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Chapter 6 - summary The process of being involved in the assessment can provide participants with greater awareness of their own potentialities. “Instead of seeing themselves as victims, people tell themselves that they can influence what happens,” says the International Federation’s Graham Betts-Symonds. So VCA is a capacity-building tool as well as a diagnostic measure. Crucially, the VCA process aims to heighten the awareness of communities and aid organizations before disaster strikes. It then converts that awareness into concrete risk reduction activities. But the process carries risks. It may expose root causes of vulnerability, its solutions may be unacceptable to authorities, and it may raise unrealistic expectations. To date, hundreds of VCAs have been completed. The Swedish Red Cross (SRC) was one of the first to experiment, in 1994. Their aims were better identification of vulnerable groups and greater ownership of the VCA process by staff and volunteers. A good VCA requires total commitment, but the effort pays off. The Gambia Red Cross’s 18-month VCA led to the society playing a lead role in national disaster planning. The experience of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) with VCA has shown that the process can make a difference whether during peace or war. The assessment was concluded shortly before the second intifada (uprising). To ensure that key players would collaborate from the outset, other international agencies and Palestinian Authority ministries were invited to join a steering committee. PRCS social workers familiar with target communities formed focus groups to draw out local perspectives on disaster. The 429 individuals who took part came from a cross-section of Palestinian society – cities, villages and refugee camps in both the West Bank and Gaza. The assessment broke new ground by including 113 children, who were asked to express in drawings their vision of disasters and ways in which they could be mitigated. The hazards regarded by Palestinians as most likely to occur in the future were, in of importance: lack of water; “events of a political nature”; road accidents (for West Bank interviewees) and open sewers (for Gaza interviewees); pollution; fires; earthquakes; poor health; and epidemics. One might have expected confrontations (frequent even before the intifada) to top the list. But problems related to water are a daily chore and affect everyone. Water is scarce, expensive and frequently polluted. Added to low levels of rainfall, there is competition between Israelis and Palestinians for this limited resource, most of which remains under Israeli control. The analysis of the VCA results was finalized in August 2000; 28 September 2000 marked the beginning of the intifada. “Events of a political nature” became hazard number one. According to one PRCS official, “The VCA acted as a key catalyst for PRCS strategic thinking and action in the direction of disaster preparedness and response. PRCS, which traditionally reacted to various types of crisis by dispatching ambulances, moved in a direction of disaster management thinking and programming.” But of course, they did dispatch ambulances; the fleet was doubled in size. They had no choice: the first 18 months of the intifada resulted in over 1,100 Palestinians dead and 20,000 injured. But changes recommended by the VCA were implemented. An 24-hour operations room and a disaster management unit were set up. An emergency action plan was drafted, defining roles for the Red Crescent and partner agencies. Emergency committees, recommended by PRCS workers at the outset, were formed. These consisted of a teacher, a health professional, a village council member and a local Red Crescent employee. They were tasked to intervene in confrontations and road accidents, and to keep the PRCS informed in case of food or medicine shortages. But what about the other hazards identified during the VCA – water, public health, road accidents? They were not sidelined by the intifada. But the PRCS had to define clear criteria to avoid raising unrealistic expectations. Health care is a core activity for the PRCS. So, in the West Bank town of Silwad for example, the PRCS were able to increase the staff in their clinic from six to nine; they improved communications by installing a fax machine; they installed a generator to ensure that vaccinations could be safely stored; and they created a six-month supply of medicines, in case of a blockade. Water shortages, however, are a far more difficult and political problem, beyond even the Palestinian Authority’s capacity to solve. Nevertheless, the PRCS identified specific areas where they could be useful. Firstly, by providing drinking water and sanitation for camps and mobile hospitals. Secondly, by launching campaigns in Gaza to clean up solid garbage, the sewage system and stagnant water, with the help of students, volunteers and the municipality. For other hazards, the PRCS started public awareness campaigns. Despite these efforts, frustration was inevitable. In Silwad, a local councillor complained that although the PRCS provided an ambulance, they would not pay the salaries. Not everyone reacted like this. But it begs the question: What is the point of a VCA if it raises issues you cannot address? One answer is that before taking any action, agencies must understand what resources the community has, and what they need. And, when an agency does identify issues outside its remit, it can either find other organizations to help, or advocate for changes to the system. “Advocacy takes time and hard work,” says Younis Al Khatib, president of the PRCS. He’s looking forward to approaching the ministries to promote much-needed regulations. Above all, he wants to encourage them to draft and adopt a national disaster plan. But this gets more difficult by the day. Territorial fragmentation prevents ministers, scattered here and there, from meeting. Many leaders reunited in one place could become a military target. Each VCA will face its own unique challenges. It could focus on communities, or more on the implementing agency itself. Its priority may be to highlight capacities, or to identify vulnerable groups more accurately. But the process is defined by three overriding principles:
Principal contributor to this chapter was Iolande Jaquemet, an independent writer based in Geneva. Latifur Rahman, the International Federation's disaster preparedness delegate in Papua New Guinea, contributed to the box. |
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