Rapid Response: does it undermineresilience?

The humanitarian response to Cyclone Nargis, Burma (3 May 2008)

Marianne Jago-Bassingthwaightemarianne.jagobassingthwaighte@jcu.edu.au

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Questions

• How much, and what kind, of rapid response is enough? At what point does it overwhelm local coping strategies and undermine community resilience, networking and skilling?

• What does this case study of Burma tell us about the responsibility to protect (R2P)?

• How should the international political and humanitarian communities respond to aid refusal?

What Happened

• Cyclone Nargis made landfall in Burma on 2-3 May 2008

• Category 4+ - Winds up to 240km hour • Tidal surge of 3.4 metres over very low-lying Delta• 140,000 dead or missing, disproportionately women,

children, elderly• Of estimated 7.35m people in affected areas, one

third suffered severe loss.

The Delta under water

What happened…• Many millions displaced• 450,000 houses destroyed• Severe physical and emotional trauma, and

heightened vulnerability • USD 1 billion direct material damage:

foodstocks, livelihoods, infrastructure• Longer term losses: human and social capital,

personal savings, access to affordable credit

Junta Refuses Aid • Generals say they have the situation in hand• Regime restricts dissemination of photographs

and footage of Nargis destruction• Regime refuses entry visas to most internat’l

aid workers, restricts delta access• UN orgs / INGOs with existing presence

allowed to stay– Save the Children note that they are soon allowed

to travel unaccompanied to Delta

The Political Fall-Out

• “Myanmar Cyclone: Burma junta may be prosecuted over aid block” (The Telegraph)

• Debate in the UN Security Council: British and French particularly adamant that force should be used if necessary to delivery aid to needy

• The spectre of humanitarian intervention (Chapter VII) raised in the push for a rapid humanitarian response

Standing up to Regime Bullies

The Response• Scale of Nargis’s impact approached that of

the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. • But in Burma there were fewer than half the

200 or so aid actors that “poured into” Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka & other regions affected by the Tsunami. (Islamic Relief)

• Actual amount of aid hard to quantify noting regime’s information given late and not reliable

The Early Response

• Conflicting accounts of the international response:– Andrew Kirkwood, Save the Children, Burma; and

Richard Werly, journalist. • Local response was large-scale and

spontaneous– monastic, private sector, civil society orgs

Rapid Response• Example: Save the Children less than two

weeks after the cyclone, reached more than 120,000 people forced out of their homes by the cyclone, including around 50,000 children - 90,000 people around Yangon and 30,000 in the Irrawaddy delta. And reaching around 15,000 more people each day. Much of this was delivered by local staff, and through partnering with local organisations.

The Response – International • 7 May: UN cluster system is established, issues

a Flash Appeal for USD187m. • 19 May: ASEAN FMs Meeting established

ASEAN Humanitarian Task Force (Nargis)• 25 May: ASEAN-UN International Pledging

Conference in Rangoon • Burma then agrees to Chair Tri-Partite Core

Group (TCG: ASEAN, UN, Burma)• Donors insist on access, and assessments

Rapid Response

• ASEAN Emergency Response Assessment Team (ERAT) 9-18 May 2008 was begun within 5 days of disaster

• Almost all villages had some assistance within 2-3 weeks; remoter areas - a month

• Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA), released 21 July 2008– 32 Village Tract Assessments (VTA)– 8 Damage and Loss Assessments (DALA)

Evaluating the Response

• Immediate Official Response weak and badly handled

• Bulk of immediate assistance was local (NGOs, local INGO staff, diaspora links; civic, private sector)

• Donor, INGO and UN agencies already present mobilised

• Others arrived later (SIDA, Oxfam, UNOCHA)

Evaluating the Response• UNOCHA RealTime Evaluation found that the

response had gone well not because of the international response but because of local efforts and a unique Burmese “culture of sharing”. It also found that no-one had died as a result of the poor regime response – local effort had compensated

• Johns Hopkins University Report found that the regime had stolen aid and thousands had died because of regime negligence

What’s missing in this picture?• How much humanitarian aid did Burma

receive?• To what extent does the UN appeals process

take into account local contribution?• To what extent does the international

humanitarian community protect and privilege local response efforts?

• Aid refusal – what if it’s a despot in a very poor country that we’d like to get rid of?

Observations• ODI Report finding (2012):

– The structures we have set up have moved us, as international aid actors, more and more away from the people...They have made the response not nimble enough, more risk averse, more constrained and less able to engage with the specificity of the local situation, where there may be initiatives which we could strengthen.

Lesson: work with savvy local actors as much as possible