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Excerpts from surveys by the Fritz Institute on relief and rehabilitation
 One year on, it is time to retrospect, take stock, and learn new lessons about the continuing response to the Black Sunday disaster. As a part of the ongoing lessons, the San Francisco-based Fritz Institute has been conducting a set of studies on disaster response through the year. The Fritz Institute addresses complex challenges in the delivery of humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people around the world by collaborating with the private and academic sectors.
A recipient survey done by the Fritz Institute included interviews with a representative sample of 2,300 people in villages hit hard by the tsunami in India, Sri Lanka and the northern Sumatra region of Indonesia. In India and Sri Lanka, 1,406 affected people in 197 villages and 376 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were surveyed.
The survey confirmed that the unprecedented global relief effort succeeded in delivering aid to millions of people. But the frontline reports from recipients and aid workers also emphasised the need for improved preparedness, coordination, and supply chain management by NGOs, governments and the private sector. The findings of Fritz researchers were released in instalments, highlighting different aspects of rehabilitation. For instance, a paper in the Forced Migration Review, in July 2005, titled ‘Response Effectiveness: Views of the Affected Population’, dealt with the perceptions of aid by the beneficiaries immediately after the tsunami struck. Another report ‘Logistics and the Effective Delivery of Humanitarian Relief’ probed the dynamics of the humanitarian relief supply chain. Recently, the institute released ‘Lessons from the Tsunami: Top Line Findings’, dealing with the situation nine months after the tsunami.
Without benchmarks in place to determine what constitutes an effective relief operation, the voices of those affected become an important source to gauge the success of relief providers. Communicating directly with aid recipients and community leaders in the immediate aftermath of a disaster is necessary to ensure that the help is targeted and appropriate; the study was based on perceptions of the respondents.
The first report reiterated that the first 48 hours after the disaster were the most crucial in terms of rescue. Only 48% of respondents in India said they received rescue assistance. The rate was still lower in Sri Lanka. Rescue efforts are effective only when local people are trained, as they are the first to respond, the results indicated. For all of the 11 types of help mentioned in the survey -– including rescue, identification/burial of dead, clearing debris, medical services and relocation -– significantly more people in India said they had received help, compared to those in Sri Lanka.
In India, 49% of people said they received help in relocation within the first two days. But in Sri Lanka, which was affected more -– the number was only about 3%. In India, 85% of respondents benefited from help with provision of water supplies compared to only 15% in Sri Lanka. In India, 66% of respondents had access to emergency medical services; in Sri Lanka the number was only 33%. In India, 90%, 80% and 75% of aid recipients respectively ranked clothing provisions, food aid and medical care as timely. Despite the timely delivery, 55% of respondents found the clothing delivery lacking in respect for their dignity, and 40% felt that way about food distribution.
There was a dramatic difference in the profile of the initial providers. According to the respondents, in India the local government provided some form of assistance to approximately 86% of the respondents in the first 48 hours. In Sri Lanka, the equivalent number was 4%. In India, reports suggest, the local administration went in overdrive, especially in Tamil Nadu. The survey also revealed that besides rescue and relief, it was location of the dead and lost and proper address of that loss that mattered to survivors.
The respondents also rated the aid efforts of government bodies, local NGOs and international NGOs. In India, the government effort fared well along with local and international NGOs, unlike in the other countries where international NGOs were rated better in their aid efforts.
The most recent report from the Fritz Institute reveals that there has been a significant decrease in household incomes in all the affected regions. Most people reported a nearly 50% drop in earnings.
The most daunting issue, according to the study, was that of providing shelter. Permanent houses were still a distant reality for most of the tsunami-affected. Prohibitive land costs, government regulations, appropriate abodes and the reluctance of those affected to move away from the coast are the major reasons. In Indonesia, 100% of respondents still lived in camps, or temporary shelters, run by the government or by aid groups, as did 92% in India and 78% in Sri Lanka, the survey found.
The logistics study found that many humanitarian organisations were struggling to meet operational needs. The relief requirements from this unprecedented destruction brought the importance of logistics in the delivery of humanitarian aid into the spotlight. Aid organisations were hampered by the scarcity of trained and experienced logisticians in the field, with 88% of organisations responding to the survey having to relocate their most experienced logisticians from other assignments such as Darfur, to staff tsunami relief efforts.
The key lessons to be learnt from these surveys is that governments have to invest heavily in infrastructure and planning, and build local capacities to meet disasters especially in vulnerable areas. It is the local agencies that are available to deal with the immediate aftermath of a disaster, and heavy investment in training and preparedness has to be done here. There is global need to build a big pool of trained logisticians with good supply and service management knowledge.
www.indiadisasters.org, December 2005
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