Disaster Relief in the Wake of the Tsunami: A pathway to
              development? (by Monique Woolnough)

Monique Woolnough is a member of the War Child Canada Youth Advisory Board (YAB), a group of Canadian youth working to promote human rights and justice for war-affected children through War Child Canada.

Three months have passed since the tsunami devastated South-East Asia and created an opportunity for an unprecedented global relief effort, with developing countries like South Africa joining in the outpouring of aid that has left many with renewed hope for global cooperation. There are, however, many issues involved with the assumption that relief efforts will lead to long-term development. In the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) campaign, it is imperative to analyze natural disasters as a social problem as well as the structure of emergency aid programs and their hindrance to development. Such analysis helps to ensure that the international community maximizes the opportunity provided by the tragedy of the tsunami for the implementation of a long-term development strategy that would help fulfill the MDG campaign.

The dominant approach to emergency relief both in government and relief organization policy has been dubbed the technocratic approach by academics in the field of disaster studies. This approach is characterized by an understanding of the effects of natural disasters as primarily caused by an uncontrollable natural event. This appears to be common sense, as it seems that the assertion that famine is caused by drought is fairly unproblematic. When taking a closer look, however, we can see how the upholding of this approach is politically expedient, and ignores the social causes of disasters, which would imply a degree of accountability on the part of different social actors. The political economy approach seeks to counter this by focusing on the social preconditions, such as distribution of power and access to resources, which allow a natural disaster to have differing degrees of impact. It is widely known that those with lower social status (including women, the poor, the very old and the very young, as well as those belonging to ethnic and religious minorities) suffer disproportionately from the effects of a natural disaster.

A definition of the concept of vulnerability is helpful in making concrete this understanding of how social inequalities compound with natural events to create a disaster: The characteristics of a person or group in terms of their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of a natural hazard. It involves a combination of factors, which determine the degree to which someone’s life and livelihood is put at risk by a discrete and identifiable event in nature or society. (Blaikie 2002)

When we consider the political difficulty of tackling structural preconditions for disaster, with redistributive programs such as land reform or microcredit, we can begin to understand why governments and relief organizations focus on physical protection rather than addressing the deeper issues.

The political nature of aid is one that is often overlooked. Canadian aid is often tied to the purchase of Canadian wheat, which undercuts local agricultural production by flooding the market instead of supporting the development of local infrastructure. Therefore it is apparent that aid policy is often structured in the interests of the donor, and not of the targeted population. The European Union has refused to remove tariffs on textiles from Sri Lanka and other tsunami-affected countries, a measure which would arguably have a much more profound impact on economic recovery and growth than the temporary pumping of foreign aid into the economy.

There are political rewards to be gained from appearing generous and giving aid, regardless of whether it is actually an effective tool for development. Aid is often not targeted to the most vulnerable, and in many situations, the most powerful people in a targeted community ensure that they have access to a lion’s share of the aid. We must also question the ease with which the international community responded to the disaster in South-East Asia while it continues to mostly pay lip-service to stemming the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, which is a disaster on a much larger scale than the tsunami, but far more politically sensitive than a natural disaster.

There has historically been a gap between relief and development organizations. The understanding of emergencies as a linear continuum from relief to rehabilitation to development assumes that development is the norm that is interrupted by an emergency. This overlooks the fact that most often, the failure of development leads to an emergency. There is a great need for more collaboration between the two sectors in order to ensure that the massive outpouring of aid in the wake of the tsunami, which truly was an inspiring demonstration that humans can care about others in distant places, is not all for naught.

Sources

Blaikie, Piers. “Vulnerability and disasters.” The Companion to Development Studies. Ed. Vandana Desai and Robert B. Potter. London: Arnold, 2002.

Munslow, Barry. “Complex emergencies and development.” The Companion to Development Studies. Ed. Vandana Desai and Robert B. Potter. London: Arnold, 2002.

Neacsu, A. “Tsunami prompts African aid recipients to become donors.” AlertNet. 8 Jan. 2005. 24 Feb. 2005 <http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/110518441524.htm>.

Reynolds, Paul. “Politics creep back into tsunami aid.” BBC News UK Edition. 23 Mar. 2005. 23 Mar. 2005 <from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4369773.stm>.

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