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Emergency relief at Malteser International Millions of people around the world are threatened with the consequences of extreme natural disasters and armed conflict. After a few weeks, many military and humanitarian groups left, leaving behind thousands of post-operative patients. Experienced agencies often have a shortlist of hotspot regions such as central Africa for conflicts or central America for natural disasters.
They then preposition materials at major airfields so that their proximity ensures a rapid response. However, prepositioning requires substantial maintenance costs and a high risk of waste as medical and food supplies expire. In the case of Haiti, airport congestion led to large delays getting through the medical equipment that was urgently needed to treat the quarter of a million injured victims of the earthquake.
The US military-controlled Port-au-Prince airport gave dignitaries and high-profile media priority, while planes carrying humanitarian supplies were diverted to Santo Domingo the capital of the neighbouring Dominican Republic , and transported the miles to Port-au-Prince by land.
Finally, specialists surgeons, anaesthesiologists, traumatologists, emergency medicine doctors who are experienced in treating war-wounded as well as working in resource-limited settings are very rare.
Inexperience in emergency settings can be a hindrance rather than a help. The American College of Surgeons listed hundreds of surgeons to go to Haiti, but agencies did not accept their help due to their inexperience. These problems are indicative of issues encountered in the majority of emergency aid efforts.
For example, poor coordination was criticised in response to the Rwandan genocide[14] and the Indian Ocean tsunami[15]. However, significant media attention as well as financial support led to an estimated over 2, agencies responding to the Haiti earthquake, creating competition and duplication.
These factors limit the success of aid operations, and cannot be overcome financially, suggesting that in many cases there will be little room for more funding in big disaster campaigns. Nevertheless, it is clear that there are some important issues with donating to the largest and probably also smaller emergency aid appeals. The Disease Control Priorities report assessed the cost-effectiveness certain humanitarian interventions used in emergency aid.
Search and rescue SAR is an important intervention in the first hours following a disaster such as an earthquake or tsunami where buildings may have collapsed and people may be trapped.
Very few developing countries have the expertise to conduct SAR operations in collapsed multi-storey buildings. As such, SAR teams are often dispatched by industrial nations at high cost. However, SAR has rapidly diminishing returns as people who become trapped often die very quickly without any treatment.
SAR teams from other nations take too long to reach the disaster zone, rendering their high cost effectively useless. Nearby SAR teams and local emergency services that have good enough training to conduct SAR operations are the most effective rescue solution in this case. Field hospitals are one of the most common methods of treating victims of a disaster.
However, they often cost too much and arrive too late. This delay means that field hospitals cannot contribute to immediate trauma care and end up competing for routine care that is already being provided by non-specialist local teams. However, those few mobile hospitals that are equipped to care for non-trauma needs and staying longer than two to three weeks can be particularly effective, although there is no data available on the number of lives saved by these hospitals in any disaster that would not have been saved by local means.
One of the worst interventions is that of donating in-kind , for example by sending clothing or tinned food, whether to NGOs or from NGOs to countries.
They can divert humanitarian funds from more effective uses to warehousing supplies and building facilities for the safe disposal of pharmaceutical donations. Disease prevention and control can be relatively effective, if the correct managerial decisions are made. Strengthening existing programs to control the spread of disease can be effective, with the benefits of these programs lasting well beyond the immediate health effects of the crisis.
Improving sanitation and public awareness of disease, disposing of waste, and reducing the opportunities of vectors to breed constitute relatively effective methods of disease control see also WASH , immunisation and malaria. However, other, less cost-effective interventions such as improvised mass immunisations and fogging to remove vectors are carried out all too often.
When huge numbers of homes have been destroyed, for example in a tsunami, or many people have been displaced, for example by war, the creation of shelters is a vital method of ensuring survival. Unfortunately, building enough shelters is commonly achieved through the creation of a tent city.
Tent cities are easy to set up, difficult to sustain, and nearly impossible to end. Living conditions are often extremely poor.
Sanitation problems cause increased risk of diseases such as cholera. When humanitarian agencies withdraw around a year after a disaster, they leave behind displacement camps in urgent need of funding, reducing their access to water, sanitation and hygiene services. Overcrowding, a lack of policing and a lack of lighting lead to security issues inside tent cities such as increased risk of rape.
Distributing construction material or cash subsidies is more cost-effective and more suitable for helping the victims of disasters. Cash assistance is a plausibly effective method of ensuring a long-term recovery. Although it is difficult for cash assistance to meet immediate life saving needs, it does appear to help with rehabilitation.
It is clear that in most disaster-affected countries, those with the largest income will more easily gain access to the services and goods they need, whether that be shelter, medical, food, or anything else. This suggests that income availability is often a limiting factor in long-term recovery, and that therefore cash assistance could speed up this recovery see also microfinance. Strengthening Regulatory Systems. Ethics and Business Integrity. Boosting Innovation and Access. Tackling Global health challenges.
Tackling Global health challenges Humanitarian and disaster relief aid. Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Aid.
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