Hope Not Complacency – Disaster Management in India and Sri
Lanka
Asian Institute of Technology, pp. 129
By Dr. Mokbul Morshed Ahmad and Arvind Kumar
Disasters are the first and foremost major threats to development,
specifically to the uplifting of the poorest and vulnerable people in
the world. The past two decades lay witness to catastrophes cutting
across all continents including the tsunami of 2004. Due to the immense
social and economic losses, the period for rehabilitation and
reinstating development process into action takes longer.
The nature and gravity of disasters and their frequency has compelled
the governments, donors, non-governmental organizations and community
to realize the importance of integrating disaster management into
development planning. Treating disaster as a one-shot event has been
replaced by preparedness and mitigation and by incorporating cross
cutting issues like transboundary and gender-oriented activities and
governance. These measures prepare the community to be resilient
towards unforeseen disasters.
When it comes to executing disaster management plans into action,
local institutions are critical. They are ultimately and solely
responsible for implementing the policies and plans. Governance is a
critical area for innovation and reform when achieving disaster risk
reduction alongside human development. It is important to identify
governance tools that are likely to simultaneously facilitate disaster
risk reduction and human development. This includes a presumption for
equal participation in decision making across genders, religious and
ethnic groups, caste and economic classes.
In an effort to highlight the local institutions’ possible responses
as they play a key role in preparing community resilience towards
disasters like tsunami and other natural hazards, AIT’s Dr. Mokbul
Morshed Ahmad and Arvind Kumar of the
Asian Disaster Preparedness Center recently collaborated
and published a book entitled “Hope Not Complacency – Disaster
Management in India and Sri Lanka”. The team’s findings were based on
past and present project and research work on local institutions’
responses to disasters in South Asia especially in India and Sri Lanka.
The book tackles policies, institutional arrangements and information
management system that are currently in place in both countries, after
legislation came into effect after the tsunami of 2004. Issues related
to relief and rehabilitation and sustaining preparedness for the future
disaster were also dealt in detail seeking to unfold the post disaster
scenario and local institutions. In-depthaanalysis on the competencies
of non-governmental organizations that were faced with daunting tasks,
based at areas of disaster management was also performed and presented.
The publication makes use a two-track approach; investigating the
synergy between the global mandate on disaster management and practices
at the local level and another by exemplifying the importance of
information acquisition and sharing in disaster management by comparing
the initiatives taken by both governmental and non-governmental
organizations at the community level.
Jonathan Walter in World Disaster Report 2005 said: “People need
information as much as water, food, medicine or shelter. Information
can save lives, livelihoods and resources. It may be the only form of
disaster preparedness that the most vulnerable can afford. The right
kind of information leads to a deeper understanding of needs and ways
to respond. The wrong information can lead to inappropriate, even
dangerous interventions.”
A second approach aims to outline the communal benefits through access
to information. This includes factors such as the increase of the level
of awareness and the ability to prepare resources to name a few.
Discussions on the paradigm shift between the concept of disaster and
the notion of unprecedented catastrophes to reducing the impact of
natural hazards and disaster through preparedness was performed. A
chapter of the book highlights the growing concerns on sudden disasters
that in turn hamper economic and social development.
The past years have been focused on framing global consensus in
advocating disaster management practices into the mainstream of
development. Whether the knowledge on global concerns is being aptly
watered down to reach the local level in a form that is easily
understood is still unknown. The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
did not initially incorporate disaster management, though later on it
was identified as a priority. Thoughts on this topic are raised
discussed in detail.
Disaster management initiatives and institutional arrangements in
India and Sri Lanka, including the linkages between the policies and
institutional arrangements at all levels, are analyzed.
The strengths and weaknesses of the local institutions in dealing with
disaster management were further analyzed through specific issues such
as rebuilding the livelihoods of the fishermen, agricultural
rehabilitation, building shelter for the affected and the feasibility
of future preparedness. An assessment on the competency of the
institutions in disaster management in India and Sri Lanka was
conducted to pinpoint the problem of the local institutions.
The district town of Southern India, Nagapattinam, was taken into
consideration to study the government’s coordination and information
management system. Further discussions on the stakeholders of this
management system in Nagapattinam and their needs were performed.
Several indicators were selected to quantify the information based on
adequacy, reliability and utilization of information collected.
The authors determined that the information management system in
Nagapattinam offers an opportunity and a mechanism to collaborate and
work together to the range of stakeholders at the district,
sub-district and village levels. This not only provides a common
platform to interact with each other but also a leveling point where
the responsibilities are shared. However it was discovered that in
order to sustain the collaboration, constant effort from all key and
the willingness of the government agencies to accept the existence of
the multi-stakeholder participation in development planning at the
local level is important. Also, there is no clear mechanism that
encourages the actors of disaster management to join hands with the
district administration and government agencies.
One question was asked: How has the information management system
benefited the communities? A comparison of two villages was performed
to quantify this question: one with and another without information
system. However, duplication and misuse of resources was
identified in both villages.
Though highly complex in nature, the authors’ findings on disaster
management policies and practices at international, national and
local level led them to inform all of the importance of taking lessons
from the recent Bangladesh Sidr Cyclone where simple megaphones
saved thousands of lives of people.
Simple early warning systems that employed local volunteers shouting
through megaphones to warn people about the impending cyclone on the 15
November 2007 proved so effective that it might even become a model for
other countries. A cyclone of a similar magnitude that hit
Bangladesh in 1991 killed 190,000 people. An even stronger
cyclone in 1970 left 300,000 dead. This was the trigger for the early
warning mechanism being put in place.
Dr. Mokbul Morshed Ahmad is an Assistant Professor in Regional and
Rural Development Planning, School of Environment, Resources and
Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.
Arvind Kumar is serving as the Project Coordinator for Urban Disaster
Risk Management (UDRM)at the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center.
Available at:
In Bangladesh
A.H. Development Publishing House
143, Dhaka New Market
Dhaka-1205
Bangladesh
Telephone: 88-02-8627650
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Email: ahdphbd@gmail.com