Time to move on from ‘catastrophe first’ learning
admin January 6th, 2010
As we celebrate, if that is the right word, the fifth anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, almost everyone involved in the humanitarian field is aware that the current way of dealing with emergencies is not working.
At a presentation in December, Ben Ramalingam of ALNAP (Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action) outlined what he described as the ‘catastrophe-first’ model of lesson learning that he saw being applied to emergency response. And he also talked about the potential for setting up more corporate-humanitarian partnerships to help innovation in particular.
There is no doubt that the Tsunami was a prime example of ‘catastrophe first’ learning. The chaos that ensued from the (all well-intentioned) relief efforts made many humanitarian practitioners swear that never again would things be handled in this way. And a number of initiatives were put in place – the UN Cluster system and the creation of the Humanitarian Logistics Association, to name but two – to ensure better training, better co-ordination, better planning for future emergencies.
But the wheels of the humanitarian world grind mighty slowly and five years on there are still core structural problems within the response system, starting from the key issue that whilst there are vast amounts of money spent on responding to emergencies, much of which, incidentally, ends up in the pockets of business people supplying products to service these emergencies, there’s little to no money available when it is most needed – before the emergencies happen.
Last year the Red Cross set up its Zambezi River Basin Initiative, announcing that $1 spent in advance of a catastrophe had the same effect as $4 spent afterwards. But there has been no stampede to invest in any advance response to predictable natural disasters. And no apparent desire – apart from amongst the Southern African Red Cross societies – to act on this nugget of information from the most respected body in the humanitarian sector.
Part of the problem is that the humanitarian system itself is profoundly conservative, with an in-built resistance to change. Plus it has an antipathy to the commercial world that borders on the paranoid. Ironically, though, aid agencies and the UN system are quite happy to deal with traders and business people who make fortunes from commercial supply contracts, whilst those same agencies are not willing to learn from the good aspects of the corporate world. One of these ‘good aspects’ is innovation, and details of ALNAP’s work on humanitarian innovation can be found here.
Ramalingam’s talk was titled ‘Improving the international humanitarian system: the potential for corporate-humanitarian partnerships’. And there has to be huge scope for seriously profitable collaboration – the real profits for the humanitarian sector coming not from cash, but from learning how the corporate sector deals with problems. And how it innovates new products, new services and new processes.
For example, the corporate sector would not still be waiting five years after a major catastrophe for a solution. And if it saw that $1 spent now was the equivalent of $4 spent later you’d get knocked down in the rush to implement.
This is because (statement of the obvious warning), the profit motive that drives corporations also creates drives for efficiency, drives for product innovation to keep the company ahead of its competitors and drives to reduce costs.
But in order to engage the corporate sector effectively, agencies have to think about what these companies have to gain. Ramalingam outlined a number of areas:
• Strategic branding
• Reputational benefits/publicity
• Corporate social responsibility/Enhanced goodwill
• Staff motivation & morale
• Knowledge and experience, enhancing performance
• CEO vision
• Desire to put something back
Some of these are ‘soft’ benefits, some much ‘harder’, but the sector needs to learn which buttons to press with which corporates and be very clear both about what it wants out of any relationship AND what is in it for the other party.
But above all, it surely is time for the humanitarian sector to learn some lessons from corporates, time to move on from ‘catastrophe first’ learning and put in place some planning, and some real joined-up thinking.
- South East Asia
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[...] Time and time again, whether it is foot and mouth disease, terrorism, climate change, or the banking crisis, senior leaders and politicians display their inability to anticipate critical issues that are emerging. This is what I have described elsewhere as the “catastrophe-first” model of lesson learning. [...]