A Call For Sensible Disaster Relief

As governments and aid agencies still struggle to meet needs almost a month after the South Asian tsunamis, two staff members of the Feinstein International Famine Center at Tufts say that the system can be improved.

Medford/Somerville, Mass. [01.21.05] Unfortunately, the one thing that all major international disasters have in common is an inefficient relief response system, according to experts at the Feinstein International Famine Center at Tufts. But the United States can ease the problem by forming a disasters committee to coordinate responses to major catastrophes like the South Asian tsunamis.

“The current fund-raising scramble thus illuminates the broader weakness of the world's humanitarian apparatus: a frail creature with limited capacity and reach,” Larry Minear, project director for the Famine Center, and Ian Smillie, a development consultant affiliated with the Center, wrote in an op-ed column for The Boston Globe.

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Post-disaster confusion is endemic not just within the tsunami relief efforts, but also within similar endeavors in Liberia, Darfur, Haiti, and other areas hit by major hurricanes and other humanitarian crises.

Agencies and donors, they write, have unclear pictures of what is needed and what to do. The barrage of post-disaster advertising and solicitations can also overwhelm potential donors.

Both Smillie and Minear – co-authors of The Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World – believe that the period immediately following a disaster as enormous as the tsunamis is a good time to evaluate global disaster response efforts.

“It is, in fact, one of the few times when ordinary citizens have an opportunity to consider the bigger picture and to make personal decisions about how they might assist,” they wrote.

While the influx of donations in the days immediately following the tsunamis helped relief efforts, a major problem is that aid agencies had to begin responding to the tragedy with very little cash on hand.

“Although many [agencies] have ongoing development programs in the region, the money for those is usually not transferable,” Minear and Smillie wrote in the Globe.

That initial lack of funds translates to a delayed, inefficient response. And once the fundraising fervor dies down a few weeks after they tragedy, they write, incoming funds dry up.

“The international response mechanism is like operating a volunteer fire brigade – except that the volunteers have to acquire the fire trucks, the pumps, and the water system before they can leave for the fire,” they explained.

With two billion people affected by disasters in the last decade – 90 percent of that total in developing countries – the need for improvement is dire, according to the two development workers.

They cite Britain as an example of a country that approaches disasters sensibly. With its Disasters Emergency Committee, whose members include the 12 top British charitable organizations, everyone’s roles are known in advance of a disaster. When one occurs, Minear and Smillie explain, television networks, newspapers, banks, the phone company and the post office all work together to coordinate collection of donations.

The system was prompted by the BBC in 1963 when it complained about competing fundraising agencies and some organizations’ questionable agendas.

The Committee also disburses its funds to member organizations based on the level of help that organization is capable of providing to a specific disaster area. With a minimum reserve of 200,000 pounds, the Committee is never in danger of scraping the bottom of the barrel. With the tsunami tragedy, it raised 76 million pounds in approximately 10 days.

“Instead of a bewildering plethora of agencies and appeals, British donors can take reasonable assurance that their money will be well managed,” Minear and Smillie wrote in the Globe.

Fundraising for disaster relief is not simply a matter of collecting money, they say, but also allocating that money wisely.

“An efficient appeal mechanism is supported by the assurance that funds will be used in an effective, timely, accountable manner,” wrote Minear and Smillie.