Weeks after floods and avalanches caused extensive destruction across a third of Afghanistan, the Afghan government, United Nations agencies and NGOs agree that better relief coordination systems need to be in place for future natural disasters.
“We did not have good communication during the flooding crisis, and as a result of that our response was a little disharmonised,” Abdul Matin Adrak, director of Afghanistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA), said.
The Afghan government has reported more than 130 deaths and about 10,000 houses damaged in the country’s recent natural disaster. But there is still no reliable data on the exact numbers of dead and the full extent of damage.
Afghanistan is acutely vulnerable to natural disasters such as flooding and earthquake.
In some avalanche-hit provinces, it took the government and relief organisations more than a week to complete assessments and start delivering emergency relief to those in need.
Fazl-u-Rab Ghezali, an official of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS), said lack of information hampered their efforts to respond to the crisis. “It was not clear who should do what, when and where,” Ghezali said.
Preventive measures better
In order to avoid a humanitarian crisis resulting from a natural disaster, it would be better to undertake preventive measures by building and improving local disaster-coping capacities, added Ghezali.
While some Afghan officials criticised the UN’s prolonged assessments, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan, Ameerah Haq, defended the process saying “assessments were needed for accountability”.
She pointed out that following a July 2006 UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) mission in Afghanistan, 73 recommendations were made for better response to natural disasters but few had been implemented.
“It is the responsibility of ANDMA and different government bodies to meet UNDAC’s recommendations,” said Haq.
The strengthening of ANDMA as a leading disaster response coordination entity, the decentralisation of the humanitarian response mechanism, and the establishment of a reliable communication centre within ANDMA were among urgent recommendations.
The UNDAC mission reported that “the current disaster management system, along with its inadequate resources, is in need of revitalisation and modernisation”.
Of its 73 recommendations, UNDAC listed 29 as requiring immediate attention within three months. However, the UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed that more than eight months later, less than half of those recommendations have been implemented and 10 have yet to see any progress.
A senior Afghan official said that the issue of capacity building within different state entities is a broad need which, in the case of ANDMA, could not be achieved within UNDAC’s recommended time frame.
“Low capacity is a prevalent problem in all government organisations, and not solely in ANDMA. The government is committed to the capacity building of its bodies, but it is not an easy task,” said Ghulam Haider, a programme director for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD).
The 170-employee ANDMA has only US $200,000 as a development budget to implement a countrywide capacity improvement programme, according to Adrak, the agency’s director.
“We have a development plan according to which ANDMA will become an effective institution by 2010. For that to happen, we will require more than $6 million in funds over the coming years,” Adrak said.
Decentralisation
An important recommendation in UNDAC’s report is the systematic decentralisation of the humanitarian response system in Afghanistan.
Currently, disaster management is conducted through a heavily centralised structure which leaves provincial coping capacity extrememly weak, government officials say.
“Although [eastern] Kunar province is acutely vulnerable to a variety of disasters, we do not have any budget for disaster management at provincial level,” the governor of Kunar told IRIN.
Officials in Kabul agree with the idea of decentralising disaster management, but say it will take years.
“The government has a single account which only the president can use to help disaster victims. When a disaster happens in a far-off province, ANDMA or MRRD asks the president to authorise disbursement for the procurement of emergency aid. This is a long and complex procedure,” said Haider of MRRD.
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions