With large scale disasters frequently in the news this year, Howard Sharman offers some expert advice on how companies can help
With large scale disasters frequently in the news this year, Howard Sharman offers some expert advice on how companies can helpIt’s still only August, but already this year we have seen the Haiti earthquake and the terrible floods in Pakistan, not to mention the famine that is affecting millions in Niger and Chad but which resolutely fails to make the TV news or the newspaper front pages.
2010 is all set to be a record year for spending on emergency relief – and that means it will top the $14.7 billion spent in 2008.
How should a concerned company respond to disasters on this scale? Indeed, is it even the role of corporations to respond at all to disasters?
The facts of the Haiti earthquake (courtesy of DEC) are staggering:
• Two million people living in the most affected area
• 220,000 dead
• Over 180,000 homes damaged or destroyed, 1.5m homeless
• 19 million cubic metres of rubble and debris – enough to fill a line of shipping containers stretching end to end from London to Beirut
• Over 1,100 camps and 54 of these are home to 5,000 people or more
Facts about the Pakistan floods are still coming in, but what we have at the moment suggests that:
• Maybe as many as 20 million people have been affected
• Millions of livelihoods have been devastated
• An estimated six million children are at risk of malnutrition, diarrhoea and pneumonia
• More than 1,500 people have died – a number that is certain to rise
Disasters on this scale demand a response of some sort – on the human level, on the corporate level. But disasters on this scale are also incapable of being addressed by individual or corporate action alone. So what should we do?
Maybe it’s best to start with what companies should not do. They should not just send stuff – whether it is high quality goods or ends of lines that are taking up space in the warehouse. ‘Stuff’ just gets in the way and complicates the already complex-enough job of the professionals on the ground.
They should not send volunteers – see points about ‘stuff’ above. All very well-meaning, but they will probably be more trouble than use.
Companies should accept that there is probably little that they can do to alleviate today’s suffering, but there is a lot that they can do to alleviate tomorrow’s.
Because this is not the last flood, the last earthquake, the last famine that we are going to have on Earth.
What we need is a massive increase in the level of preparedness for disasters and this, with its elements of planning, flexibility and creativity, is what companies could do well.
So companies that want to do something to alleviate suffering from natural (and even man-made) disasters should start to think about preparedness.
Why are there not larger stockpiles of goods available, why does it take weeks every time to organise an appeal, raise money and then go out and buy the requisite materials? Why are we always taken by surprise?
And then they should move to take action on these thoughts. They should pick an organisation that operates in the emergency relief field and engage thoroughly with that organisation.
It doesn’t really matter which one – a giant like Oxfam or Save the Children, or a small organisation like Advance Aid. They should find out what that organisation needs to ensure that there is vastly more, better-funded, preparedness in the future.
It could be as simple as money. It could also involve marketing, advertising, fundraising – future emergencies are not the sexiest things to raise money for, where there is not a live disaster with heart-rending stories and pictures of people suffering NOW, so professional help might be a boon.
It could involve logistics and warehousing – making sure that the goods that people are likely to need are available where they want them, when they want them.
It could involve work on forward planning, meteorology, political forecasting to help to predict where natural or man-made disasters are likely to strike next.
But above all, do get involved with emergency relief and in particular with building the world’s levels of preparedness to deal with disasters and not be overcome by them. And do so by partnering with one aid organisation and offering help in depth.
What you do today and tomorrow will play a major part in reducing the impact of next year’s Haitis and Pakistans.
Howard Sharman is a senior consultant for Advance Aid. www.advanceaid.org