Focus on resilience rather than emergency needs - Pradeep Bharwad

"There has been enough talk (and buy in) about DRR. Let’s see it being incorporated in humanitarian responses. Let’s think about ways and means of balancing it with the urgency of response." - Pradeep Bharwad, WASH Specialist, Ahmedabad, India

For the first three months after the tsunami, I worked with Oxfam GB as Public Health Engineering Team Leader in Ampara, Sri Lanka. Thereafter I also worked with UNICEF for three months as WES Team Leader, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India. I also carried out the Public Health Final Evaluation for Oxfam affiliates across 13 tsunami affected countries.

Key lessons:

• No single agency has in itself the full capacity to mount a timely and adequate response; thus coordination is of paramount importance; however it is always found to be not a priority for agencies.
• A different perspective on implementing ‘humanitarianism’ is required as the current one fails on so many levels to reach out to the needy and vulnerable people.
• Working towards resilience, rather than focusing on emergency needs is the way to go.

Challenges:

• Lack of/Limited capacity of agencies to respond (especially human resources); lack of professionalism and humanitarian ethos aggravate the issue.
• Lack of accountability amongst agencies and to some extent, governments also.
• Increasing insecurity in most complex humanitarian emergencies.