TSUNAMI GLOBAL LESSONS LEARNED

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TSUNAMI GLOBAL LESSONS LEARNED
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The 2004 Tsunami A Mega Disaster
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The Tsunami LegacyInnovation, 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 LoopEmbracing
Peoples Participation Countering Corruption And
Ensuring Accountability What If It Happens
Again?Innovations In Disaster Risk Management
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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)
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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

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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)

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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

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Creating A Virtuous LoopEmbracing Peoples
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)

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Creating A Virtuous LoopEmbracing Peoples
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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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• Thank You