When Disaster Strikes.

While several United Nations agencies have round-the-clock programmes to readily meet the needs of those suffering from disasters, many focus on reducing vulnerability in the first place. The Chronicle looks at both sides of disaster management.

January 26 was supposed to be an easy day off in India, commemorating the nation's adoption of its constitution--Republic Day--and this year the holiday fell on Friday so some people were waking up to a long, lazy weekend. But natural disasters are indiscriminate. At 8:46 a.m. local time, the ground shook.

Disasters come in many forms, both natural and man-made--earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, locust swarms, livestock plagues, war, and the breakdown of law and order. The state of Gujarat, which was hit hardest, had been in the throes of a two-year severe drought that had reduced its agricultural production, which is primarily rain-fed, by as much as 30 per cent. The poor, women and children were already in a fragile state.

The first action was search and rescue, swiftly conducted by national teams. International teams arrived late the following night and two days later, relief teams and supplies began to arrive. According to the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination team in Gujarat, at one time, the collective effort involved 245 organizations and agencies, including at least 55 national and 99 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 20 donor government teams, 10 UN and international organizations, and Red Gross representatives from 10 countries.

Two days after the disaster struck, sectoral committees were formed covering health, shelter, water, sanitation, relief and logistics. Later, children and women were also made sectoral issues.

The combination of sectoral and general meetings ensured a more meaningful exchange of information between the NGOs, the Government and the UN family.

Some of the early relief operations included critical lifesaving drugs and medicine provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). WHO also collaborated with the Government to develop a comprehensive programme for disease surveillance in the worst affected areas of Gujarat, similar to the system established in the aftermath of the tropical cyclone in Orissa in 1999.

The World Food Programme (WFP) began with the deployment of 300 metric tons of high energy biscuits to the earthquake zone for distribution to 100,000 people for 15 days. Later, it launched a four-month, $4-million-operation food aid programme to assist pregnant women, nursing mothers and children, as well as distribute packages of wheat flour and lentils to families. The United Nations Population Fund provided mobile health services to meet health needs in general, and reproductive health needs in particular. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) fielded a mission to assess the damage to crops, livestock and agriculture infrastructure.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Volunteers (UNV) recruited 107 national UNVs to help coordinate a group of 5,000 volunteers from youth organizations near the epicentre of the earthquake.

The Emergency Response Division of UNDP also set up a permanent mechanism for disaster preparedness and mitigation training. Together with the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), UNDP would also support an ongoing project with local organizations in a reconstruction and rehabilitation process through building temporary and permanent housing solutions with vulnerability-reduction orientation.

UNICEF supplied locally purchased education kits, school tents and trained teachers. In light of the estimated 3 million children below 15 years of age directly affected by the earthquake in the six hardest hit districts of Gujarat, UNICEF and its partners played a key role in advocating and ensuring that the children received trauma counselling.

The United Nations family and its partners are still working in full force to help the Indian quake victims while situations in such areas as Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, Eritrea, El Salvador and Sudan also require urgent humanitarian relief. In fact, an Inter-Agency Appeal for some $34 million to help El Salvador, which was devastated by another earthquake, was launched the same day India was hit (see box on page 12).

Less than a week after the Gujarat quake, some 200 government officials and disaster specialists attended a conference in Japan to focus on the lessons learned from the 1995 earthquake in Kobe that killed 6,432 people. UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Kenzo Oshima announced plans to open the first UN Asian office in Kobe to monitor earthquakes and other world disasters. Similar offices already exist in Geneva and New York.

Most important and one of the major challenges confronting countries throughout the world is how to mitigate the risks faced by disaster-prone communities and how to help in their rehabilitation once a disaster has struck.

The Special Relief Operations Service of FAO provides agricultural inputs and equipment to bridge the gap until regular supplies become available. Some recent projects include the coordination of agricultural emergency activities in East Timor, and emergency assistance to enhance logistical and technical capacities of the Department of Livestock Services against African swine fever.

Habitat's Risk and Disaster Management Programme, among other activities, fields assessment and technical advisory missions to disaster-prone countries, and designs implementation and backstopping projects at national, regional and global levels in collaboration with other countries and external support agencies. They include rebuilding communities in urban Afghanistan, supporting flood prevention and rehabilitation projects in China and Bangladesh, assisting in settlement rehabilitation in northern Iraq, and restoring urban governance and service delivery in Somalia.

The Disaster Reduction and Recovery Programme of UNDP focuses on promoting and supporting capacity building and/or strengthening appropriate national authorities and institutions for the mitigation, prevention and preparedness of natural, technological/industrial and environmental disasters.

Under this scheme are the programme for the Guagua Pichincha Volcano in Ecuador, supporting the disaster management system in Viet Nam and capacity building of the National Disaster Management Authority in Mozambique.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has a joint UNEP/Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Environment Unit that provides urgent assistance to countries affected by environmental disasters, such as industrial/technological accidents, chemical and oil spills, forest fires, floods, and other sudden-onset emergencies that damage the environment and human health and welfare. Recently, the Unit has responded to the threat of dam breaks in Armenia and Georgia, forest fires in Brazil, acute river pollution in Chile and a chemical fire in Madagascar.

UNICEF provides reconstruction and development assistance, as well as actively participating in the issues of education and youth, minorities, gender and trafficking in human beings. In Yugoslavia, it has deployed mobile assessment teams to review the overall situation and needs, focusing on health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and social welfare. In Albania, it has set up Youth Parliaments with a view to increasing youth participation in public debates.

WHO maintains a team of experts on standby, ready to be deployed to a disaster site within 24 hours. Emergency responses include containing an Ebola outbreak in Gulu, Uganda and assessing the health risks and needs of depleted uranium radiation exposure in Kosovo.

In his Millennium Report, Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced the launch of a new disaster response programme, called "First on the Ground", that will provide and maintain mobile and satellite telephones, as well as microwave links, for humanitarian workers. The initiative, he said, would be led by Ericsson--a leading provider of communications solutions that combine mobile telecom and datacom technologies. It has joined with the United Nations, through the Secretary-General's Global Compact programme for promoting voluntary corporate social responsibility, in this partnership project of benefit to developing countries.

Ericsson said its response formalizes the company's commitment to developing "a better, faster response to human suffering caused by disasters". The company's local offices around the world will establish disaster preparedness programmes in partnership with UNDP, OCHA and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. In addition to rapid deployment communications solutions, it will include a global advocacy programme and a web-based community of experts.

In Emergency Call: (41 22) 917-2010

In compliance with General Assembly resolution 46/182 the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), through its Disaster Response Branch (DRB) m Geneva, mobilizes and coordinates international disaster response and can be contacted on a 24-hour basis in case of emergency. It monitors field situations to identify natural disasters, environmental emergencies and industrial accidents, and is in close contact with UN Resident Coordinators throughout the world. The system also features pre-disaster preparedness and post-disaster follow-up activities, including training assessment teams, making evaluations and determining lessons learned, and situation reports, alerting and updating the world on evolving disaster situations.

Countries can address requests for information and/or international assistance in cases of natural disasters or environmental emergencies directly to DRB, or through the UN Resident Coordinator in the affected country. As the focal point for coordinating international response to an emergency, the relevant DRB regional desk immediately prepares and disseminates situation reports to emergency relief services of donor Governments, the UN system, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, providing the international community with detailed information on the evolving disaster situation, including damage caused, actions taken, assistance needs and international aid being provided. On average, over 200 such reports are issued each year, in all about 600 addressees.

In case of a major disaster with substantial involvement of different UN agencies during the immediate relief phase, which is what happened in India, a UN inter-agency mission, such as the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination, may be sent to carry out a comprehensive multi-sectoral assessment of the effects of an emergency to ensure coordinated planning and the formulation of an overall UN response.

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) is the main forum for consultation and decision-making between humanitarian agencies. IASC is chaired by the Emergency Relief Coordinator.

OCHA also assists in resource mobilization if the Government of the affected country asks, by launching an inter-agency appeal and provides the humanitarian community with support in policy development. On average, 27 such appeals are issued each year. As needed, OCHA provides cash grants and a "fast-tracking" service for donor contributions.

Between 1992 and 1998, OCHA launched, on behalf of its partner humanitarian organizations, 94 consolidated appeals seeking $179 billion in 27 countries. Overall, $12.5 billion was raised.

The victims of 44 natural disasters were assisted in 2000, and the international community provided over $373 million in aid (excluding contributions in kind and services).

Appeals for international assistance include specialized personnel and equipment needed for disaster relief activities, such as aircraft, helicopters, ships, nuclear/biological/chemical decontamination facilities, field hospitals and water purification units. The number of emergencies in which these assets were used have increased steadily since 1993. OCHA maintains a Central Register of Disaster Management Capacities, which are available for international assistance and it has also established standby arrangements with Governments and humanitarian organizations for access to field coordination support resources (such as office support, transport, telecommunications and coordination centre infrastructure). When large-scale emergencies call for such resources, OCHA can mobilize, deploy and manage them so that coordination centres and other services can be established.

Making a Big Difference

During the launch of the 2001 Consolidated Interagency Appeals for $2 billion to support 35 million people--less than the world spends in military purposes in one day-Secretary-General Kofi Annan said "when n humanitarian assistance is provided in a timely manner, it can make a big difference ... yet while we have seen the value of well-funded, well-coordinated humanitarian action and while we see increased prosperity in many parts of the world, contributions to the appeals are falling well short of the agreed goals".

Recent appeals include:

* $353 million to cover for one year the needs caused by lingering droughts for 13 million people in the Horn of Africa;

* about $12 million in assistance for Mongolia, where drought and more recently severe winter storms had seriously endangered thousands of people;

* Some $34 million to bridge immediate emergency needs, as well as long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation in El Salvador for six months following the 31 January earthquake

* although the Indian Government as of the end of January 2001 had not requested international assistance, OCHA had released $150,000 from its emergency trust fund and worked with the Government to coordinate the deployment of international assistance teams in response to the 26 January earthquake.

The Risk of Competing Risks

A global report from a human vulnerability point of view, seeking to encourage Governments to take measures to reduce risks from natural disasters, is scheduled for publication at the end of 2001 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Speaking to the Chronicle in a telephone interview, Yasemin Aysan, Acting Head of the UNDP Disaster Reduction and Recovery Programme, which is based in Geneva, said that some Member States might become apprehensive about seeming to put too much focus on managing disaster problems, but emphasized that the report was basically an advocacy tool to promote disaster risk reduction. Thus, the highlight would not be on weaknesses but rather on what nations have done to reduce the risks.

As in the case of an earthquake in a remote desert area, Ms. Aysan points out that in that often quoted situation, there was no disaster per se. A disaster consists of two components: the threat or the event itself, and something which is vulnerable. "So, our question is, where does the weakness come from?"

The answer to why there is so much loss of lives, some say, lies in poor law enforcement, especially when it comes to building codes in urban areas. Editorials written after the earthquake that hit Izmit, Turkey in August 1999 could easily be reprinted substituting El Salvador or India for Turkey after those two countries were hit by devastating earthquakes just weeks after the year 2001 commenced. The message was: the technology was there, the laws were in place, but enforcement was deficient. According to the World Bank, there are about 450 cities worldwide with a population of more than 1 million inhabitants; of these, 50 have a population greater than 3.5 million and 25 more than 8 million. Worse, about half of these mega-cities in developing countries are situated along major earthquake belts or tropical cyclone tracks. Thus, the average number of victims in developing countries is 150 times higher during disasters than in developed countries, and the economic loss as a percentage of gross national prod uct is 20 times greater. The risk is compounded by migration. Poor migrants build houses or shacks from whatever materials they can find in high risk places.

Despite the sobering statistics, some countries that are constantly tested because they are geographically disasterprone, such as China and Bangladesh, are able to do quite well in terms of disaster management, according to Ms. Aysan, who is a 20-year veteran on the subject.

There are two keys, she said, for a disaster-prone country to be more effective in disaster management.

Firstly, they need to have a basic warning system and, more crucially, that the public heed those warnings. It happens that when disasters do not happen frequently, people do not want to leave. "The awareness of risks is higher in coastal areas where they are consistently affected and far lower in earthquake areas because the chance that an earthquake will hit the same place twice in somebody's lifetime is very, very small."

Secondly is having legislation, especially better land use planning and enforcement in urban areas. Better building quality, said Ms. Aysan, means having technological knowledge and extra funds. Most important is enforcing these laws, but she also acknowledged that when it came to some places, like Bangladesh coastal areas, the dwellers are very poor and are illegal occupants. Officially, they do not even exist in these areas.

Another major problem for disaster management is that in every country it has to compete with other development issues in very much the same way. The DRRP office has to compete for attention among other development programmes. However, she does not think anyone can be blamed for these conditions. "Take, for instance, India which had drought problems in the earthquake affected areas throughout the year. People don't think about earthquakes because when was the last time it hit? The risk is forgotten vis-a-vis the risk people have to face every day' Ms. Aysan said.

That is a problem she hopes the World Diaster Vulnerability Report will help mitigate, because the issue of risk management lies, in a way, in the lack of linking disasters and their impact on development. The Report, which targets decision makers and the development constituency, will help shed some light on the problem. DRRP, among others, is working in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Resources Information Database on data collection. The first report will use simple indexing. Since the data is related to human development indicators it could be expected that if overall development is lacking in a country, the hazardous element will make vulnerability risks much higher.

Unlike other indicators, Ms. Aysan is leaning towards not ranking the countries in the Vulnerability Report initially because of its possible negative connotation. What UNDP plans to do instead is to highlight developing indicators which show national efforts that go into reducing the vulnerability, such as public awareness programmes, legislations and national management systems that are in place. "So, the question is, where are they at so there will be the motivation to improve?"

This section was written and coordinated by Klomjit Chandrapanya with inputs by Joya Rajadyaksha, Nadja Schmeil and Fiona Yung.