NGOs call for tailored disaster response

Transcript

A new NGO report is calling for a more tailored approach to disaster management in the Pacific citing the confusion in the wake of Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu as proof a one size fits all approach is no longer appropriate.

Titled "One Size Doesn't Fit All" the report by Save the Children, Care, Oxfam and World Vision the report is a contribution to the Pacific Regional Consultation for the World Humanitarian Summit being held in Auckland this week.

New Zealand Disaster Relief Forum chair Ian McInnes spoke with Koroi Hawkins about the reports recommendations.

IAN MCINNES: Well I think it is in recognition that you know there are approximately 14 countries across the Pacific in which aid agencies are responding both in terms of ongoing development needs and in terms of disaster response and these are very different from low lying atolls like Tuvalu no more than three metres above sea level through to the very mountainous Papua New Guinea in Melanesia. And in fact responses to disasters and in fact development in general needs to be tailored to very different requirements in each of those countries.

KOROI HAWKINS: And does this mean a change in the way things are currently being done? Doe that mean that there is a one size fits all approach at the moment?

IM: To a degree there is and to a degree there has to be. Because of the speed of which disaster response must take place you need to have simple and useable templates and systems. Now the problem comes in localising those to those different conditions. And so at that point your planning and your response needs to quickly tailor to need and changing needs. You might prepare for example for a particular set of conditions or events in Vanuatu or the Solomon Islands as we saw recently with floods and cyclones and suddenly be hit by something very different like a Tsunami which Samoa faced in 2009. So immediately your plan is valid in part but not in other parts and so the one size fits all gets to the point that international systems and templates and processes need to very rapidly adapt to localised contexts.

KH: And there has also been talk of the need to prepare to manage and influx of different or a number of different NGO's that will come in, some who are not locally based and who will want to help.

IM: Well this is a huge challenge and it is a growing challenge and not just for small countries like Pacific Island nations but we are seeing the same right now in Nepal after the earthquake, we saw this in Haiti after their earthquake in 2010. And what you have is a large contingent of help arriving from different international NGO's right through to very small individuals or agencies wanting to come and help and their needs to be a way to coordinate and to manage that. Now the effort in the Pacific is to keep, is to ensure that pacific government's are in charge of their own responses and to keep them their right throughout out that. Now that's not something that everybody understands and so well meaning organisations simply turning up in say Port Vila and offering assistance, if the government can't see that coming it can't coordinate it. If it arrives and the help just seeks to get to work and we saw this in Haiti, sorry we saw this in Nepal with search and rescue teams wanting to help, not being told where to go and in the end taking themselves out into the country side. I think people have a lot of sympathy with that. In the end you want people to be served and to be helped and governments are scrambling to put coordination around that but I think there is a strong recognition here that a government is in charge, it needs to stay in charge and it needs to come out of a disaster stronger than ever before. Because in the end it answers to its people for its response and that has to be right across the board, from shelter to food, through to medical response, to the search and rescue, through to replacement of infrastructure. And so government needs to remain in charge of that.

KH: And just looking at some of the recommendations of this report are there any that stand out for you as being important or new to the discussion?

IM: No, I think this is a real effort from four aid agencies to hit stop and reflect, you know, after what was a very significant disaster. I don't think it is new I think the devil is in the detail and implementing it. The difficulty is in spreading resource across the Pacific. We have to work smarter, we have to work with governments on their planning ahead of disasters and It think the bit that really stands out and that is coming through right now in the consultation in Auckland  a round for the World Humanitarian Summit, Helen Clark is back in New Zealand for this event, second in charge at the UN. Steven Obrien over at humanitarian issues he is here for this. And the conversation is very much around building resilience and the thinking is this. We are simply as a humanitarian community going to run out of money and steam to continue to respond to disasters of this scale if we don't do two things. Get on top of resilience in the islands where people are particularly vulnerable. Build better housing, get health and sanitation and water supplies and education to a point where it is sturdy and robust. Put evacuation shelters in place so get resilience into communities. And secondly and this is something that we can't of course control on our own, but curb the effects of climate change. And this of course takes global action on the issue of climate change which is simply warming air temperatures and rising sea levels. And there are a number of Atoll based countries in the Pacific that are desperate to see solid action on Climate Change so that their countries don't disappear.