Challenges Faced by Humanitarian agency in Emergency Response in Urban areas: Lessons from Haiti and Chile
agencies and ministry to maintain its policies.
7.2 Co-ordination between Government and Humanitarian agencies The government needs coordination with NGO’s to select the places and relief items for distribution in emergency phase in urban areas. When the roads and airports of Haiti’s capital port Au Prince was destroyed the humanitarian agencies and UN agencies they started airdrop the relief material in several places. But it couldn’t satisfy the local people demand as it was unplanned. So the NGO’s need a contingency plan inter link with government in urban areas for dropping the relief materials as per the pre designated responsible areas beforehand.
7.3 Co-ordination between Military and Humanitarian agencies Military institutions place a high value on command and control, top-down hierarchical organization structures and clear lines of authority, discipline and accountability. They place great value on logistics and substantial resources are dedicated to the acquisition of assets and training of personnel to ensure that they can function independently under the most adverse circumstances. The military’s approach to problem solving is generally directive and coercive. Humanitarian organizations are less hierarchical and more participatory in their style of decision making and operations than the military. They pay more attention to the process by which they accomplish operations, partly because they attach more importance to long-term impacts, but have fewer back-up resources and engage in less contingency planning to ensure that short-term objectives can be met quickly. Thus the military short-term, non-participatory approach is often a source of operation tension with the civilian agencies engaged in similar activities informed by consideration of development. So overcome this problem the government should arrange some mob demo in urban areas or arrange seminar to understand and find out a better solution for joint operational method during in emergency phase.
7.4 Due attention to enhance the social cohesiveness The heterogeneous communities in urban areas should share their views and ideas and enhance the cooperation among them. This can be done through government agencies like social welfare ministry, local NGO’s. The print and electronic media can play a vital role on that issue. The members of civil society can play their important role for enhancing the unity among the heterogeneous communities.
7.5 The need for network for urban disaster management in emergency phaseThe Dhaka city is a place for a poor and rich people. This city is mixed of different classes of people basing on their culture and economic status. During disaster it has been found people in urban areas having less cooperation than in rural areas. And this lack of cooperation and cohesiveness create more difficulties during disaster. To minimize this problem the urban area like Dhaka city need a social network, which will connect them in a same line? This can be done in following ways-
(1) The education policy must be changed and it has to be same nature for all class of people.
(2) Form the primary level the children must have learnt the need of cooperation and cohesiveness during disaster.
(3) The community must have arranged a programme where they can share and changed their views.
(4) The religion center and respected person in a society like Imam, Priest, other religion and Political leaders or teachers must play a role to make a network among all people to understand the necessity of unity.
(5) The modern technology like local radio in urban areas can plays a vital role to arrange the disaster related interviews of people from different classes and occupation. Arranging cultural programme of different groups of the people living in the same urban society. This local radio can also play a vital role to united all the people of different classes during disaster and give necessary advice regarding don’t and do’s. As an example when the structure of the Haitian Government and law and order in Haiti all but disappeared in the days following the quake. But on the ground some Haitian were trying to fill the power vacuum and implement their own self-help operation, encouraged by the city’s radio Metropole, which urged residence:”Organize neighborhood committees to avoid chaos and prevent people looting shops and houses”
(6) Print and electronic media can play a vital role in the same way
(7) The communication sector like land phone or cell phone company can enhance the awareness among the urban people regarding their own responsibility as well as their rights from the