Susan Romanski's blog

Today is the International Day for Disaster Reduction, a day especially designated to promote a global culture of natural disaster risk reduction. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is the the systematic development and application of policies, strategies and practices that minimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout a society.

As we look at the tremendous disasters that Mercy Corps has responded to this year — including the earthquakes and flooding in Haiti and Pakistan — it is evident that natural disasters pose a huge threat to development gains. This is why Mercy Corps is trying to incorporate disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies in all of its programs. Mercy Corps believes that DRR is an essential part of our mission to help people build secure, productive and just communities.

Mercy Corps also believes that most DRR strategies are extremely cost effective, saving money in response efforts. Therefore, as we learn more about best practices in risk reduction, we are paying attention to the most cost effective strategies to protect development investments made by communities and those who support them. For this reason, Mercy Corps is proud to announce the results of the first Cost-Benefit Analysis undertaken on one of our DRR programs in Nepal.

This Cost-Benefit Analysis was undertaken to provide Mercy Corps with a quantitative analysis to complement the qualitative benefits that we have observed throughout the life of our DRR project, which is being implemented in Nepal. The Kailali Disaster Risk Reduction Initiatives (KDRR) project, at the heart of this study, assists riverside communities in the far western Kailali District of Nepal where we are working in cooperation with the Nepali Red Cross Society (NRCS) Kailali District Chapter. The project is funded by European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO) —under its DIPECHO Fourth and Fifth Action Plans for South Asia — and includes local capacity building and training for community disaster management committees, the development of early warning systems, small scale mitigation works, and support to young rescuers clubs.

Using a rigorous and conservative estimate, the study conducted by two students from Yale University indicated that the Kailali project yielded a Benefit to Cost ratio of 3.49 to 1 Euros. This means that for every Euro spent, there are 3.49 Euros in economic benefits. These benefits represent the prevention of economic losses or the avoidance of otherwise necessary humanitarian assistance. This Benefit to Cost ratio does not include the important qualitative benefits of the DRR programming to the community, some of which are highlighted in this report and others in a recent Mercy Corps case study of how the project has contributed to the Hyogo Framework for Action.

It is clear that disasters not only produce emergencies, they also threaten long-term development and weaken possibilities of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Without preparedness and mitigation strategies in place, disasters will continue to produce severe damage to housing, infrastructure, productive assets, health systems, and water sanitation facilities. They also produce loss of human life, and an increase in orphaned, abandoned or homeless children.

Negative impacts of this sort make it increasingly difficult to eradicate extreme poverty (MDG 1), to reduce child mortality (MDG 4), or to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (MDG 6).

In Padang, Indonesia the city officials are in step with the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction theme for 2010-2011, Making Cities Resilient: "My city is getting ready", as they plan to celebrate the day. The city has asked all district leaders to participate in the celebration of the day by working to clean up their neighborhoods in advance of the start of the rainy season with its risk of dengue and problems cause by floods. Mercy Corps is offering key support to this event through our three on going DRR programs (funded by UKaid, USAID and DIPECHO) in Padang.

The DRR Working Group in Padang — which represents over ten non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Mercy Corps — will also participate in this event as well as a number of student groups, outdoor enthusiasts, volunteers from University Red Cross teams, and the civil police.

On this day of International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction, Mercy Corps continues its commitment to incorporate cost effective DRR strategies in its work throughout the world.

Read more ▸

Susan Romanski rides in a relief helicopter during emergency relief operations in earthquake-shattered El Salvador, 2001. Photo: Mercy Corps

Today is World Humanitarian Day – the first internationally-recognized day to honor all those who work to further the humanitarian cause, and to pay tribute to those who have lost their lives in the process. The date itself — August 19, 2003 – was selected as a tribute to our humanitarian colleagues who were killed when the UN headquarters in Iraq was bombed six years ago. At Mercy Corps, we take time today to honor the seven staff members who have died in the line of duty during our organization’s 30-year history.

Today is also a good time to reflect on what it means to be a humanitarian, and to think about our aspirations for the coming year — as well as the coming decade.

When I think about what it means to be in this line of work, one memorable moment always comes back to me that captures the essence of what humanitarianism means to me. It occurred after the second of two powerful earthquakes that hit El Salvador in 2001. I was on a helicopter with an emergency response team. We were landing in a remote area that had been blocked in because of damage to the surrounding roads; no one had been able to reach the area since the time the quake hit. As the helicopter began to descend, I saw hundreds of people starting to gather around a football field where we were about to land.

As the helicopter touched the ground and I got off, I noticed that this mass of people were starting to run towards me at full speed. For a second I was scared, and looked around to see where my colleagues were. I realized that my colleagues were quite some distance to the sides of me and that no one was running towards them. They were all running towards me – and yet I had brought nothing with me. I had nothing to give. I just really didn’t understand it.
But the people kept running towards me.

Soon I realized they were all women and their children, and they were coming to share their grief with me. Why just me? Well, I was the only woman and that was apparently enough of a connection for them. One after another they hugged me, cried to me, tried to get my attention to see their destroyed houses, to talk about the family members that they had lost — anything for me to understand their pain.

Of course, all of us knew they could (and would) rebuild the town themselves – this wasn’t a question about me as an outsider having something they didn’t have. It was about sharing their painful tragedy with another woman who would listen. I would do the same thing if my life as I knew it had just been swept away from me.

Susan Romanski (foreground, in white t-shirt) hugs a survivor of an earthquake in El Salvador. Photo: Alejandro Chicheri/WFP

For the next several hours, I walked through their village, looked at their destroyed homes, and heard their stories. Of course the relief agency I worked for at the time would help out, and did. But more than just bringing in resources to help facilitate the local process of recovery, I believe this work is about empathy in the most pure form of the word. Our work, as humanitarians, is about finding the best ways to harness this empathy to help those in need in the way that they think is most appropriate.

There are some key elements of relief and development work – listening carefully, taking appropriate action to help those who need and want assistance and carrying to the rest of the world the voices of those who are unable to get the word out themselves. My colleagues could list many others. The point is that I find this work incredible rewarding, and that I consider it a privilege to have people share a part of their lives with you when times are especially difficult.

When I think of what I hope for in the coming years, in addition to all the hopes we have for a world that is more just, secure, and productive, I would like to see humanitarians help raise global consciousness. It still surprises me that so much suffering goes in the world that we don’t hear about, that we don’t comprehend, or that we feel powerless to change. In today’s global environment, we have the power to make change, both close to our home and in faraway lands.

Even as humanitarians, we often tend to focus on the place where we are at any given moment because we know that in front of us is our best chance to affect change. I believe it is good to focus, and understand our own limits in order to maintain a healthy outlook. And it is especially important to take the time to keep and lean on a support network – it is what allows many successful humanitarians to continue this work under often trying circumstances. However, we also need to keep thinking of ways to broaden our own perspectives to gain a better understanding of what is going on in the world.

I believe humanitarians need to do more to share stories of the world, both the challenges and successes, with our fellow humans who do not have the opportunity, and the privilege, of meeting people from different corners of the globe. By doing so, we can help to spark the empathy and compassion that exists in all of us so that we are moved to act during times of great difficulty, and so that we feel a greater sense of connection even when there isn’t an obvious tragedy at work.

In particular, we need to better utilize our education systems, the media, and social networking practices to start painting a new picture of the world — a picture of a world that cares.

As we celebrate World Humanitarian Day, I hope that each one of us will take the time to reflect on what it means to us personally. And, as we honor our colleagues who have died in the service of others, I hope that we will find ways to bring our own empathy and compassion forward to better help those around us, and around the world.

Read more ▸

Today, at the last day of the Platform, I took advantage of a fascinating early session to understand what is being done about legal frameworks for disaster response.

Governments around the world have committed to take action to reduce disaster risk, and have adopted the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) as a guideline to reduce vulnerabilities to natural hazards. Priority Five of the Framework — on which this session was based — has to do with strengthening preparedness efforts for disasters, as well as having some kind of legal preface for governments to prepare for collaboration with all the international actors that might arrive on the scene after a disaster. It will also help international organizations to better understand the context in which we are working.

What was fascinating about the session is that the three countries that were presenting —Cambodia, Sierra Leone and Norway — aren’t countries that we immediately think of as having the largest natural disasters in recent years. In fact, Norway has been on the giving, not receiving, end of aid for many years. However, because of climate change, Norway believes it is important to have something in place should they need outside assistance. (Hurricane Katrina was cited, among others, as an unexpected disaster for a country that traditionally has not needed outside assistance).

These three countries are receiving legal assistance through a partnership between the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and other relevant countries. The ultimate goal is to put some kind of Disaster Management Law in place, despite the fact that it is usually a very lengthy and difficult process, as described by the presenters. There was a representative from Indonesia who spoke up about their current Disaster Management Law, and the Minister from Cambodia then joked about having used Indonesia's law as a template for Cambodia's law.

What I took away from this session is the importance for Mercy Corps to become very familiar with the laws as they are developing, because there is always a tension between the coordination and control a government has to have with so many humanitarian actors coming in, while also realizing the need for assistance to enter the country. I spoke to OCHA afterwards in order to make sure that communication on the project is disseminated as new laws are developed.

The remaining meetings were all part of the main closing session. There were presentations from different stakeholders, as well as new commitments made by governments and international organizations towards the implementation of disaster risk reduction activities. There was a commitment to take the work being done in the communities extremely seriously. This is something that Mercy Corps, and the various networks that we are involved in — the Global Network for Civil Society Organizations, the InterAction disaster risk reduction working group and the Emergency Capacity Building (ECB) project — are pleased with, as we feel that the communities we are working in are doing great work that should be scaled up and supported by national platforms in each country.

Here are some of my takeaways from five days here at the Platform:

1. There is common agreement that development activities without disaster risk reduction is a risky proposition. With such an increase in disasters and future hazards due to climate change, even developed countries need to be looking at disaster risk reduction. As one participant stated, "risk is like the holes at the bottom of a bucket, and the holes keep getting bigger."
2. Many governments are taking on the difficult challenge to mainstream disaster risk reduction into several key ministries. We should continue to mainstream it into our development activites in all sectors.
3. Low-intensity hazards are becoming more and more expansive, and we can't blame climate change for all of them. For example, "squatter camps are not due to climate, they are due to man." We need to be looking at issues other than climate risk, while still recognizing it as a critical global driver of risk.
4. When considering cost/benefit analysis, the distributional context of impact is extremely important. There are a wide range of methodologies that combine the qualitative and quantitative although, at this moment, there doesn't seem to be a commonly-accepted way to do these studies in disaster risk reduction.
5. Climate change adaptation is seen as a mitigation measure within the general scope of disaster risk reduction. There needs to be much better integration between the two — one suggested way to ensure integration is to have co-financing.
6. The importance of ecosystems and protecting them are also important disaster risk reduction mitigation measures.
7. Ministries are putting percentages of disaster risk reduction funding into development ministries — Indonesia is actually debating putting 20 percent of its education portfolio into disaster risk reduction education. Financing for these activities should not be standalone — these activities are especially effective when integrated.
8. Youth are key players in disaster risk reduction. We should continue to mobilize them for reducing risk and consider children living with disabilities when carrying out interventions.
9. Targets for both governments and civil society organizations should be made to move disaster risk reduction forward.
10. Some governments are legally preparing for the increase in disasters, and we need to become familiar with these laws.
11. There are calls by the civil society community for more resources to reach the community level, for there to be an independent evaluation of the Hyogo Framework and for more participation at the local level in existing disaster risk reduction platforms.

These are some general points, and I'm sure there are others that I will find in my notes. Please let me know if there are any questions or thoughts on what I have written over these past five days.

It has been a long week and a great challenge to bring so many governments and international organizations together to get concrete commitments. It was important for us to be present at this global event and, hopefully, we will continue to have the resources and support to increase some of the excellent work we are carrying out in the field.

It was nice sharing this experience through the web. Until next time, my home is calling!

Read more ▸

It is always nice when things you are really interested in come together. Today, on day 4 of the Global Platform, two topics that came together for me were Sphere and disaster risk reduction.

Sphere is three things: a handbook to help those who are undertaking humanitarian action, a broad process of collaboration and an expression of commitment to quality and accountability. The project has developed several tools, the key one being a handbook which they are now revising to include disaster risk reduction.

Youth are naturally motivated by new challenges and can be great teachers when they're convinced something is important. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

This morning, I attended a consultatitive meeting on the handbook revision. In addition to the inclusion of disaster risk reduction, the handbook will also include important topics such as climate change adaptation and the environment. At the meeting, we were able to break out into small groups and discuss how we can improve the handbook to include these additions and the best ways to go about it. As usual, several Mercy Corps staff will be collaborate on the process with colleagues from other organizations. We are already active on many revision committees.

I have also been thinking a lot about how governments (and non-governmental organizations like Mercy Corps) are mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into their development platforms. There were several presentations by Asian governments at the Platform on the work they are doing to include it in various development sectors — particularly in health, education, agriculture, housing and infrastructure. It must be a difficult task for a government to get so many departments thinking and coordinating on preparedness and mitigation in their specialties if they don't already, but it's extremely crucial. It's very exciting that this work is being done.

Another session that was interesting to me featured two young people who had been working on disaster risk reduction in their communities. They were asked to share their experiences — their presentation confirmed to me the importance of getting youth involved in our disaster risk reduction programs. And, in fact, they are usually at the center of our programs: examples include Central Asia, where we worked with young rescuers clubs, and in our recent program in Nepal that uses youth mobilizers in the communities.

Youth relate well to different kinds of participatory and active methodologies, and they can be crucial in mobilizing their communities around preparedness activities. Photo: Nathan Golon for Mercy Corps

We have found that, when we work with youth, they are naturally motivated by new challenges and can be great teachers when they're convinced something is important. We have had the most success with youth when we have implemented activities like school competitions (in first aid and basic response) and dramas to share knowledge about disaster risk reduction. Youth relate well to these different kinds of participatory and active methodologies, and they can be crucial in mobilizing their communities around preparedness activities.

The disaster risk recovery and education session was moderated by the British journalist Martin Bell, who gave a plea to donors to focus more on children in disasters. Both the European Union and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) were on the panel and seemed to be committed to this.

In a later session, the discussion revolved around climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Despite funds and programs being designated for climate change adaptation, there are many people who see it as one mitigation strategy under disaster risk reduction. In other words, disaster risk reduction focuses on reducing the risks of hazards in general, while climate change adaptation is a tool to reduce the risks of climate hazards in particular.

At Mercy Corps, we recognize that a community has many hazards and many of them will be exasperated by climate change. We also know that a community may have hazards that are not climate-related, and we must not forget these. We believe the most important thing is to have the community identify their hazards — including those that may arise from climate change — and support them to prepare and mitigate against these hazards by using adaptation, preparedness training, small infrastructure works, and/or a combination of whatever is needed and appropriate.

It's clear that, when the community is at the center of our work and youth at the center of our activites, we have the best chance of having an appropriate and energetic partnership.

Tomorrow will be the last day of the Platform and I look forward to sharing the main "take away" points with all of you.

Read more ▸

It seems that the second full day of a conference generates more substantive discussion and thought than the first day, and this was certainly the case at the Global Platform today. Armed with coffee and sunshine, I walked to the center to attend a session on measuring the impact of disaster risk reduction projects. The focus was on cost/benefit analysis — a topic of great personal interest to me and one that several Mercy Corps countries are keen on carrying out.

There were two presentations: the first from the Nepali Red Cross, and the second from a study called "From Risk to Resilience," a cost/benefit analysis conducted in Nepal, India and Pakistan.

The Nepali Red Cross presentation compared two similar communities and looked at a variety of factors — physical assets such as houses and infracture, social aspects such as communication and information dissemination, and land issues — to contrast the differences between disaster-affected communities that were given disaster risk recovery interventions and those that were not. They pointed to the social benefits of disaster risk recovery, but also came up with a cost/benefit ratio of 1:15, basically arguing that for every dollar spent in prevention, approximately $15 is saved in potential response efforts. This is much higher that the usual figure quoted, somewhere between 1:4 and 1:7.

However, the Nepali Red Cross was clear that the weakness of typical cost/benefit analyses is that they do not take into consideration most of the social benefits and behavioral change that are so important to our work. What became clear to the audience is that there's no standard cost/benefit methodology to measure social impacts. The panelists were advocating putting more qualitative information into cost/benefit studies, alongside quantitative information, in order to achieve that piece while also fulfilling the more traditional tasks of such a study.

It was particularly interesting to hear that the Red Cross/Red Crescent Society is trying to integrate some kind of cost/benefit tool into their existing vunerability and capacity assessments of communities. That way, the community can try to figure out ahead of time what interventions might be more cost effective before a project starts. I look forward to working with them to see how we might be able to learn from this tool, as well as share with them any of our own experiences with cost/benefit studies.

This second session was primarily a strong call from governments for the international community to link disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation through joint programming rather than standalone projects. It is clear that everyone in attendance felt that both are needed for sustainable development, and we would be doing a disservice to not look at these aspects in our programming. Mercy Corps has been doing this with projects like our urban flood risk reduction project in Jakarta, and will continue to find more opportunities to make this linkage.

During the second session, I was able to proudly hand the case study produced by the Nepal team to the representatives of the Nepali government. They were very grateful, and I invited them to visit our projects in Nepal.

With several sessions to go, I feel like things are beginning to get more and more interesting.

Read more ▸

In western Nepal's disaster-prone Kailali district, Mercy Corps has helped train communities in search and rescue techniques, as well as evacuation using boats, life jackets, ropes and throw bags. Photo: Tej Maya/Mercy Corps

The sun came out in Geneva this morning and 1,800 people from governments, the UN, international organizations, science and academic institutions gathered to discuss the progress we're all making on disaster risk reduction efforts around the world.

One hundred and sixty nine governments are represented here, and many dignitaries spoke about experiences how their countries are making disaster risk reduction a priority on the national level. It was a breath of fresh air to have the the Global Network's "Views from the Frontline" study — which I mentioned in yesterday's blog entry — presented because it added a local perspective to the discussion.

Mercy Corps is part of the Global Network, and we sit on the steering committee on behalf of InterAction, the largest U.S. consortium of non-governmental organizations. The study, presented briefly at the opening address, shares views and perspectives from communities in 48 countries. Even John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and chair of this conference, visited the Global Network stall at the Marketplace while I was there and he seemed impressed by the report.

The primary report that was presented during the opening address, however, covered the overall progress made at a national level and analyzed global disaster risks. I was particularly struck by a call for the international community to consider focusing upon three main drivers of risk. They are:

1. Poor urban governance — many governments are simply incabable of ensuring safe land and adequate infrastructure with growing urbanization, and this is presenting a great risk to the millions of people who continue migrating to cities.
2. Vunerable rural livelihoods — approximately 75 percent of people living below the poverty line live and work in rural areas. They are especially vunerable to crop or livestock losses, usually have vunerable infrastructures, are isolated and lack substantial investment by their governments.
3. Declining ecosystems — although people and communities receive substantial benefits from diverse ecosystems, their resources are in high demand and protection is not prioritized.

The presentation called on the international community to focus development policy on addressing these underlying risk drivers, as well as other recommendations such as accelerating efforts to avoid climate change and increasing the economic resilience of small and vunerable economies.

The afternoon panel focused on how to finance disaster risk reduction. This was a real mixed bag for me because, rather than suggest new and innovative ideas for financing, several government officials just called for more resources for their countries. Representatives from the Philippines and Indonesia, however, shared successes they have had in getting national level policy in place and putting resources towards reducing risks.

In fact, there were comments from the audience and the Indonesian representative about how putting disaster risk reduction into exisiting development money should be a priority to safeguard development investments. It shouldn't be viewed as an added sector, but integral to all development work. I could not help but think about how own programs in Indonesia and Nepal, where we have been able to get the local government, as well as the community members themselves, to contribute towards local disaster risk reduction.

Money should not prevent us from trying to reduce risk in the development initiatives we already have going. The representative from Indonesia went as far as saying that the his country's government is considering using as much as 20 percent of the money earmarked in the education budget to inform the populace of risks because Indonesia is so diasaster prone.

In general, there was a strong call to integrate both disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation into development programs. With all the panels were completed, I happily retreated with colleagues to review the day.

Read more ▸

Every two years, a very important conference is held between governments, academic and science institutions, international organizations and non-governmental organizations to see how the international community can reduce disaster risks in a world of ever increasing hazards. It's called the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction and this year it is being held in Geneva.

This conference brings together thousands of people from around the globe who have experience at a national or local level in reducing risks. It is an opportunity for Mercy Corps to share our lessons from programs like those in Nepal, Indonesia and Colombia, as well as learn from other governments and organizations about what they are doing to reduce risks (please see our recent case study of Nepal's program on the Nepal page). I am here for Mercy Corps, eager to share what we have learned and take back some promising practices.

On this rather overcast morning, the International Conference Center started buzzing with different stalls being set up for a disaster risk reduction "market place" — a forum for different organizations to share promising practices on disaster risk reduction. I was here early to help set up one of the stalls. This is because Mercy Corps is part of a network called the Global Network for Civil Society Organizations, the largest network of organizations working on disaster risk reduction.

The study we are sharing in our stall, as part of the Global Network, is called "Views from the Frontline." After interviews from 4,000 people in 48 countries by 400 organizations, "Views from the Frontline" has found that, despite some advances in community preparedness and response, there is still much work to be done to help communities face the increasing number of hazards they face, especially in the face of increasing climate risks.

The six main findings from the report are:

1. Nationally-formulated policies (as opposed to those that involve the community more) are not generating widespread systemic changes in local practices.
2. Resources are scarce and considered one of the main constraints to progress — but there are also resources at the local level, which remain untapped.
3. The foundation for building resilience is people's awareness and understanding of the risks they face.
4. Climate change creates a need, but also provides an opportunity to address underlying risk factors, raise external resources and political commitment for building resilience.
5. Turning policy into practice requires finding the appropriate balance between top-down and bottom-up engagement.
6. The "Views from the Frontline" study is an important first step towards measuring the effectiveness of disaster risk reduction at a local level (for the full report, see www.globalnetwork-dr.org).

Therefore, as part of this conference, we are calling on the international community to support efforts to reduce risks, especially increasing support at the community level. With more than 120 governments here as well as many donors, we have a good audience to make the case that reducing risks in communities ahead of time can save lives and community assets in the face of hazards.

It is a worthwhile investment, and certainly for every dollar spent on preparedness saves several dollars in response. I am looking forward to the official opening of the conference tomorrow and reporting back.

Read more ▸