Editorial | Strengthening humanitarian efforts

It is nearing 10 months since Hurricane Melissa battered western Jamaica, exposing some of the island’s vulnerabilities.

But the tragedy also highlighted something else: how, in the midst of a crisis, Jamaicans will rally to help each other. In the aftermath of the Category 5 storm, scores of domestic organisations and thousands of individuals worked alongside international relief agencies and volunteers to provide relief and to begin the process of recovery for the tens of thousands of people who were affected by the hurricane.

This memory resonated at this time because, earlier this week, on August 19, the United Nations observed World Humanitarian Day, which was established to commemorate the 2003 bombing of the UN offices in Baghdad, Iraq. Twenty-two humanitarian aid workers were killed in that atrocity.

In his message this year to mark the day, the UN’s Secretary-General António Guterres said: “Humanitarian workers stand up for people in need. We must stand up for them.”

Mr Guterres’ remark encapsulated what those domestic and international volunteers did for the hurricane victims, as well as signalled the potential for Jamaica to deepen and further formalise mechanisms that naturally evolved as Jamaicans sought to help their fellow citizens.

Global relief organisations and major NGOs, domestic and international, have established systems to respond to disasters. But, ultimately, relief is administered and delivered by people, including, at the domestic level, ordinary Jamaican folk, churches, businesses, and national and community organisations.

As this newspaper observed in the midst of the outpouring of solidarity, this collective enterprise was, and ought to be recognised as, “a form of strategic national capital” that should be harnessed for Jamaica’s long-term recovery. In other words, the outpouring of solidarity should be mapped in a case study to determine lessons to be extracted and carried forward in the project for national development.

NOT REINVENT THE WHEEL

Additionally, in the event of another national disaster, Jamaica should not have to reinvent the wheel. The weaknesses and the best practices from Hurricane Melissa ought to have already been documented. If they have not been, that must be urgently done, and mechanisms established to enable authorities, in future, to call on the skills and expertise many individuals and organisations developed or perfected in the Hurricane Melissa crisis.

National disaster relief officials should have access to a database of the individuals and agencies that can provide food; those that can offer medical services; those that can offer temporary accommodation; those which can offer transportation; and those that have trained volunteers.

Some of this information is already being gathered by the Council of Voluntary Social Services (CVSS), which operates as a coordinating body for Jamaica’s NGOs that are involved in social development. The CVSS’ effort can be built on and more aggressively engaged by the State’s official response agencies.

Indeed, credible humanitarian organisations and community groups should be more fulsomely welcomed and allowed to participate in national disaster planning, simulations and preparedness exercises.

There is also a larger opportunity for Jamaica to be a regional hub in disaster management and mitigation, helping to build out the next layer of the Caribbean’s humanitarian architecture. The country has regional and international institutions, including the UN Multi-Country Office, while the World Food Programme’s (WFP’s) Caribbean Multi-Country Office coordinates support across 22 countries and territories from its headquarters in Kingston.

The island can complement the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency’s (CDEMA’s) regional logistics hub based in Barbados. During Hurricane Melissa, the WFP used the Barbados hub to organise and dispatch 2,000 emergency food boxes to Jamaica, while other supplies, including water-purification equipment, bedding, tarpaulins, mattresses and hygiene kits, were also prepared for shipment.

CDEMA’s broader regional response mechanism is designed around four subregions, allowing regional resources to be matched to the needs of an affected country. Its experience has shown that logistics and the ability to move supplies quickly are fundamental to effective disaster response. Jamaica is one of the 20 CDEMA participating states

LOGISTICS AND TRAINING CENTRE

Jamaica could establish a Northern Caribbean Humanitarian Logistics and Training Centre to create a complementary network capable of moving assistance in different directions when one part of the region is affected.

The centre could also become a training ground for emergency managers, humanitarian workers, journalists, medical personnel and community volunteers from across the region. That would require investment in strategically located warehouses and emergency stockpiles; stronger air and sea logistics; shared regional data and communications systems; regular multi-country disaster exercises; and specialised training for emergency managers, humanitarian workers, journalists and community volunteers.

But the more profound takeaway from the Hurricane Melissa disaster is that while major international and domestic organisations did much of the heavy lifting in the relief effort, they did not outdo Jamaicans who rallied to help and support their fellow citizens. The next step should be to turn that goodwill into long-term partnerships to build domestic and regional humanitarian capacity.

Further, this demonstration by Jamaicans of national solidarity should be seen by the government as a platform from which to build consensus on critical issues of national development.