From the Ground Up: Perspectives on Post-Tsunami and Post-Conflict Aceh

2. Disaster Recovery: An International Humanitarian Challenge?

2 diSaSTer recovery an international humanitarian challenge? John Telford diSaSTer recovery: definiTionS, deScriPTionS and conSTrainTS Natural disasters produce long-term and complex impacts on survivors’ livelihoods, on their physical, social and political infrastructure, and the environment. In almost all cases, recovery operations appear almost immediately following a natural disaster. After being initially absorbed with helping survivors locate loved ones and organizing emergency aid, recovery efforts rapidly turn to longer-term concerns such as housing, re-opening schools and re-establishing income generation and livelihood activities. As is argued by other authors in this volume, to be successful, recovery activities must be rooted firmly in local and national priorities, processes and capacities. This, however, has become increasingly complicated because of the large-scale internationalization of disaster response efforts. In industrialized countries, natural disaster response is typically managed (“owned”) by the affected states, as can be seen in the US response to Katrina, the Japanese response to the Kobe earthquake, and the more recent Chinese response to the Sichuan earthquake. Disaster-affected persons are the primary actors in their own recovery, funded and led in large part by national and regional authorities. Respect for such “ownership” is a principle of international humanitarian aid, as reflected in the Sphere Project standards, 26 John Telford the Red Cross Code of Conduct and the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative.1 In “non-industrial” nations, and other instances where the scope of the disaster exceeds local capacities to respond effectively, a wide range of humanitarian actors have increasingly become involved. This is clearly illustrated by the intensive response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, especially in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. A dramatic increase in the funding entrusted to international humanitarian aid actors has put pressure on them to assume more prominent roles in post-disaster settings (see section below on funding). However, they face major constraints and challenges in designing and implementing recovery programmes. While there are many cases of “good practice”, in this chapter I will be focusing more on the appropriateness and effectiveness of humanitarian aid actors in the face of such recovery challenges and constraints. In doing so, I concentrate more on the shortcomings of international organizations.2 This chapter is based on a number of sources. These include primarily the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC) Synthesis and other TEC reports, which examined the international response to the tsunami. These reports focused on Indonesia and Sri Lanka, while also examining the response in the Maldives and Thailand. As one of the authors of the TEC study, I make use of some of our findings to explore some of the shortcomings of the humanitarian response to the tsunami, particularly in Aceh. To more fully contextualize the tsunami response, this chapter also draws on the author’s previous experiences with recovery processes following disasters in Honduras (1998), Colombia (1999), El Salvador (2001), India (2001) and Iran (2003). I start by going over some of the key points that the TEC flagged, and then move on to discuss a number of key points in greater detail. International agencies are criticized in TEC reports for making programming choices without adequately consulting and considering affected people and the contexts in which they live. This is in part the result of the relative power and wealth of agencies, which, the reports claim, overwhelmed and undermined national and local capacities: “local ownership … was undermined and some local capacities were rendered more vulnerable” and “treating affected countries as “failed states” was a common error”.3 Even where local and national capacities were recognized, they were often exploited to strengthen international organizations rather than to underpin local responses. We found that international organizations frequently failed in the modest objective of informing affected people in an accurate, timely and comprehensive manner: “A tragic combination of arrogance and ignorance has characterized Disaster Recovery 27 how much of the aid community … misled people …”4 False promises to affected people were an especially galling example of international arrogance. False partnerships (i.e., arrangements which amounted to little more than convenient outsourcing to local organizations) are another example. Other problems identified in the TEC thematic evaluations and their sub-studies include brushing aside or misleading authorities, communities and local organizations; inadequate support to host families; displacement of able local staff by poorly prepared internationals; the application of more demanding conditions to national and local “partners” than to international agencies; “poaching” staff from national and local entities; “misrecognition...