'Arrogance' of agencies hampered tsunami relief effort

[spindrifter]

The Times July 15, 2006
By Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs Correspondent

INTERNATIONAL aid agencies displayed “a tragic combination of arrogance and ignorance” in their response to the Asian tsunami and brushed aside the valuable work of local communities in their rush to be seen to be doing something, a study has concluded.

A significant independent evaluation of the international response to the tsunami of December 2004, which killed 227,000 people in 14 countries, has uncovered a string of inconsistencies and failures by agencies that left some communities worse off and caused cultural offence and waste in others.

<snip>

...the report notes that “local affected people and their neighbours saved virtually every life that was to be saved before the international rescue teams arrived”. In their rush to be of help and to appear to their donors to be doing the right thing, agencies often failed to consult local people about the help they needed and ignored the valuable work that they were already doing. In some instances they poached staff from local and national rescue teams, which were left weaker as a result.

<snip>

The report, widely welcomed by British aid agencies, suggested that one way to improve the emergency response was to set up a regulatory body to set international standards and provide accreditation to agencies to deal with disasters. www.tsunami-evaluation.org

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2270727,00.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. And even these agencies did a better job than the US government

in its Katrina relief effort -- or the lack thereof.

[spindrifter]

3. Yes, I thought that the idea of

certifying agencies has some merit, even in the domestic setting. I'm sure that the Katrina response by Bushco, FEMA, et al. would set the bench mark for establishing failure in relief efforts--and we raised loads of money and goods from private parties.

[PATRICK]

2. Conclusion:

Most of the people now in charge of everything institutionally in the "great" nations are irredeemable a$$hats. This type of unfitness is epidemic and evident.

Made in the image and likeness of Bush or Cheney or whatever is at the center of the black hole.

[CatholicEdHead]

4. President of Doctors without Borders talked about challenges

with any type of international relief efforts. This podcast is relevant to this thread.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2006/1673580.htm

They operate in 70 countries, and give medical aid to those who need it most. The Médecins Sans Frontières international president is Australian Dr Rowan Gillies. This week on Background Briefing, he explains why it is important, but difficult, to stay clear of politics, cultural judgements, and too much co-ordination. And why they must sometimes just walk away.

Hourlong Podcast here:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/bbg_20060702.mp3

For entire transcript, follow the first link. Here is a relevant excerpt:

But the desire at the moment is to have a system where basically the UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator, Jan Eckerlans his name is, he can basically press a button when there's a crisis, and MSF does the medical stuff; Oxfam does the water; Save the Children does mosquito net distribution, or whatever. And it's all going to happen, everything is going to work fine, that's the answer to the world's problems.

The danger is, I think you have to think about who is the UN? The UN is a group of governments with foreign policy. That's what it is. And more importantly, they actually have a lot of constraints put on them by this government. Everyone has different goals, some of them are good, some of them bad, but they are different. I think even dangerously it suggested there is a way to solve all the world's problems if we just integrate and co-ordinate together.

This is not only delusional, but incredibly dangerous, it's a utopian view of the fact that if we just get our act together, the world will get better, and unfortunately, from my point of view, it doesn't seem to work like that.

Finally, something much more dangerous than peace action alone or development action alone, is humanitarian action alone. There is a huge danger of thinking that humanitarian assistance is the answer. It's not the answer, it's a stopgap and that's all it is, that's all we're doing. We're putting a band aid on the problem, keeping people alive while the political actions can try and solve the problem.

[spindrifter]

5. Great post!

Thanks for those links.