Rising From The Ashes

Development Strategies In Times Of Disaster

Mary Baughman Anderson, Peter J Woodrow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000310177
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores the significant role of grassroots organizations in complementing that of governments and intergovernmental organizations in situations of disaster relief and shows how creative local initiatives can result in the mutual reinforcement of emergency relief and development programs.

Part I
Lessons Learned and Guidelines for Program Design

Introduction to Part I
Thinking Development in a World of Disasters

Concepts and Tools for Program Design

The commitment to development is clear and unshakable among nongovernmental organizations. However, when circumstances require them to respond with immediate humanitarian relief, development goals are often lost or at least deferred while emergency efforts prevail. The informed analysis, sensitive implementation, and regular evaluation characteristic of development work are all but abandoned in the face of the crisis. With regret, agencies feel that they cannot maintain their commitment to development while disaster response is demanded.

The International Relief/Development Project has tried to provide a way for NGOs to hold fast to development aims while proceeding to address immediate needs in the wake of disasters. The basic approach, developed through the study of NGO field relief projects, is presented in Chapter 1. Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis provides a way to sort information about a disaster situation and to set priorities among program options. This "analytical framework" is the lens through which a wide range of issues is examined throughout the balance of Part I.

Decisions and Choices in Program Design and Implementation

A number of key issues in disaster relief programming appeared again and again in the projects and programs examined by IRDP. In Chapters 2-7, we report what we have learned through the case histories about these issues, showing how Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis can be applied in project design and implementation. The issues examined are grouped under six headings:

• First Decisions in Programming
• The Context of Programming
• Dimensions of Programming
• People and Programming
• Approaches to Programming
• Cooperation and Accountability in Programming

In the first of these, we begin by examining the first decisions that NGOs make about disaster response—namely, the decision of whether or not to provide assistance and, if so, whether to develop a full relief program or to join together with local NGOs as partners to provide relief. In the next section, we look at the strong influence, on all programming, both of the political context and of the policy context in which agencies provide assistance. We end this discussion by analyzing the importance of information to project design and operation. Who needs to know what, and when do they need to know it? What are the purposes of information and how can it be used to increase a project's developmental impact?

Under "Dimensions or Programmmg," three other design issues—the speed, size and duration of responses—are discussed and myths about them debunked. The chapter on "People and Programming" discusses issues about whom the projects are focussed to help. We suggest applying the term "participants" to describe those people to whom aid is provided because they are the real actors in any development effort. We then focus on two "special" groups often named as recipients of emergency assistance: women and refugees.

Issues of importance to the MGOs themselves as they hire staff and plan the content and mechanisms of projects are treated in the section on "Approaches to Programming." Finally, two areas of concern to almost all NGOs with whom we worked are discussed in "Cooperation and Accountability in Programming."

While we do not deal explicitly with disaster preparedness, mitigation and prevention, in a basic sense these are what this book is all about. Awareness of the relationships between disaster response and development is fundamental to preparedness and mitigation. In the final analysis, because local capacity is increased through development to the point where it can cope with crises that occur, even disaster "prevention" is possible.

Chapter 1
A Framework for Analyzing Capacities and Vulnerabilities

What Is This Analytical Framework?

The analytical framework is a tool to help NGOs design and evaluate relief projects. It is difficult, when comparing varied experiences, to take account of the specifics of each situation and, at the same time, to develop generalizations that are valid in multiple situations. Relief work is complex, involving many people, many agencies and many governments at the international, national, regional and local levels. Also, disasters are caused by both natural and human factors, and the range of possible responses is large. Many variables must be taken into account in designing disaster responses and maximizing their developmental impact

How can we deal with such complexity and diversity of experience and still generalize enough to help future project planners? The comparison of diverse experience is greatly facilitated by a simplified (but not simplistic!) framework for analysis. Such an analytical framework should provide a straightforward system for considering the factors that are critical to the design and implementation of effective relief projects.

An analytical framework sets out categories of factors to be considered and suggests a sequence or order in which to consider them. The categories must be comprehensive enough to cover all the important variables, but few enough that they are easily remembered. In essence, this framework helps us to "map" a complex real situation, to highlight the crucial factors, and to illustrate the relationships among factors that matter most to project effectiveness.

We begin with a straightforward presentation of the categories of the analytical framework. Then, five factors that add important dimensions to the analysis reflecting the complex reality of project contexts are introduced and discussed. Finally, the application of the framework to the design or evaluation of projects is discussed, especially as it can inform and guide the many decisions that NGOs face about whether and how to give aid.

Vulnerabilities and Capacities Analysis

The analytical framework is based on the dual concepts of capacities and vulnerabilities. We explore vulnerabilities in order to understand why a disaster happened and what its impact has been, why it affected a particular group of people, and how to estimate the risks of future disasters.

It is important, here, to make a clear distinction between vulnerabilities and "needs." Vulnerabilities refer to the long-term factors which affect the ability of a community to respond to events or which make it susceptible to calamities. Needs, as used in a disaster context, refer to immediate requirements for survival or recovery from a calamity.

For instance, those who suffer from mudslides in an urban area may have needs for temporary shelters and medical attention. They may need help with housing and infrastructure reconstruction. On the other hand, the vulnerabilities in the situation include many long-term trends and factors, some of which directly contribute to the suffering caused by the mudslide: crowding, siting of homes on unstable land, use of poor housing materials, etc. Other vulnerability factors do not relate directly to danger from mudslides, but do affect the ability of the community to respond to and recover from any serious crises: rural to urban migration because of lack of rural employment opportunities, lack of government enforcement of building codes or other services, absence of strong community organizations, and pervasive poverty, itself.

Vulnerabilities precede disasters, contribute to their severity, impede effective disaster response and continue afterwards. Needs, on the other hand, arise out of the crisis itself, and are relatively short-term. Most disaster relief efforts have concentrated on meeting immediate needs, rather than on addressing and lessening vulnerabilities.

Vulnerabilities analysis can help prevent two pitfalls of relief work. First, it calls into question any post-disaster attempts simply to "get things back to normal," because, by raising awareness of the factors that contributed to this disaster, it shows that "normalcy" involved vulnerabilities that, if not changed, may lead to future disasters. Second, it alerts relief workers to the potential for unwittingly contributing to future vulnerabilities by their interventions. Much of so-called "development" actually increases vulnerabilities. Examples include construction of high-rise buildings in earthquake zones without using earthquake-resistent techniques or building commercial or residential units on flood plains.

To avoid increasing vulnerabilities, it is necessary to identify capacities in order to know what strengths exist within a society—even among disaster victims—on which future development can be built. Acknowledging the capacities of the affected population is essential for designing and implementing disaster responses that have developmental impacts. Every society has both strengths and weaknesses, capacities and vulnerabilities. When a crisis becomes a disaster (i.e., it outstrips the capacity of the society to cope with it) then the society's vulnerabilities are more noticeable than ite capacities. However, for agencies wanting to help with recovery and systemic development beyond recovery, understanding both is essential.

Not all crises become disasters and not all people suffer equally from any given disaster. Why do disasters occur where and when they do, and why do they happen to some people and not to others? The answer lies in an examination of vulnerabilities. People become disaster "victims ' because they are vulnerable. Because people have different degrees of vulnerability, they suffer differently.

-he most visible area of vulnerability is physical/material poverty. Poor people more often suffer from crises than people who are richer—because they have little savings, few income or production options, and limited resources. Less obvious, but equally important, are two other areas of vulnerability that may also contribute to victimization. One of these is the social/organizational realm—how a society is organized, its internal conflicts and how it manages them. The other is the motivational/attitudinal area—how people in the society view themselves and their ability to affect their environment. Societies may be either vulnerable or have capacities in these areas, and these vulnerabilities or capacities are as important as their material resources, or lack of them.

For example, even poor societies which are well-organized and cohesive can withstand, or recover from, a disaster better than those where there is little or no organization and people are divided. Similarly, groups who share strong ideologies or belief systems, or who have strong

Figure 1: Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis Matrix

experiences of successfully cooperating to achieve common social goals, even when struck by disaster, may be better able to help each other and limit some kinds of suffering than groups without such shared beliefs.

The three areas of vulnerabilities and capacities are represented in the matrix presented in Figure 1. The analysis always refers to factors at the community level, rather than at the individual level. The internal lines in the matrix are dotted because the categories overlap and there is constant interaction among them.

Physical/Material

We begin with the physical/material realm, not because it is the most important (experience shows that it often is less important than the other two areas), but because it is the area on which most outside disaster assistance is concentrated. When a disaster strikes, it is the physical destruction or suffering that compels the attention of outsiders. Although disaster "victims" suffer physical deprivation (food, shelter, medicines), they always have some physical/material resources left. These may be recoverable goods or only the skills they carry with them. These capacities are the point of departure for developmental work

To understand physical vulnerabilities, we ask what were the ways in which the group (who became "victims") were physically vulnerable. For example, are they disaster victims because of their economic activities (as when farmers cannot plant because of floods or nomads lose their grazing lands because of drought) or because of their geographic location (homes built on flood plains, in cyclone areas, or on mountains prone to mudslides)? Or, are they simply too poor and possess too few resources for long term sustenance?

The physical/material category includes land, climate and environment, people's health, their skills and labor, infrastructure, food, housing, capital, and physical technologies.

Social/Organizational

To explore the social/organizational vulnerabilities and capacities, we ask what was the social structure of the people before the disaster and whether it served them in the face of this disaster. What has been the impact of the disaster on social organization? This category can include the formal political structures and the informal systems through which people get things done, such as making decisions, establishing leadership, or organizing various social and economic activities.

Social and organizational vulnerabilities are obvious when there is prejudice or conflict within a society. Divisions according to race, religion, ethnicity, language, class, or caste can weaken the social fabric to such an extent that people are more vulnerable to crisis. The most obvious and devastating disaster resulting from social vulnerability is war when conflict becomes overt. Millions in today's world suffer social, as well as physical, disruption as refugees.

On the other hand, people, even disaster "victims," always have social coping systems: family, group, community, and/or area-wide organizations; systems for distributing goods and services; inter- and intra-family decision-making patterns. Efforts to overcome a disaster should recognize and build on these. Furthermore, by becoming engaged in assessing its own capacities, a community can build community cohesion through joint action.

Motivational/Attitudinal

To understand the motivational/attitudinal realm, we ask how the community views itself and its ability to deal effectively with its physical and social/political environment. What were people's beliefs and motivations before the disaster happened and how did the disaster affect them? Do people feel they have the ability to shape their lives? Strength or weakness in th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I: Lessons Learned and Guidelines for Program Design
• PART II: IRDP Case Histories
• Appendix A: Annotated List of Additional IRDP Case Histories
• Appendix Β: Bibliography