A speech delivered to the ACFID Council by Ian Wishart, National Executive Director of Plan in Australia and a member of ACFID's Executive Committee.

Over the past 100 years of so there have been some salient moments in the history and development of our international relief sector. These moments are invariably connected to the most significant disasters of the period. As we all know here, by significant, we don’t necessarily mean the largest disasters by death or destruction measures. Rather disasters are often significant by virtue of their complexity, uniqueness and yes – media impact. It is frequently these disasters that have tested the current state of readiness and competence to breaking point. It is these relief responses or perhaps the weaknesses of these relief responses that have frequently provided the impetus for change in our practices, approaches and methodologies. By virtue of their high visibility they have come under the greatest scrutiny. I think it is clear that the Tsunami Relief Response is one of those salient moments.

Historically speaking some of the key moments have been:

1930s My own organisation Plan International was birthed in the humanitarian response to the Spanish Civil war.

1940s It was the scale of suffering of the 2nd WW that gave rise to many new agencies. If I am not mistaken this was the genesis of CARE and OXFAM. International relief workers helping other European citizens caught up in suffering

1950s The Korean War – International Relief extended itself to assist an Asian nation. Gave rise to the agency World Vision

1960s The Biafra Famine in West Africa – International Relief extends itself to serve in Africa – a famine with complex environmental and political causes. One of the first African famines to register on the Western consciousness. Gave birth to MSF.

1970s The Vietnam War and the Vietnam Boat People crisis – International Relief learns that close cooperation with the military can compromise future claims of independence. In regard to the boat people sometimes NGOs need to lead before governments will follow

1980s The Ethiopian Famine of 84 – Power of TV Media to break a story and turn a disaster into a massive international movement. The first Big Aid event - BandAid

1990s The Rwanda Genocide – Mass killing as a nightly TV spectacle. International Relief as a Circus Event. Print yourself a T-shirt, fly to Rwanda and your in business as an international relief agency. There was significant soul searching after Rwanda and this gave rise to the SPHERE standards in an attempt to take the circus out of it and ensure all players on the ground adhered to minimum standards.

2000s The Boxing Day Tsunami. In many ways the perfect storm, massive natural event, multiple countries affected, graphic death and destruction, large number of westerners caught up in it, loads of amateur video capturing the event, coinciding with and feeding into a natural flat spot in news stories that occurs post Christmas. The media loved it, and it ran on the front pages for a month - unparalleled

So here we stand in the afterglow or should I say sober reflection stage of this most amazing disaster. What lessons have we learned? To our credit as a sector we are reflecting. Many of us will have seen and read the TEC report – The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition. This weighty joint evaluation deeply analyses things and arrives at a range of helpful recommendations. We have held our own local reflections under the auspices of ACFID and arrived at recommendations. I don’t propose to go through all those recommendations in detail. They are already eloquently put.

The question I would put is “When is a lesson learned?” In our sector we are great at words. We love evaluations and recommendations. The harsh reality though is that lessons are only learned when some concrete action is changed as a result in the future. I would posit that all the reflections thus far stop short of changing any action. The onus is on the sector nationally and internationally to take the recommendations forward. I do note that the TEC coalition is apparently taking things further and I understand will make some more detailed proposals for specific changes at the international level in October. We should do the same here in Australia.

I have been around long enough and seen enough international relief responses over 17 years now to know how frequently we repeat the same mistakes despites the most beautiful words and resolutions having been made last time. My history in this sector has been inextricably linked with relief efforts. If any of my observations seem harsh just remember I’m as guilty as any of you. I’ve been intricately part of the system. I spent 3 years at the sharp end as relief project officer responding to Cambodia, Ethiopia, Somalia, S. Sudan etc. I spent another 3 years directing WVA’s relief efforts in the 90’s positioning the agency and yes often competing with you all at CARE, OXFAM, Red Cross etc for the public’s and AusAIDs attention. I lived through the Rwanda experience.

Sometimes it seems to me as if change in the international relief sector moves forward at a snails pace. Worse still it frequently regresses. I have over the years had cause to reflect on why this is so and try to think through what stops us making important step changes to our readiness and practices. What are the big trends or pressures that we need to face squarely so that things will be different. Can we point to any specific actions that will change things.

One pressure that will have an impact is Accountability to affected people. This is a major trend that has grown in strength and focus since Rwanda. I think it has enormous potential to influence our practice, make us more sensitive, and more effective. I won’t deal with it here as it is a particular focus of what Andrew Hewitt has to say.

I want to talk about something far more controversial. They say you should never talk about sex, religion, politics or money. I want to talk about money.

Money is at the root of many of our evils in the international relief sector. Not enough money, too much money, and the quest for money. From every disaster we are told the sector needs more cooperation and coordination and less competition. These are like motherhood statements. We all nod in agreement but actually making things different will require tough choices. If things are to change we are going to have to talk about money and find some alternative cooperative approaches instead of the current unholy scramble for money.

There are some great Money Making Myths that we exploit in our quest for money. They cause a lot of contention and contestation. I’ve used all of them in my time I’m ashamed to say. We need to change some practices here if things are going to be different in the future.

Myth 1: No disaster response is credible until an international expert or assessment team preferably representing our particular agency arrives to describe the event and the response to the media which then hugely influences the flow of funds.

The TEC report once again makes clear that in fact local people are responsible for the majority of the search and rescue and early relief efforts of food, water and shelter. International efforts usually take at least a week to gear up to any kind of scale. The TEC report recommends joint assessment missions and a lot more coordination and sharing of information. I am pragmatic enough to realise that we do need spokespersons to translate things for our publics but can we do this better and can we give greater recognition to local efforts and the combined efforts of the Australian development community. This means we need to find ways to stop jockeying for position and present a more united front to the Australian community.

Myth 2: There are so many dead bodies here that there is a risk of epidemics breaking out.

This one is just so easy to slip in. It really provokes horror in the public back at home and pumps up the giving. Bollocks. The health hazards associated with dead bodies are actually minimal. They are dead. There is greater threat from the living. Bodies are smelly and affront our sensibilities but in and of themselves they don’t constitute a major threat. This is just one example. What this example illustrates though, is that we have a long way to go to accurately communicate and educate our publics about what is really needed in a disaster response. Of course the bodies need to be buried for cultural and psychological reasons but not because they are a major threat. The TEC report recommends donor public and media education. This means we need to put as much work into training our media people and keeping them on track as we do our program people.

Myth 3: The best relief is cheap relief. Our overhead is smaller than your overhead.

We all know that this is crap. At the end of the day the greatest impact on relief outcomes is our program design and implementation but we just seem to enjoy a race to the bottom on overheads. Once again this is a matter in which we play into the media’s hands and are compromised by them. I’m not saying that efficiency is not important but I don’t think this is a matter that we should be competing on during the height of a disaster. I think as a result of the Tsunami experience we have at least reached consensus that we should avoid pushing the idea of there being zero cost on emergency donations. This is never true and can only be half true if some other donor is paying for the non-negotiable costs of banking, receipting and reporting. We should go further and posit that there are acceptable ranges for overheads to be in and then leave it at that, not making it a competitive issue. The TEC report recommends we are better placed to put our emphasis on accountability for quality and the accurate tracking and reporting of funds. Overheads should be seen as just one variable in the overall quality of response. The TEC calls for more independent reports on the performance of NGOs to avoid spin doctoring and improved mechanisms to track how the humanitarian dollar arrives with the beneficiary. I think we actually improved in this regard with our joint accountability reports but I think there is more that can be done to avoid this senseless game.

Myth 4: The best relief is the fastest relief. Ours arrived before yours. We spent more in the first 3 months than you did.

What rot. But we know how speed is assumed to be efficiency in the minds of many of our publics. While speed is sometimes important it is actually less important for most things than we make out. 95% of and emergency response takes place after the first couple of weeks when speed might be a critical factor. Especially in regard to spending, we know that it can actually be quite counter to good participation and ownership all of which are stressed in the TEC report. If we are to do things properly we should wean ourselves off of the speed drug. Accuracy and appropriateness of relief is always crucial and should be preferred to speed.

Myth 5: Emergency relief is just so obvious anyone can do it. The needs are so clear all you have to do is deliver the resources. It doesn’t require much training or preparation. You just put people on a plane and get stuck in.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Emergency relief situations and the ensuring recovery phase are like doing development at double pace. The people engagement side of it is just as critical and yet it takes place under incredible pressure. The money angle on all of this is that it takes money to prepare people to deal with emergencies. It’s no good waiting till the emergency happens. People in our agencies in Australia, our partners overseas, and in our communities need to be prepared. The challenge is that too few of us have the money to invest in these vital preparations. Yet if we are to vastly improve our performance it needs to come from our people who are better trained and equipped. To afford to do this we need to work out mechanisms to both raise and invest the appropriate amount of money.

I would conclude by saying that all these myths are exploited to give the appearance of being ahead of the game and thereby maximise money flows to our agencies.

The TEC report recommends proportionality, impartiality and flexibility in relief funding. If we could find our way to such a situation there would be less pressure to exploit these myths and more chance we could educate our public and concentrate on the things that bring benefits to those in need of the relief.

If closely analysed we will also find that many of the weaknesses we experience at the programmatic level are in some way driven or impacted by these myths. Our field staff are often under enormous pressure to show results to impress donors. The funds they have access to may be quite disproportionate to the scale of their program either in excess or deficit. They frequently have to field numerous assessment missions from multiple funding parties.

I know how gritty this problem of money during emergency relief efforts is. Several agencies have tried to find a solution to it over the years and been stumped. Its not easy to fund the right formula. If we are going to make a step change in Australia to our cooperation, coordination and effectiveness in the Australian relief community we are going to have to deal with the issue of money and the myths associated with it.

We need to help ourselves here which is exactly what we tell people in poverty they must do to build a better future. We ought to be able to find the skills somewhere around here to develop our situation – as we are after all development organisations.

Addendum

On the subject of people in emergencies I just want to throw in a caution. After Rwanda we moved in the direction of self regulation through SPHERE standards. TEC is going further and recommending certification or accreditation of agencies and staff. While I think this is a good direction I think there are some interesting issues that need to be explored before we lock down the hatches.

The Tsunami provides an interesting example of the phenomenon. Here was a disaster in Asia where loads of new players from Asia responded. Teams came from Singapore, Malaysia, HongKong, Japan etc. In some cases they did not have the skills or training to be most effective but they were filled with enthusiasm and voluntary passion. It was Asia helping Asia. To some of us who have been on the international relief bus for years, these kids who just got on at the last stop were very green. We grumbled at their lack of development knowledge and in reality they were a pretty mixed bag. The same can be said for people coming from all round the world. But we have to remember that our agencies were new and voluntary in the beginning and we grew up. The cautionary note I would raise, is how are we going to lift standards but at the same time not crush the emerging humanitarian commitment blossoming in Asia and other parts of the world not traditionally involved in this work.

In our efforts to professionalise we need to avoid killing the very passion and reason that drives people to lend a helping hand to strangers. As Andrew will explain if we overdo the risk management we may lose the flexibility and innovation  that makes our sectors   contribution particularly useful.