatched to a depot, loaded into a container, trucked to a port, loaded onto a boat, shipped to Haiti, unloaded, sorted, and somehow distributed who knows how many weeks from now. And then -- what if it turns out they don't need the toothpaste?

Lesson 1:

Disaster relief is first and foremost a military operation. Nobody else has the reach and the lift.

In the first half week after the quake, the U.S. military distributed 600,000 packaged meals and installed water purification systems that can pump 100,000 liters per day. Army helicopters deliver food inland, bypassing the miserable Haitian roads; the Navy has already converted the little port of Cap Haitien to receive modern containers.

The prevention of looting and rioting, the digging out of survivors, and the airlifting of emergency supplies -- those are jobs for government agencies. If all you ever do for Haiti is pay your taxes -- then you have already done a great deal.

Lesson 4:

American leaders are pledging a bigger and more permanent commitment to Haitian reconstruction. Big mistake. Please reconsider.

Haiti already receives $250 million of U.S. government aid annually, more than any country in the Americas except Mexico and Colombia. Canada and the EU also give generously. Altogether, more than one-third of Haiti's budget depends on foreign donations. And that's only the government-to-government assistance!

The World Bank counts 10,000 NGOs in operation in Haiti. To a great extent, these NGOs have displaced the broken Haitian state. They support libraries and universities, run schools and hospitals -- so much so that the island has been nicknamed, "the republic of NGOs."

The Sri Lankan branch of the anti-corruption group Transparency International reviewed Sri Lanka's record on the fifth anniversary of the tsunami. TI Sri Lanka found that $603 million of that $2.2 billion was spent on projects unrelated to tsunami damage. An additional $472 million had untraceably vanished: stolen perhaps, or diverted, or wasted. I don't want to send the wrong message: In many ways, reconstruction after the tsunami has been a huge success. Many charities did great good.

Another case study:

http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2005/chapter4.asp

Initially, aid organizations had to base their relief distributions on informed guesses – overwhelmed by logistics, they lacked the time to undertake detailed assessments or consultations with affected people. The situation on the hardest-hit west coast remained the big unknown. “We were taking steps in the dark”, said one aid worker.

Although international agencies were right in guessing that water, food and shelter would be survivors’ initial needs, they were wrong to assume these needs would not be covered, at least partially, by Indonesians themselves. Agencies did little to suppress the myth of disaster victims dependent on external aid to survive.

With roads, bridges and ports destroyed, the best solution was delivering aid by air. At Indonesia’s request, military aircraft from other countries arrived within days. Because of the huge number of places to reach and the small number of helicopters, pilots couldn’t land for long in one place, but would carry out rapid assessments, leave instructions with survivors and return the next day to deliver aid and collect the injured.

Coordination became difficult. Out of 200 agencies present in late January, only 46 submitted reports to UN coordinators. Joint needs assessments were rare. Language proved problematic, with UN meetings held in English and government meetings in Indonesian. Without knowing who was doing what and where, some communities were overwhelmed with aid while others were neglected.

At the root of coordination problems was one key factor: too much money. Nearly everyone could hire a helicopter or boat, make their own needs assessments and distributions, and ‘fly the flag’. The classic situation, in which NGOs queue to become implementing partners of the UN, was reversed.

A month after disaster struck, the aid effort was in full swing. Yet despite a massive response, some of those in greatest need missed out. Most agencies flocked to Aceh’s devastated west coast – but 150,000 people displaced on the east coast received far less aid. Meanwhile, although over 200,000 homeless people found a roof with host families, very few of these families received aid in the first month.

The highly ‘visible’ health sector attracted the most agencies: 22 health NGOs were operating in one area on the west coast. Ten international field hospitals were set up in Banda Aceh, none of which worked at full capacity. There were too many surgeons. One UN witness in Meulaboh saw “20 surgeons competing for a single patient”. Yet midwives and nurses were in short supply. Women had to give birth without medical assistance – “an unacceptable risk” according to the UN.

The enormous international response succeeded, in its own chaotic way, in getting aid to most survivors and preventing further hunger or disease. Yet the duplication of effort and resources, and the competition for profile give pause for thought. Can it be right, just because donors have given so generously, for certain agencies to fly their own flag rather than work alongside others? Some recommendations, to be implemented from the very start of an intervention, follow:

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Now this thread needs a few positive reviews. If you want to donate, established charities with experience assisting in disasters is the way to go, and the Red Cross is an excellent route.