The concept of Disaster Management Cycle has entered disaster management efforts overthe past few years, especially since the Yokohama Conference (1994). Hitherto, disaster management had been perceived as a short-term relief undertaking, which lasted till some time after a disaster. Other purposive activities undertaken in the pre or post-disaster stages on the part of civil society or the government towards mitigating the impact of disasters or tackling long -term vulnerabilities and dealing with newer threats in the wake aftermath of a disaster were not included in disaster management activities. They were rather classified, developmental activities or ‘social action’ on the part of civil society actors(s), motivated by philanthropic concerns. The concept of Disaster Management Cycle integrates isolated attempts on the part of different actors, government and nongovernment, towards vulnerability reduction or disaster mitigation, within the enveloping
domain of disaster management, as phases occurring in different time periods in disaster management continuum, though essentially relating to/comprising disaster management.
This has facilitated a planned approach to disaster management in that post- disaster recovery and pre -disaster mitigation planning are perceived as integrated/related activities 42 Disaster Management and not separate. Thus, prevention, mitigation and preparedness form pre-disaster activities in the Disaster Management Cycle and, response, comprising relief, recovery and rehabilitation are post-disaster activities. Whilst emergency relief and rehabilitation are vital activities, successful disaster management planning must encompass the complete realm of activities and situations that occur before, during and after disasters. These phases can best be represented as a cycle, which if followed through public policy can obstruct future development of disasters by impeding the vicious cycle of cause and effect. These activities are implemented at specific times, the length of any one phase depending on the type of disaster, its breadth and scale. Therefore, one of the key issues in disaster management planning is the allocation of resources at all stages of the disaster cycle, which optimises the total effectiveness of risk reduction activity and maximises the overall impact of disaster management.
This approach has imparted a more holistic perception to disaster management and has served to integrate disaster management with development planning in that most predisaster activities, involve activities for vulnerability reduction like poverty reduction,
employment provision etc. which are also mainstream development concerns. Thus disaster management cycle implies development is essentially/conceptually related to disaster management.
Disasters and Development Another significant consequence/effect of this concept relates to understanding the inherent correlation between disasters and development. Development had proceeded with relative unconcern for environmental issues. The result has been newer vulnerabilities/risks arising as a result of indirect/direct consequences of development strategies. For example, air pollution has been caused due to uncontrolled emission of green house gases, water pollution due to unregulated working of industrial enterprises as also agriculture, leading to adverse impacts on the environment.
Short- terminism has prevailed in public policy in that long-term impacts have not been considered at the policy formulation stage. The concept of disaster management cycle is expected to impart the much needed long-term perspecive /viability to developmental
policy since vulnerability reduction would be factored in mainstream planning to reduce costs on response efforts when disasters strike. Also, the process preceding policy formulation, that is deliberation with involved stakeholders nad citizen groups, is likely to get more particpatory and inclusive of disaster related concerns( Guzmann, 2005).
Impact of disasters has been debilitating, both in terms of economic cost and loss/injury caused to human life and livestock, and the environment. According to the United Nations, in 2001 alone, natural disasters of medium to high range caused at least 25,000
deaths around the world, more than double the previous year and economic losses amounting to over US$ 36 billion. These figures exclude many small, unrecorded disasters that have hit various parts of the world. Chief recorded disasters in recent years have
been devastating earthquakes in Gujarat, El Slavador and Peru; floods in parts of Asia, Africa, droughts in Central Asia, including Afghanistan, Central America and Africa. What are chiefly disturbing are the unabated nature of these disasters and the inability of governments to check their onset or their impacts. There has been increasing resultant lossof life and property, recurrence of disasters, which is largely unexplained, though climate change suggestions have been attempted, which are at best tentative. There is, however, increasing belief in human causation behind disasters.
Disaster Management Cycle ::
There is increasing realisation, as also explained earlier, of a cause-effect relation between disasters and development in that development has not factored environmental concerns
sufficiently in mainstream policy and has been predominantly productivity centred. For example, as brought out in the India Disasters Report, 2005, (Parasuraman and Unnikrishnan,
2005) excessive use of chemical fertilisers has led to salinisation of water in Punjab, water-logging and groundwater contamination. Elsewhere, large dams have displaced communities, heightened seismic risk, such as in Koyna, Maharashtra. Large scale felling
of trees has led to desertification of large stretches in Gujarat and Rajasthan and environmental degradation in upstream areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The World Disasters Report, 2002 categorically states that International development targets set for the year 2015, such as reducing world poverty and hunger by one half, will not be reached unless the heavy toll of disasters on the poor is reduced through
effective measures. In its tenth year, the report published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, calls for disaster risk reduction targets to be added to the
international development goals for 2015 and beyond. These targets include reducing by one half, the number of people killed and affected by disasters and increasing the number of governments with dedicated plans and resources for risk reduction programmes
(IRCRS, World Disasters Report, 2002).
Logically, since/if disasters have human causation, their impact could be minimised by planned human intervention. These efforts comprise immediate control of the situation in the aftermath of a disaster, implying disaster response, long-term planning with a view to curtailing its frequency and impact and curbing its disaster potential, hence losses when onset, implying mitigation, and preparedness, which is explained/understood as a state of
readiness on the part of administration to swing into action.
STAGES IN DISASTER MANAGEMNET
Disaster Management efforts are geared towards disaster risk management. Disaster Risk Management “implies the systematic process of using administrative decisions, organisation, operational skills, and capacities to implement policies, strategies and coping
capacities of the society and communities to lessen the impact of natural hazards and related environmental and technological disasters. These comprise all forms all activities including structural and non- structural measures to avoid (prevention) or to limit (mitigation and preparedness) adverse effects to hazards” (UNISDR, 2004).
There are three key stages of activities in disaster management:
1) Before a disaster: to reduce the potential for human, material, or environmental losses caused by hazards and to ensure that these losses are minimised when disaster strikes;
2) During a disaster: to ensure that the needs and provisions of victims are met to alleviate and minimise suffering; and
3) After a disaster: to achieve rapid and durable recovery which does not reproduce the original vulnerable conditions.
Common perception of disaster management, as explained earlier, is limited to emergency relief and post- disaster rehabilitation. This is so because these two elements are by far 44 Disaster Management the strongest in terms of high profile visibility, political support and funding provision.
Instead of allocating funds before an event to reduce future disasters, action normally only takes place after an event has occurred. The situation is similar to that of preventive
health care where curative medicine is relatively well funded whilst preventive medicine is not. The focus on emergency relief also depends on risk perception; that is, whether there is belief that disaster could be avoided. If disasters were believed to be of such a scale that it is believed, nothing could be done to reduce either the phenomenon or the risk involved, and risk mitigation would not be pressed for/attempted. However, once belief develops that disaster losses are exacerbated by human agency, and could be curbed thereby, disaster risk mitigation would be attempted.
THE DISASTER CYCLE
The different phases of disaster management are represented in the disaster cycle diagram overleaf. The Disaster Cycle consists of three stages:
I) The Disaster Event
This refers to the real-time event of a hazard occurring and affecting the ‘elements at risk’. The duration of the event will depend on the type of threat, for example, ground
shaking may only occur for a few seconds during an earthquake while flooding may take place over a longer period of time. Disasters have tremendous modifying impact on the
physical landscape. Within a few minutes, an entire region is reduced to rubble in the event of an earthquake. The recent Tsunami has permanently altered the physiography of
affected coastal areas in Sri Lanka, Andaman and Nicobar islands. The impact leads to loss of life and property in affected areas; losses being directly correlated to the vulnerability of the region, physical and socio-economic. Physically weak structures,
especially in illegal/informal settlements give way easily and cause large-scale losses.
Vulnerability is also socio-economic. Weaker sections of society, viz. women, children, aged and handicapped, mentally infirm, etc., suffer a lot more than their stronger counterparts. Studies have also unearthed positive correlation between poverty and vulnerability. The poor inhabit the most hazardous physical areas because they are easier to procure and offer added advantages, like proximity to sea for fishermen or fertile soil for farmers near flood prone areas etc., that makes them prone to losses, both of assets and life. The poor also lack the resilience to recover from shock in the aftermath of a disaster. For example, fishermen loose their boats, street side vendors, the homeless, orphans, widows and beggars fall easy prey to epidemics and insidious activities of unsocial elements like thieves, robbers, pimps, etc.
This brings to light the need for multi-faceted response to disasters, which takes account of all social political and economic ramifications. Issues to be addressed range from physical, relating to damaged structures and physical vulnerability of areas and infrastructure to social and economic vulnerability of weaker sections that suffer more relative to other, better placed. The following diagram is a vivid description of the disaster cycle.
Disaster Management Cycle
The Disaster Cycle
Disaster Response
A Disaster is a cataclysmic event that has severe modifying impact. Consequences are both physical and social/ human. Communication is disrupted; infrastructure is affected adversely, many buildings giving way completely, critical facilities are disturbed, economic losses accrue, loss of employment, ranging from temporary to permanent occurs, development is rendered a severe set-back, law and order situation worsens, social fabric
is disturbed, in that parochial tendencies are seen to come forth, such as on caste, communal, linguistic et al lines, and most importantly, people lose lives. Disaster Response has to tackle all aforesaid challenges. Disaster response entails restoring physical facilities, rehabilitation of affected populations, restoration of lost livelihoods and reconstruction efforts to restore the infrastructure lost or damaged. There are inherent important lessons
to be learnt from disaster response. Retrospectively, it brings to light flaws in efforts pertaining to policy and planning with respect to location and type of infrastructure and social schemes to improve the social positioning of the under privileged, particularly with
respect to access to resources of the underprivileged. Disaster aftermath is evaluation time for the administrative set up in that disaster response exposes system weaknesses. Disaster is the ultimate test of administrative efficiency, in the sense of positive impact on the environment, preparedness, procedural simplicity, logistics, speed and expertise. There are inherent important lessons to be learnt for the future. Strong infrastructure and service
support base is the fundamental and the most important requirement, which is often found wanting in poor third world countries. Disaster event simply exacerbates the losses that
accrue almost every time/ unabated due to poor health and hygiene arrangements in vulnerable pockets, inefficient municipal administration, top-down orientation in policy making and administration, poor institutionalisation of development planning and administration at the local level, implementation bottlenecks, unchecked poverty, unresponsiveadministration, poor informational and logistical arrangements et al.
Such critical evaluation as also articulation of displeasure on the part of the people through the electoral mechanism is not as effective in third world countries where elections are fought less on ‘rational’ criterion and more on ascriptive ‘traditional’ ‘charismatic’, Disaster Management criteria, which shifts attention/ focus away from performance to rhetoric which are
designed to excite inherent social differentiations based on caste, language or community, etc., which is political demagoguery. Disaster event brings to the fore such inherent failings
of a system; hence is explained the reliance on outside aid which is often found misdirected and misused due to lack of familiarity with local circumstances in recipient countries and rampant corruption in disbursements due to poor administrative infrastructure.
Since Risk Perception of disasters is low in developing countries, pressure for policy in this regard is not strong enough. Hence, pressure for disaster management policy/planning in developing countries is articulated externally, that is, on the part of external/ international bodies like the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the UNDP, the ISDR etc., based in the United Nations which may not always be guided by local
concerns.
Hence, proactive planning for disaster response on the part of governments, especially in developing countries with regard to administrative reforms is imperative to protect development and/by lessening the disaster potential of a catastrophe, natural or man-made or otherwise by way of policy interventions to ensure:
Better institutional preparedness;
Countering contrary pulls such as lack of social cohesion owing to irrational differentiations that effectively impede response, in the sense of self- help and ‘communitarianism’; and
Long- term mitigation policy to counter vulnerabilities, structural and non- structural by enabling legal provisions and honest implementation of the same.
Significance of Response :
Response has immediate mitigation impact. Disaster losses can be minimised to a large extent by effective response on the part of government and civil society. Sheer impact of disasters on life and property endorses the significance of response. Globally, natural
disasters account for nearly 80 per cent of all disaster-affected people. The insurance industry estimates that natural disasters represent 85 per cent of insured catastrophe losses
globally (World Disasters Report, 1997). World Disasters Report (2003) focuses on ethics in humanitarian aid. It looks at how
humanitarian agencies and governments can best help disaster-affected communities to recover, to become stronger and more resilient. It addresses issues like how the gaps between short-term relief and longer-term recovery can be bridged. There is growing
concern over politicisation of disaster relief. “Millions of the world’s most vulnerable remain beyond the reach of humanitarian assistance and protection. Saving lives alone is
not sufficient. Respecting people’s dignity and livelihoods is equally important. Humanitarian organisations bear two responsibilities. They must operationalise humanitarian principles by developing field indicators to put principles into practice and disseminate good practice in humanitarian judgement.” Acting in tandem with local communities, particularly the vulnerable segments, this could be done. There is also criticism of over-reliance on high-profile aid operations to save lives when
long-term investment in disaster mitigation at the local level has proven to be much more effective. No international aid effort was necessary when the worst hurricane since 1944 hit Cuba in 2001 but only five people died. Local mechanisms were in place to evacuate 700,000 people from Havana and other threatened areas. Of the 53,000 people rescued
Disaster Management Cycle from the flood waters Mozambique’s two great floods, local people saved 34,000(IRCRCS).
In 1996, 40 million disaster-affected people depended on humanitarian assistance, a 60 per cent increase over the average figure of 25 million in the 1980s. In the first half of this decade, over US$ 30 billion was spent on humanitarian assistance. The average cost of natural disasters over the past 25 years stands at over US$ 87 billion a year (CRED, 1999) The average amount spent on humanitarian response is US$ 3 billion a year. Compared to expenditure on disaster mitigation, the average annual global military spending is around US$ 780 billion (UNDP, 1998 in India Disasters Report, 2005). The World Disasters Report of 2002 states that thousands of lives are lost and millions of people left weakened each year because of donor reluctance to invest in measures that
reduce the impact of disasters. Last year alone, the lives of 170 million people worldwide was disrupted by disasters.
Investing in mitigation issues like building long- term resilience of vulnerable communities would better serve the purpose of disaster management. There are reports of widespread corruption/leakage in disaster relief disbursements. Besides, business interests press on
public policy, as there are huge profits involved in reconstruction activities.
It is also asserted that disaster mitigation as part of the development process can minimise economic losses from disasters. However, Disaster Mitigation refers to a future perspective of development. Immediate concern of minimising disaster losses can be attended only by efficient and quick disaster response.
Governments have been known to suffer political losses in the follow- up elections after a disaster. For example, the Polish government suffered terrible election loss after alleged
disastrous handling of the disaster situation, following extensive flooding of Central Europe
in 1997. Unprecedented downpour lasted two weeks from July 5 onwards and affected large masses of people in Poland and the Czech Republic. In total more than 100 people were killed, countless rendered destitute and about 160,000 people in Poland and the Czech republic, respectively had to be evacuated. While the Czech and Polish governments were cash starved, Germany’s handling of the situation was much better due to its better
financial position (Parasuraman & Unnikrishnan, 2005, India Disasters Report). Hence, preparedness, understood as readiness of the administrative apparatus in terms of logistics such medical supplies, hospitals, doctors, temporary shelters etc. is crucial for disaster response.
Issues in Disaster Response:
The key word in disaster response is coordination between actors involved, viz. the government and civil society, including international donor organisations. For effective
coordination, local government infrastructure has to be strong as response effort is channelised/ concentrated at the local level. Unfortunately, local governance has not been sufficiently institutionalised in India. That makes service delivery inefficient. Common administrative problems, like, maintenance of health and hygiene in their respective areas, good drainage, open spaces in settlement vicinities, largely go unattended. This creates vulnerability to disease owing to system failure; manifested as water accumulation following floods, physical vulnerability of informal settlements wherefrom most deaths are reported
during catastrophes like earthquakes etc. Coupled with institutional failure, are negative sociological dynamics like rural to urban migration, which exacerbate problems like 48 Disaster Management congestion and poor basic services in urban areas and possibly, ethnic and communal tensions.
Civil society is contributing significantly to all aspects of disaster management cycle, particularly, relief. Civil society is the new hope of the new world order in the face of
state and market failure in different respects. It is being seen as the answer/alternate / counterpoise to globalisation and weakening states. Civil society is hence, the buffer against state excesses and the market; the latter now developing in collusion with state
governments, hence sharing interests with it, especially in the third world. In the newfound nexus, citizen could be a mute spectator, unless there are optional protection mechanisms. Civil society, in this respect offers new hope in that it has fought successfully for human causes round the world, such as landmine ban, protection of environment etc. It has also successfully challenged arbitrary political regimes such as Marcos’s in Philippines. However,
there is the darker side, which should not be overlooked. The civil strife in Rwanda involved civil society organisations in a negative way (Rieff, 1999). Besides, civil society is an inseparable/organic entity of a culture; the members therefore could be as indoctrinated
as any with flawed perceptions. Also, perceiving civil society as an alternative to State (roll back of state) would be a fundamental error, as all said and done, State remains the
principal agency for citizens’ welfare and it is to it that people turn in distress situation. Also, civil society organisations work systematically only under the aegis of the state. Left alone, they are an amorphous entity; potentially perhaps, chaotic. Also, their international linkages/origin make them suspect with regard to national security. Behavioural aberration on their part in the sense of being generally non-cooperative with and distant from the
state is also discomfiting. During the Marathwada earthquake, non-government organisations were seen to leave work midway and withdraw. They were also not organised and systematic to the desired degree. They even messed up, creating unnecessary chaos in the recent Muzaffarabad earthquake. As articulated in the India Disasters Report, 2005, crises in Marathwada and other places in India showed that the involvement of local people and civil society groups in rescue and relief was not a clearly defined process. According to Parasuraman and Unnikrishnan in the India Disasters Report, (2005), the specific arenas where civil society participation is desirable should be specifically laid down to avoid chaos and confusion in emergency situations. Those are; training project staff, information dissemination, programmes monitoring, housing, and social and economic rehabilitation measures. They, in turn, must be given adequate room to explore and innovate. The agencies must submit a time-bound plan of action, outline their approach unambiguously, clearly defining their specific roles, articulating a programme management strategy, and must establish that they have the necessary resources to see the things through. The converse picture is equally important. Attitudinal change on the part of the governments to reinforce participation is also required. The response in the Marathwada earthquake exhibited that the government views rescue and relief work as a piecemeal business; the responsibility of its revenue department, and therefore, public support need not be factored into it. In the absence of a well-defined process of involving people, spontaneous
involvement has often gone misdirected and is viewed as obstruction by the authorities.
The overall perspective of the administration is to view people as passive recipients of government largesse rather than as valuable partners in any undertaking. This is retrograde and undemocratic. The general perception is that people impede disaster response, not
facilitate it. The result is too many isolated, ill- coordinated efforts on the part of individuals and government and non-government agencies with lack of proper coordination between them. Institutionalisation/strengthening social capital during normal times to be Disaster Management Cycle tapped in readiness during emergencies in the form of organised collective effort at the level of the society is the right policy stance in this regard
domain of disaster management, as phases occurring in different time periods in disaster management continuum, though essentially relating to/comprising disaster management.
This has facilitated a planned approach to disaster management in that post- disaster recovery and pre -disaster mitigation planning are perceived as integrated/related activities 42 Disaster Management and not separate. Thus, prevention, mitigation and preparedness form pre-disaster activities in the Disaster Management Cycle and, response, comprising relief, recovery and rehabilitation are post-disaster activities. Whilst emergency relief and rehabilitation are vital activities, successful disaster management planning must encompass the complete realm of activities and situations that occur before, during and after disasters. These phases can best be represented as a cycle, which if followed through public policy can obstruct future development of disasters by impeding the vicious cycle of cause and effect. These activities are implemented at specific times, the length of any one phase depending on the type of disaster, its breadth and scale. Therefore, one of the key issues in disaster management planning is the allocation of resources at all stages of the disaster cycle, which optimises the total effectiveness of risk reduction activity and maximises the overall impact of disaster management.
This approach has imparted a more holistic perception to disaster management and has served to integrate disaster management with development planning in that most predisaster activities, involve activities for vulnerability reduction like poverty reduction,
employment provision etc. which are also mainstream development concerns. Thus disaster management cycle implies development is essentially/conceptually related to disaster management.
Disasters and Development Another significant consequence/effect of this concept relates to understanding the inherent correlation between disasters and development. Development had proceeded with relative unconcern for environmental issues. The result has been newer vulnerabilities/risks arising as a result of indirect/direct consequences of development strategies. For example, air pollution has been caused due to uncontrolled emission of green house gases, water pollution due to unregulated working of industrial enterprises as also agriculture, leading to adverse impacts on the environment.
Short- terminism has prevailed in public policy in that long-term impacts have not been considered at the policy formulation stage. The concept of disaster management cycle is expected to impart the much needed long-term perspecive /viability to developmental
policy since vulnerability reduction would be factored in mainstream planning to reduce costs on response efforts when disasters strike. Also, the process preceding policy formulation, that is deliberation with involved stakeholders nad citizen groups, is likely to get more particpatory and inclusive of disaster related concerns( Guzmann, 2005).
Impact of disasters has been debilitating, both in terms of economic cost and loss/injury caused to human life and livestock, and the environment. According to the United Nations, in 2001 alone, natural disasters of medium to high range caused at least 25,000
deaths around the world, more than double the previous year and economic losses amounting to over US$ 36 billion. These figures exclude many small, unrecorded disasters that have hit various parts of the world. Chief recorded disasters in recent years have
been devastating earthquakes in Gujarat, El Slavador and Peru; floods in parts of Asia, Africa, droughts in Central Asia, including Afghanistan, Central America and Africa. What are chiefly disturbing are the unabated nature of these disasters and the inability of governments to check their onset or their impacts. There has been increasing resultant lossof life and property, recurrence of disasters, which is largely unexplained, though climate change suggestions have been attempted, which are at best tentative. There is, however, increasing belief in human causation behind disasters.
Disaster Management Cycle ::
There is increasing realisation, as also explained earlier, of a cause-effect relation between disasters and development in that development has not factored environmental concerns
sufficiently in mainstream policy and has been predominantly productivity centred. For example, as brought out in the India Disasters Report, 2005, (Parasuraman and Unnikrishnan,
2005) excessive use of chemical fertilisers has led to salinisation of water in Punjab, water-logging and groundwater contamination. Elsewhere, large dams have displaced communities, heightened seismic risk, such as in Koyna, Maharashtra. Large scale felling
of trees has led to desertification of large stretches in Gujarat and Rajasthan and environmental degradation in upstream areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The World Disasters Report, 2002 categorically states that International development targets set for the year 2015, such as reducing world poverty and hunger by one half, will not be reached unless the heavy toll of disasters on the poor is reduced through
effective measures. In its tenth year, the report published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, calls for disaster risk reduction targets to be added to the
international development goals for 2015 and beyond. These targets include reducing by one half, the number of people killed and affected by disasters and increasing the number of governments with dedicated plans and resources for risk reduction programmes
(IRCRS, World Disasters Report, 2002).
Logically, since/if disasters have human causation, their impact could be minimised by planned human intervention. These efforts comprise immediate control of the situation in the aftermath of a disaster, implying disaster response, long-term planning with a view to curtailing its frequency and impact and curbing its disaster potential, hence losses when onset, implying mitigation, and preparedness, which is explained/understood as a state of
readiness on the part of administration to swing into action.
STAGES IN DISASTER MANAGEMNET
Disaster Management efforts are geared towards disaster risk management. Disaster Risk Management “implies the systematic process of using administrative decisions, organisation, operational skills, and capacities to implement policies, strategies and coping
capacities of the society and communities to lessen the impact of natural hazards and related environmental and technological disasters. These comprise all forms all activities including structural and non- structural measures to avoid (prevention) or to limit (mitigation and preparedness) adverse effects to hazards” (UNISDR, 2004).
There are three key stages of activities in disaster management:
1) Before a disaster: to reduce the potential for human, material, or environmental losses caused by hazards and to ensure that these losses are minimised when disaster strikes;
2) During a disaster: to ensure that the needs and provisions of victims are met to alleviate and minimise suffering; and
3) After a disaster: to achieve rapid and durable recovery which does not reproduce the original vulnerable conditions.
Common perception of disaster management, as explained earlier, is limited to emergency relief and post- disaster rehabilitation. This is so because these two elements are by far 44 Disaster Management the strongest in terms of high profile visibility, political support and funding provision.
Instead of allocating funds before an event to reduce future disasters, action normally only takes place after an event has occurred. The situation is similar to that of preventive
health care where curative medicine is relatively well funded whilst preventive medicine is not. The focus on emergency relief also depends on risk perception; that is, whether there is belief that disaster could be avoided. If disasters were believed to be of such a scale that it is believed, nothing could be done to reduce either the phenomenon or the risk involved, and risk mitigation would not be pressed for/attempted. However, once belief develops that disaster losses are exacerbated by human agency, and could be curbed thereby, disaster risk mitigation would be attempted.
THE DISASTER CYCLE
The different phases of disaster management are represented in the disaster cycle diagram overleaf. The Disaster Cycle consists of three stages:
I) The Disaster Event
This refers to the real-time event of a hazard occurring and affecting the ‘elements at risk’. The duration of the event will depend on the type of threat, for example, ground
shaking may only occur for a few seconds during an earthquake while flooding may take place over a longer period of time. Disasters have tremendous modifying impact on the
physical landscape. Within a few minutes, an entire region is reduced to rubble in the event of an earthquake. The recent Tsunami has permanently altered the physiography of
affected coastal areas in Sri Lanka, Andaman and Nicobar islands. The impact leads to loss of life and property in affected areas; losses being directly correlated to the vulnerability of the region, physical and socio-economic. Physically weak structures,
especially in illegal/informal settlements give way easily and cause large-scale losses.
Vulnerability is also socio-economic. Weaker sections of society, viz. women, children, aged and handicapped, mentally infirm, etc., suffer a lot more than their stronger counterparts. Studies have also unearthed positive correlation between poverty and vulnerability. The poor inhabit the most hazardous physical areas because they are easier to procure and offer added advantages, like proximity to sea for fishermen or fertile soil for farmers near flood prone areas etc., that makes them prone to losses, both of assets and life. The poor also lack the resilience to recover from shock in the aftermath of a disaster. For example, fishermen loose their boats, street side vendors, the homeless, orphans, widows and beggars fall easy prey to epidemics and insidious activities of unsocial elements like thieves, robbers, pimps, etc.
This brings to light the need for multi-faceted response to disasters, which takes account of all social political and economic ramifications. Issues to be addressed range from physical, relating to damaged structures and physical vulnerability of areas and infrastructure to social and economic vulnerability of weaker sections that suffer more relative to other, better placed. The following diagram is a vivid description of the disaster cycle.
Disaster Management Cycle
The Disaster Cycle
Disaster Response
A Disaster is a cataclysmic event that has severe modifying impact. Consequences are both physical and social/ human. Communication is disrupted; infrastructure is affected adversely, many buildings giving way completely, critical facilities are disturbed, economic losses accrue, loss of employment, ranging from temporary to permanent occurs, development is rendered a severe set-back, law and order situation worsens, social fabric
is disturbed, in that parochial tendencies are seen to come forth, such as on caste, communal, linguistic et al lines, and most importantly, people lose lives. Disaster Response has to tackle all aforesaid challenges. Disaster response entails restoring physical facilities, rehabilitation of affected populations, restoration of lost livelihoods and reconstruction efforts to restore the infrastructure lost or damaged. There are inherent important lessons
to be learnt from disaster response. Retrospectively, it brings to light flaws in efforts pertaining to policy and planning with respect to location and type of infrastructure and social schemes to improve the social positioning of the under privileged, particularly with
respect to access to resources of the underprivileged. Disaster aftermath is evaluation time for the administrative set up in that disaster response exposes system weaknesses. Disaster is the ultimate test of administrative efficiency, in the sense of positive impact on the environment, preparedness, procedural simplicity, logistics, speed and expertise. There are inherent important lessons to be learnt for the future. Strong infrastructure and service
support base is the fundamental and the most important requirement, which is often found wanting in poor third world countries. Disaster event simply exacerbates the losses that
accrue almost every time/ unabated due to poor health and hygiene arrangements in vulnerable pockets, inefficient municipal administration, top-down orientation in policy making and administration, poor institutionalisation of development planning and administration at the local level, implementation bottlenecks, unchecked poverty, unresponsiveadministration, poor informational and logistical arrangements et al.
Such critical evaluation as also articulation of displeasure on the part of the people through the electoral mechanism is not as effective in third world countries where elections are fought less on ‘rational’ criterion and more on ascriptive ‘traditional’ ‘charismatic’, Disaster Management criteria, which shifts attention/ focus away from performance to rhetoric which are
designed to excite inherent social differentiations based on caste, language or community, etc., which is political demagoguery. Disaster event brings to the fore such inherent failings
of a system; hence is explained the reliance on outside aid which is often found misdirected and misused due to lack of familiarity with local circumstances in recipient countries and rampant corruption in disbursements due to poor administrative infrastructure.
Since Risk Perception of disasters is low in developing countries, pressure for policy in this regard is not strong enough. Hence, pressure for disaster management policy/planning in developing countries is articulated externally, that is, on the part of external/ international bodies like the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the UNDP, the ISDR etc., based in the United Nations which may not always be guided by local
concerns.
Hence, proactive planning for disaster response on the part of governments, especially in developing countries with regard to administrative reforms is imperative to protect development and/by lessening the disaster potential of a catastrophe, natural or man-made or otherwise by way of policy interventions to ensure:
Better institutional preparedness;
Countering contrary pulls such as lack of social cohesion owing to irrational differentiations that effectively impede response, in the sense of self- help and ‘communitarianism’; and
Long- term mitigation policy to counter vulnerabilities, structural and non- structural by enabling legal provisions and honest implementation of the same.
Significance of Response :
Response has immediate mitigation impact. Disaster losses can be minimised to a large extent by effective response on the part of government and civil society. Sheer impact of disasters on life and property endorses the significance of response. Globally, natural
disasters account for nearly 80 per cent of all disaster-affected people. The insurance industry estimates that natural disasters represent 85 per cent of insured catastrophe losses
globally (World Disasters Report, 1997). World Disasters Report (2003) focuses on ethics in humanitarian aid. It looks at how
humanitarian agencies and governments can best help disaster-affected communities to recover, to become stronger and more resilient. It addresses issues like how the gaps between short-term relief and longer-term recovery can be bridged. There is growing
concern over politicisation of disaster relief. “Millions of the world’s most vulnerable remain beyond the reach of humanitarian assistance and protection. Saving lives alone is
not sufficient. Respecting people’s dignity and livelihoods is equally important. Humanitarian organisations bear two responsibilities. They must operationalise humanitarian principles by developing field indicators to put principles into practice and disseminate good practice in humanitarian judgement.” Acting in tandem with local communities, particularly the vulnerable segments, this could be done. There is also criticism of over-reliance on high-profile aid operations to save lives when
long-term investment in disaster mitigation at the local level has proven to be much more effective. No international aid effort was necessary when the worst hurricane since 1944 hit Cuba in 2001 but only five people died. Local mechanisms were in place to evacuate 700,000 people from Havana and other threatened areas. Of the 53,000 people rescued
Disaster Management Cycle from the flood waters Mozambique’s two great floods, local people saved 34,000(IRCRCS).
In 1996, 40 million disaster-affected people depended on humanitarian assistance, a 60 per cent increase over the average figure of 25 million in the 1980s. In the first half of this decade, over US$ 30 billion was spent on humanitarian assistance. The average cost of natural disasters over the past 25 years stands at over US$ 87 billion a year (CRED, 1999) The average amount spent on humanitarian response is US$ 3 billion a year. Compared to expenditure on disaster mitigation, the average annual global military spending is around US$ 780 billion (UNDP, 1998 in India Disasters Report, 2005). The World Disasters Report of 2002 states that thousands of lives are lost and millions of people left weakened each year because of donor reluctance to invest in measures that
reduce the impact of disasters. Last year alone, the lives of 170 million people worldwide was disrupted by disasters.
Investing in mitigation issues like building long- term resilience of vulnerable communities would better serve the purpose of disaster management. There are reports of widespread corruption/leakage in disaster relief disbursements. Besides, business interests press on
public policy, as there are huge profits involved in reconstruction activities.
It is also asserted that disaster mitigation as part of the development process can minimise economic losses from disasters. However, Disaster Mitigation refers to a future perspective of development. Immediate concern of minimising disaster losses can be attended only by efficient and quick disaster response.
Governments have been known to suffer political losses in the follow- up elections after a disaster. For example, the Polish government suffered terrible election loss after alleged
disastrous handling of the disaster situation, following extensive flooding of Central Europe
in 1997. Unprecedented downpour lasted two weeks from July 5 onwards and affected large masses of people in Poland and the Czech Republic. In total more than 100 people were killed, countless rendered destitute and about 160,000 people in Poland and the Czech republic, respectively had to be evacuated. While the Czech and Polish governments were cash starved, Germany’s handling of the situation was much better due to its better
financial position (Parasuraman & Unnikrishnan, 2005, India Disasters Report). Hence, preparedness, understood as readiness of the administrative apparatus in terms of logistics such medical supplies, hospitals, doctors, temporary shelters etc. is crucial for disaster response.
Issues in Disaster Response:
The key word in disaster response is coordination between actors involved, viz. the government and civil society, including international donor organisations. For effective
coordination, local government infrastructure has to be strong as response effort is channelised/ concentrated at the local level. Unfortunately, local governance has not been sufficiently institutionalised in India. That makes service delivery inefficient. Common administrative problems, like, maintenance of health and hygiene in their respective areas, good drainage, open spaces in settlement vicinities, largely go unattended. This creates vulnerability to disease owing to system failure; manifested as water accumulation following floods, physical vulnerability of informal settlements wherefrom most deaths are reported
during catastrophes like earthquakes etc. Coupled with institutional failure, are negative sociological dynamics like rural to urban migration, which exacerbate problems like 48 Disaster Management congestion and poor basic services in urban areas and possibly, ethnic and communal tensions.
Civil society is contributing significantly to all aspects of disaster management cycle, particularly, relief. Civil society is the new hope of the new world order in the face of
state and market failure in different respects. It is being seen as the answer/alternate / counterpoise to globalisation and weakening states. Civil society is hence, the buffer against state excesses and the market; the latter now developing in collusion with state
governments, hence sharing interests with it, especially in the third world. In the newfound nexus, citizen could be a mute spectator, unless there are optional protection mechanisms. Civil society, in this respect offers new hope in that it has fought successfully for human causes round the world, such as landmine ban, protection of environment etc. It has also successfully challenged arbitrary political regimes such as Marcos’s in Philippines. However,
there is the darker side, which should not be overlooked. The civil strife in Rwanda involved civil society organisations in a negative way (Rieff, 1999). Besides, civil society is an inseparable/organic entity of a culture; the members therefore could be as indoctrinated
as any with flawed perceptions. Also, perceiving civil society as an alternative to State (roll back of state) would be a fundamental error, as all said and done, State remains the
principal agency for citizens’ welfare and it is to it that people turn in distress situation. Also, civil society organisations work systematically only under the aegis of the state. Left alone, they are an amorphous entity; potentially perhaps, chaotic. Also, their international linkages/origin make them suspect with regard to national security. Behavioural aberration on their part in the sense of being generally non-cooperative with and distant from the
state is also discomfiting. During the Marathwada earthquake, non-government organisations were seen to leave work midway and withdraw. They were also not organised and systematic to the desired degree. They even messed up, creating unnecessary chaos in the recent Muzaffarabad earthquake. As articulated in the India Disasters Report, 2005, crises in Marathwada and other places in India showed that the involvement of local people and civil society groups in rescue and relief was not a clearly defined process. According to Parasuraman and Unnikrishnan in the India Disasters Report, (2005), the specific arenas where civil society participation is desirable should be specifically laid down to avoid chaos and confusion in emergency situations. Those are; training project staff, information dissemination, programmes monitoring, housing, and social and economic rehabilitation measures. They, in turn, must be given adequate room to explore and innovate. The agencies must submit a time-bound plan of action, outline their approach unambiguously, clearly defining their specific roles, articulating a programme management strategy, and must establish that they have the necessary resources to see the things through. The converse picture is equally important. Attitudinal change on the part of the governments to reinforce participation is also required. The response in the Marathwada earthquake exhibited that the government views rescue and relief work as a piecemeal business; the responsibility of its revenue department, and therefore, public support need not be factored into it. In the absence of a well-defined process of involving people, spontaneous
involvement has often gone misdirected and is viewed as obstruction by the authorities.
The overall perspective of the administration is to view people as passive recipients of government largesse rather than as valuable partners in any undertaking. This is retrograde and undemocratic. The general perception is that people impede disaster response, not
facilitate it. The result is too many isolated, ill- coordinated efforts on the part of individuals and government and non-government agencies with lack of proper coordination between them. Institutionalisation/strengthening social capital during normal times to be Disaster Management Cycle tapped in readiness during emergencies in the form of organised collective effort at the level of the society is the right policy stance in this regard
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