TSUNAMI
GLOBAL LESSONS LEARNED
The 2004 Tsunami: A Mega Disaster
The Tsunami Legacy:
Innovation, Breakthroughs and Change
“Who Stops To Think?”
The Challenges Of Leadership And Coordination
Seeing Those Who Are ‘Invisible’
Achieving Equity In Recovery
Creating A ‘Virtuous Loop’
Embracing People’s Participation
Countering Corruption And Ensuring Accountability
What If It Happens Again?
Innovations In Disaster Risk Management
“Who Stops To Think?”
The Challenges Of Leadership And Coordination
Dedicated disaster governance mechanism – BRR (Indonesia), National Disaster
Management Agency (India), Ministry of National Disaster Management and Human
Rights (Sri Lanka), National Disaster Management Centre (Maldives)
Complete
authority to local
administrators
and coordination
agencies – more
responsive to
local context
Credible senior
officials - familiar
with affected
communities,
willing to consult
widely and good
communication
skills to explain
rationale for major
decisions
Breakthrough initiatives to ‘build back better’ – Tim Terpadu, Blue Print, PCN
and RAN (Indonesia), Equity in Recovery (India), Adopt-An-Island (Maldives)
“Who Stops To Think?”
The Challenges Of Leadership And Coordination
•
Incentive to act - speedy, flexible, accountable coordination systems – with multi-sector
expertise
•
Continuous sectoral stocktaking and
evaluation - collecting relevant data for
wider circulation - determining what
has been implemented and what the
future should be
•
Building local capacity to take over
responsibilities – sustain recovery
•
Responsive field presence of government
and coordination bodies - decentralisation
of coordination promotes responsiveness
and grassroots involvement
•
Strong global and regional support mechanisms - stand-by agreements on funding going past
immediate disaster - smoother transition between humanitarian response and longer-term
recovery
Seeing Those Who Are ‘Invisible’
Achieving Equity In Recovery
• Access barriers to assistance - gender, age, ethnicity, class,
religion, occupation
• Human rights perspective - enabling environment for
participation of key players across all social groups - joint
housing rights for spouses, education and resettlement of girls
(India); Unified Assistance Scheme for permanent housing for
the conflict-affected (Sri Lanka)
• Strong platform for community feedback to demand rights
• Programmes based on detailed assessment - independent
audits by Social Equity Audit Secretariat resulted in NGOs
increasing budget percentage for the excluded from 10-12% to
60% (India)
Seeing Those Who Are ‘Invisible’
Achieving Equity In Recovery
• Specific inputs, outputs and outcomes related to women and
disadvantaged people in recovery programmes
• Organisational anti-discrimination capacity - training staff awareness of gender-sensitive international guidelines
• “Untied” funds - flexibility to modify assistance packages –
grievances by conflict-affected in Aceh and Sri Lanka
• Inclusion of equity issues in the early planning stages
• Opportunities offered by the recovery - tsunami recovery
actors pushed the envelope on matters of equity and equality
• Close partnership with civil society actors to benefit from
their expertise and experience – in house gender advisor in
BRR
Creating A ‘Virtuous Loop’
Embracing People’s Participation
• Participation of the affected - individual empowerment,
ownership, coping capacity (Indonesia)
• Consulting at all stages - planning, implementation and
monitoring - Human Rights Commission conducted
consultations in 1,100 tsunami-affected communities (Sri
Lanka)
• Credible and accessible communication - explain progress,
outline plans, raise awareness – basic disaster risk management
terminology translated to Dhivehi language (Maldives)
• Overall community development - strengthening social capital
(India)
• Building capacity of existing community structures restoration of indigenous livelihoods in Koh Lanta (Thailand)
Creating A ‘Virtuous Loop’
Embracing People’s Participation
• Soliciting input from community critical component of programmes - Help
Desks to raise awareness and address grievances in each district by Human
Rights Commission and United Nations (Sri Lanka)
• Recovery partners need necessary tools and skills to work with
communities - decentralized authority - CARE and World Vision field
offices more aware of the needs of the affected implemented better
participation
• Key to success of ‘build back better’ - Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness
Countering Corruption And Ensuring
Accountability
• Corruption viewed as core threat to reconstruction
• Ensuring accountability and reducing corruption - the
impact of competitive remuneration
• Opportunities for reform going beyond business as usual autonomous Anti-Corruption Units set up in 2005 have
received thousands of complaints that were dealt with
decisively
• Systems creating genuine transparency and access - tsunami
recovery agencies required to set up an account on
Recovery Aceh-Nias Database (RAND) and send regular
updates on funds (Indonesia)
• Client-oriented accountability mechanisms - governments
and other partners contacted to identify useful products
and information and RAND was modified
Countering Corruption And Ensuring
Accountability
• Strong community networks promoting equity stronger voice for marginalized citizens
• Availability of culturally sensitive information about
activities -what the funds are being spent on, where,
through whom, etc.
• Empowering the affected to actively monitor
reconstruction and articulate community claims –
AidWatch
• Strong complaints mechanism critical for reporting
corruption - local Help Desks
• Treating complaints as opportunities for improving
project design, not “burdens”
What If It Happens Again?
Innovations In Disaster Risk Management
• Disasters not isolated events - social and economic factors
affect situation
• Disaster risk reduction in development policies - core feature
in programming for vulnerable communities - pre-existing
programmes saved lives and minimized danger in countries
such as India
• Building on local knowledge and strengthening capacity natural defence barriers, healthy coastal ecosystems
• Gender in risk communication - women well-placed to
participate in risk assessment
• Accessible disaster information management systems critical
to policy making – ‘one-stop map server’ combining databases
What If It Happens Again?
Innovations In Disaster Risk Management
• “Last-mile connectivity” - reaching isolated areas early warning systems linked to loudspeakers in rural
areas
• Community participation - training community
leaders, teachers, local disaster managers
• Robust disaster response legislation - Disaster
Management Act passed in May 2005 in Sri Lanka
• Early warning systems across Indian Ocean rim - part
of UNESCO-Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission - operational since 2006
• Hyogo Framework 2005-2015 - 168 governments
pledged to reduce multi-hazard risks
Will We Do Better Next Time?
• Rely – on the ingenuity of the indomitable human
spirit
• Innovate and replicate – encourage creativity and
grass-roots planning among stakeholders for
sustainable recovery
• Reach out and communicate - documentary on
tsunami recovery in partnership with Discovery
Channel
• Stay Prepared - partnership with Asian Disaster
Preparedness Center (ADPC) to develop
comprehensive Recovery Tool Kit for Practitioners
worldwide
Thank You