“Disaster Response Dialogue” in Manila emphasizes trust

The DRD, a joint initiative of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has sought to bring together governments and humanitarian organizations involved in international disaster response to improve trust and mutual cooperation. 

Some 75 representatives of national disaster management agencies, humanitarian organizations, regional organizations and other partners from 22 countries gathered in Manila to discuss some of the reasons for trust issues between national and international responders in major relief operations and to develop solutions.

In her opening address, Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Solimon reiterated the Philippines’ gratitude to the international community for its efforts to support communities by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, but also pointed to some elements of concern in the operation.  “Trust and cooperation do not easily happen during an emergency situation. The working relationship starts from the pre-disaster work which requires meetings and getting to know each other and the systems of each organization,” she observed.  To a large extent, this had been done with many key international agencies before the typhoon, but the UN invocation of a “Level 3” emergency brought with it a large number of new faces, unfamiliar with local procedures and approaches.

“Another challenge faced by the international and local responders is to have pre-disaster arrangements and agreements that can be put in place when the disaster occurs,” Solimon noted, “This reflection comes from our experience in Typhoon Haiyan that while we were implementing the cluster approach as prescribed in UN protocols, we were overtaken by the level 3 intervention such that there was some confusion as to who was directing the humanitarian organizations.” 

Participants identified a number of issues in recent operations that impacted on the level of trust and cooperation between international and national responders, including inflexibilities in international coordination structures that fail to take local capacity adequately into account, a lack of clear domestic procedures for the management and oversight of international assistance, a lack of prior contact between responding individuals and domestic authorities, the lopsided proportion of relief funding flowing through international responders rather than through the affected government and local civil society, as well as cultural issues. 

The discussions showed that “international responders need to do more to accommodate themselves to domestic approaches rather than the other way round,” noted Charles-Antoine Hofmann, Executive Coordinator of the DRD, “And national governments can do more to make themselves ready to take the lead of a major operation.”   

Participants developed an outcome document with a number of suggestions of means to address the problems identified, both at the national level and in changes to the international system. These suggestions will be forwarded by the DRD partners to the organizers of the World Humanitarian Summit upcoming in 2016.