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28 June 2001 A failure to understand the economic and social realities facing disaster victims leads to poorly designed aid efforts which don't help protect people from the impact of future disasters, says this year's World Disasters Report released today by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Speaking at the New York launch of the report, the President of the International Federation, Dr. Astrid Heiberg, said there has been a huge rise in the numbers of people affected by natural disasters in the last decade - 256 million last year alone - but there was a need "to avoid short-term fixes implemented without consideration for people and their basic everyday needs. "I would like to emphasise one message from this year's World Disasters Report. We need to ensure better targeting of resources to create the right conditions for building resilient, sustainable livelihoods at household and community level in disaster prone regions. We do not want to rebuild risk; we want to rebuild lives" she said. In a speech at the launch in Brussels, hosted by the Belgian Red Cross, the International Federation's Secretary General, Mr. Didier Cherpitel, focussed on the "recovery gap." He noted that "relief appeals are usually well-funded, especially while the disaster remains in the media and fresh in donors' minds. But longer-term money for rehabilitation and disaster preparedness is harder and slower to come by. Meanwhile, relief agencies are often not skilled in developmental approaches needed to promote recovery. "So to lift disaster survivors out of the relief/recovery gap, two things must happen. First, donor funding must be sufficient to cover not just emergency needs, but also longer-term rehabilitation efforts. That means, for example, money to rebuild homes in a disaster-resistant way, money to rehabilitate irrigation systems in drought-hit regions, or money to reinvigorate local economies. Second, agencies intervening after disasters must deploy recovery teams able to assess disaster risks posed by future hazards and to implement appropriate responses". The founding editor of the World Disasters' Report, Dr. Peter Walker, gave an overview of the report at the New York launch. He highlighted the fact that survivors of Venezuela's devastating mudslides in 1999 who'd been moved to safer, remote areas, were unable to earn a living there and have begun to return to the site of their former homes and are again at risk. Since Tajikistan gained independence, little investment has been made in developing its small scale rural economy. Despite extensive food aid for eight years, it is still unable to feed itself. Last year, its worst drought in 74 years left around two million people facing hunger and malnutrition while some of its available water was pumped into irrigating its cotton fields, Tajikistan's main cash crop.More crop failures are expected this year. Many donors and governments direct their aid efforts mainly towards rebuilding damaged infrastructure, not peoples' livelihoods. A survey cited in the World Disasters Report found 53 per cent of aid projects focussed on rebuilding infrastructure while only 10 per cent were on components of economic recovery. This then impacts on social recovery. In Somalia, ten years on from the 1991 conflict and more than US$ 4 billion of aid later, one child in three still dies before reaching the age of five. The report also looks at the widespread leakage of aid dollars from disaster stricken countries which further weakens chances of recovery. In Bangladesh for example, 60 per cent of the funds spent on the Flood Action Plan between 1990-1995, did not stay in the country but were used to pay foreign consultants. Other common approaches to aid and assistance which undermine local economies including tied aid and the funding gap between emergency, rehabilitation and development programmes, are also criticised by the World Disasters Report. Dr. Walker who heads the International Federation's South-East Asia Delegation, said the the Red Cross and Red Crescent is investing more in community-based programmes to ensure people are better equipped to withstand recurrent disaster events. This approach to aid has shown concrete results particularly if recovery programmes are geared to disaster preparedness and risk reduction and so lessening their impact on people's lives and livelihoods. Examples of good community-targetted aid cited in the report include the Indian state of Orissa, where the construction of 23 Red Cross cyclone shelters, combined with community education and disaster mitigation, saved 40,000 lives in one disaster alone. In one region in Viet Nam where homes are destroyed annually by flooding, a Red Cross programme replaced lost homes with stronger, disaster-resistant ones. Local communities helped with the design and building of these homes and the following flood season, only one home out of the 2,450 was destroyed. This year's World Disasters Report also looks at the cost of natural disasters which have swept away any developmental gains made in recent decades. The report contains chapters on the role of livelihoods, Venezuela, Somalia, Viet Nam, Tajikistan and new data on disaster trends. Order forms for the report are available on this web site. |
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The
Somali Red Crescent runs 12 health clinics as part of the Puntland
Health Sector Rehabilitation Project.(p3051).
