The United Nations Development Programme and the Office for
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs are trying to figure out how development
actors can improve environmental resilience, which is a little tricky
considering there is no standard definition of resilience or way to measure it.
The problem according to them, which I very much agree with, is that we define
resilience in terms of responding rather than preventing disasters. The costs
of preventing the damage from a disaster often greatly outweighs the costs of
repairing the damage. In my mind then, development practitioners should focus
on prevention, while keeping in mind that prevention isn’t always possible and
emergency relief is needed sometimes.
The article says “resilience can
potentially act as a bridge between emergency response and long-term
development aid, tackling the
vulnerabilities that make people susceptible to shocks”. Resilience is about
aid that helps communities build better to prevent the need for emergency aid
all together – which makes so much sense. Development to me is about making
sustainable changes in communities not just putting band-aids on problems, and
preventing disasters seems like a pretty sustainable strategy to me! But that
raises the question, is emergency humanitarian aid just a band-aid solution
that we should stop? Should we not give aid to countries in environmental
crisis then? I think the trick is to deal with emergencies in a way that allows
for transition to development, which means humanitarian and development aid
must be co-ordinated together. This is going to require agencies to do things
differently and be more flexible, which is really hard to do (which is probably
why this type of collaboration hasn’t happened yet).
So, how do YOU think resilience should
be defined, and how does that effect the work of aid organizations in your
opinion?
I think at some point we are going to have to make the switch to making aid work for long-term solutions. And the sad reality that we have to face is that there may be short term problems that get side-lined in the mean time. That is unless we have some amazing development scheme that in part can focus on long term problems, but then have some effort still looking at short term in the mean time. But do you think we are willing to sacrifice something short term so that our planet can be sustainable far into the future?
ReplyDeleteI think if we define sustainability in terms of meeting present needs without compromising those of future generations, then dealing with short terms problems would be part a requirement to "meet present needs". It's definitly a difficult decision. Do we let some people suffer though disasters today so future generations won't have to? And who gets to make that decision? Maybe it's a question of balance then...
ReplyDeleteI think your second question strikes a really interesting chord - WHO gets to make that decision. There would definitely be a lot of controversy over that, no doubt.
ReplyDeleteI agree. And I don't think anyone has the answer either. I would think it should be a collaborative decision, involving the community in question, the government and donors. But that would mean more money/time too.
ReplyDeleteWe discussed this topic in the last unit of my climate change class. Adaptation to the increasing frequency and intensity of weather events is an increasingly large issue in developing countries. It is estimated that the cost to provide developing countries with the adequate adaptation tools, techniques, etc. would be around $100 billion. Currently international aid totals are around $103 billion/year. Basically this means one of two things. 1) We would have to double all current aid donations, OR 2) We would have to reallocate the entire aid budget to adaptation, therefore disregarding things like the MDGs, and crisis response. Neither of these seems feasible, and alas we are left with yet another problem with international development. While we recognize the importance of the MDGs do we not also recognize the importance of survival and safety? How do we prioritize these options, and where do we go from here?
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good question. I think the answer all depends on your perspective. From an the perspective of INDEV students, we would probably see the importance of both MDGs and of survival and say the money should be divided to tackle each of those incrementally. However, there may be some people that the MDGs are no use if people can't even live through a natural disaster, so survival should take priority. I don't know who's right, but I do know that they are both huge problems that we'll have to face once we get in the field.
ReplyDelete