Sunday, January 02, 2005

The issue of tsunami relief efforts: the scale, the efficacy and the impact

The obstacles facing this mother of all relief efforts as garnered from some NY Times articles which quite accurately capture the problems facing the relief organizers:

With $2 Billion Donated, U.N. Now Needs Help to Deliver Aid

By WARREN HOGE

Published: January 2, 2005
...
Mr. Egeland said the food and medical relief that was arriving in thousands of shipments was running into "logistical constraints" caused by overloaded airports and other bottlenecks.
...

Aid Workers Tackle Panic and Rumors

By IAN FISHER and DAVID ROHDE

Published: January 2, 2005

"The immediate needs of providing food, shelter and medicine will pass quickly," he said. "The destruction is enormous." Possible work for the Marine Corps includes reconstruction of roads and bridges washed out by the tsunami.
...

As Officials Falter, the New Rich Roll in to Help

By DAVID ROHDE and AMY WALDMAN

Published: January 1, 2005
...
In a region with a history of natural calamity but uneven civic response, the newly wealthy have played a new role, raising money for and delivering aid where wealthy Western countries once did. But those efforts have frequently been poorly focused, almost wholly uncoordinated, and blunted in some cases by distrust, and in some cases disorder, among government officials. Some private efforts have only added to the disarray.

In Nagappattinam, India, a port town where some 2,000 people died, no government officials were stationed at the marriage halls this week that had been turned into teeming, squalid relief camps. No one had yet tried to compile a list of the missing. No system was in place to ensure that the truckloads of donations coming in were fairly distributed, or that the overabundance of food was promptly meted out.
...

In fact, over five days in both countries, the challenge has often been less a lack of resources than the organization to match them with the victims' needs. Washed-out roads in this isolated region on Sri Lanka's east coast, for instance, have yet to be repaired for the fifth day, leaving the area largely cut off from abundant food stockpiles in nearby towns.

One result is an ad hoc mix of public and private, and local and foreign, initiative that has left too much food and used clothing in some locations, while others go without, as well as a lack of sanitation and a likely shortfall of resources to meet longer-term reconstruction needs.


So, when it is increasingly evident that the aid forthcoming in cash and kind is going to be a huge amount, the important thing at this point is to proceed in a planned manner that is comprehensive in matters of immediate needs and for future requirements.

We can each contribute sums of money or food and clothing etc but what a waste if they are not utilized properly, leave alone the justified fear that they never reach the intended.

I guess that is why it is absolutely essential that there is some sort of a centralized administration that is aware of the entire relief efforts. This of course is already the UN Emergency response team led by Mr. Jan Egeland. But as to the details of its operations, I do not have any information.

Drawing military analogies, which the Indian press has always employed for all urgent relief work, one can say that such a calamity must be (and it is in most cases) dealt with "on a war footing"-- but above and beyond the mere use of the military to engage in relief-operations, in the very planning, execution and monitoring of this operation. Thus there must be a Command and Control center, equipped with all manner of modern equipment like those NASA control room images we see. In this case too it will need a proper systems of computers to track the effort and advanced communication tools.

The elements of such a system, which basically matches needs with resources:

  • Identification of all affected areas with detailed maps and geographical particulars with number of people affected there.
  • The common immediate needs of each such place:
    • earth-moving equipment for clearing debris, digging, removing/clearing fallen down structures
    • Any items required for burying/cremating the dead.
    • Any equipment needed for search and rescue.
    • Information of the missing.
    • Medical aid for the injured.
    • Psychological (PTS etc) counseling/help for those bereaved, aggrieved.
    • Food and shelter for those displaced and homeless. Very importantly, clean water and proper hygiene.
    • Communication facilities: phones etc.
    • Pumps/suction equipment to clear flooding/water-logging.
    • Proper govt. facilities to document deaths etc as death-certificates etc will be necessary for the survivors in families to get relief.
    • Massive municipal effort to clean-up.
  • Longer term needs:
    • Housing for those who lost their homes. Relocation of the displaced.
    • Some sort of compensation to those who lost livelihoods (boats, shops, businesses etc).
    • Proper care/adoption of orphaned children/kids.
    • Continued counseling for those affected to overcome the trauma.
    • Rebuilding of the damage, as much as possible.
  • Track aid being received, aid agencies in the field and issue orders to them and also chanellize aid resources to them [a massive logistical effort]. This will be a two-way affair: constant feedback from the field and constant input from the Command and Control center. A website to make available to the people at large the undergoing effort: the aid received and how it is being channeled and what the state of affairs is.

If such measure are not taken now, we will end up with an incomplete job that most relief efforts end up being, not because of lack of good-will but because of lack of understanding the exact needs of the affected and then failing to direct resources appropriately...



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