In 1970, Bangladesh was struck by a devastating cyclone that killed approximately half a million people. In 2007, when a storm of the same magnitude struck in the same area, the death toll was 2,000. Recovery from the 2010 earthquake that caused billions of dollars of damage and killed 525 people in Chile in 2010 was much easier and swifter than the one 74 years earlier which brought havoc to the country and wiped out 28,000 of the population.
So what made a difference?
These experiences as well as others in Mozambique and Indonesia for example, where governments have taken responsibility for national resilience to shocks from various risks, show just how many lives can be saved through national leadership and a long-term approach to building resilience and developing risk management capacity. These countries have invested heavily in preparedness at the community level and have built the national institutions that can give early warning of impending disasters, as well as respond to them. The deepening of resilience at all levels within these countries has been a key factor to reducing the loss of life.
The humanitarian response to sudden and protracted emergencies, such as Crown Agents’ work in Sierra Leone to support the UK government’s fight against Ebola, does not on its own build resilience. Making the link between humanitarian action, risk reduction and sustainable development is the only way to sustainably reduce the deaths and economic losses that are increasingly happening in high-risk situations.
The approach to building resilience must factor in analysis of and response to all the risks faced in a country, community or a region and, most importantly, to understand and give priority to the biggest risks. It needs to be comprehensive and coordinated amongst all those with a role to play, including multi-laterals, NGOs and the private sector, and, whenever possible, it needs to operate under the leadership of the national government.
Furthermore with the bulk of the humanitarian aid budget going to long-term protracted crisis in a small number of countries, investing more in conflict prevention and peacebuilding has to make sense. Any approach should therefore take into account conflict prevention, capacity development, risk reduction, climate change adaptation and humanitarian action.
The up-coming World Humanitarian Summit provides an opportunity to promote a comprehensive approach to resilience. Crown Agents has supported the UK government’s work in this area in countries including Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. We are also experienced in managing this multi-disciplinary approach acting as a broker between governments, multilaterals and NGOs in many more countries.
The example of Sierra Leone
The initial emergency response from our Chase OT (Conflict, Humanitarian and Security Operations) team, which is embedded within DFID, was to set up the seven treatment centres (ETCs) in Sierra Leone – working closely with our in-house procurement and logistics teams, the first ETC was set up within 72 hours.
Crown Agents, with partner IPA under the banner of CAIPA, continued to provide support around the clock to establish a combined, scalable, end-to-end supply chain network that ensured that life-saving medicines and equipment reached even the most remote ETCs. And, most importantly, the effective supply chain ensured that no lives were lost due to stockouts.
Post-Ebola we have remained in Sierra Leone to help build the country’s resilience to withstand another disaster. Initially, this involved the decommissioning of the ETCs and re-purposing of the equipment and infrastructure improvements.
The supply chains and systems that CAIPA established are now being used for wider health systems strengthening work, including the distribution of free healthcare under a programme run by DFID, the government of Sierra Leone and Unicef.
We are also providing fleet management services for DFID’s portfolio of 189 vehicles and 337 motorbikes critical during the crisis. These vehicles are now playing an integral part in strengthening public health systems by providing the logistics capability for continued surveillance activities, transport for both emergency and non-emergency health cases to district health facilities, and essential transportation for samples to be tested in laboratories.
Our work in Sierra Leone exemplifies the role Crown Agents plays in bridging the divide between humanitarian response and development, bringing learning and insight from one area to the other. These projects may not grab the attention of the world media in the same way that footage of the devastation wrought by a tsunami, or children in a refugee camp does, but if donors allocated a bigger share of their funds to preparedness and resilience, we would be on the road to sustainably reducing the deaths and economic losses seen in high-risk situations.
Given that natural disasters and political crises will continue to generate both sudden and long-term humanitarian needs, priority focus and commitment should be given to helping risk-prone countries build their own capacity to protect their citizens from humanitarian crisis, and we hope that this message will be reiterated at the World Humanitarian Summit in May.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Crown Agents, a sponsor of theGuardian Global Development Professionals Network.
