Crisis and Disaster Management - Coursework Example

CRISIS AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT al Affiliation) A disaster is a major event that results to serious injuries to a nation, a company or a large area and its people that requires urgent feedback. Hurricane Katrina that struck the Gulf coast of the United States is an example of a disaster. On the other hand, a crisis is a situation that is expected to lead to a dangerous situation. It is usually a time of difficulty, intense trouble, or even danger. A crisis can happen to an individual, a group of people, a family, or an organization facing serious difficulties. Disasters are of two types; mainly the natural disasters caused by nature for example the earthquakes and floods. In addition, there are those influenced and caused by man. For example, chemical leaks and bomb blasts. Moreover, crisis management is a term given in response to deal with an emergency or a disaster. It includes the planning of recovery to a difficult situation and avoiding risks. It is about preparing for a disaster before it happens and supporting and helps in the healing process after a natural or man-made disaster has occurred (Zlatanova, 2013). Disaster management includes some phases. The first phase is the disaster phase during which the disaster takes place. Here, there is destruction of human society that is in the form of health loss, loss of human life, and loss of property. The society experiences great shock, pain, and injuries. The second phase is the response phase where individuals respond immediately to the disaster in their own ways. The third phase is the recovery phase where the needs of individuals are met. This includes the provision of medical care, food and people have settled from the hustle of the event. This is the time people start to realize the impact of the disaster and the loss they have been subjected to. The fourth is the risk reductions where the individuals have begun getting back to their normal life and recognize the need to find ways of preventing or find measures that may be used to reduce the extent of loss or damage in the next attack that is similar. For example, if an earthquake occurred and caused a massive destruction of improperly constructed buildings, then the society begins to make strong houses and buildings. Lastly, it is the preparedness phase where the individuals and the population at large is made aware in regards to aspects of disaster and how to respond to future attacks (Mahanti, 2006). This involves educating people on warning signs of the disaster, ways of dealing with safe evacuation and the first aid measures. The world is experiencing an increase in intensity with which disasters are taking place. This clearly shows the critical need to enhance disaster risk management. Furthermore, large-scale disasters are becoming more common and increasing the global need to strengthen national and regional capabilities to mitigate, manage, and respond to such events. According to the U.N the Small Island of the Developing States in the Caribbean are prone to a wide range of risks. Disaster in the Caribbean caused loss of millions of dollars. For example in 2004, the Atlantic Hurricane caused massive loss of life and property. It is estimated that the Atlantic Hurricane caused a loss of $ 2 billion. In addition, a devastating earthquake in Haiti struck the island in 2010 and killed more than 300,000 people. The human impact was great as it occurred in a large urban area with poor constructed buildings. The cost of the earthquake was more than $10 billion. Additionally, flooding is another natural disaster that occurs most frequent in Caribbean (Ishikawa& Tsujimoto, 2009). According to the United Nations, a disaster is a serious interruption of the normal activities of a community or society. In addition, in involves the destruction of humans, property, economic and the environment. The impact is so great that it exceeds the ability of the community to cope and deal using its own resources. Since the United Nations establishment in 1971, they have recognized the need to contribute and help in responding during a disaster as well as help the individuals affected to recover (Mark, 2004). Therefore, the U.N established its own mechanism that aimed at providing international assistance to different countries and their governments when they request for humanitarian assistance. The U.N has set up an office to offer these support under the office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). This office is an arm of the secretariat of the United Nations whose responsibility is to bring together the actors of humanitarian to ensure a fast response to emergencies (Thomas, 2006). Their mission is to mobilize and coordinate effective actions to alleviate human suffering in disasters and emergencies. Upon request by a country affected by a disaster, OCHA sends out a team to the country within 12 to 48 hours to provide technical services, damage and needs assessment as well as the information management. Moreover, OCHA has established a structure where they can work with other agencies to deliver humanitarian support and assistance in a coordinated manner (Prince, 1994). The U.N has worked with more than 50 countries in the past 10 years to come up with and implement policies to deal with disaster reduction as well as provide support recovery activities. Likewise, the U.N puts more emphasis on bridging the gap between relief and development. It also aims to contribute to prevention and advocating for the inclusion of considerations of disasters in both national and regional development programmes. During the post disaster situations, the U.N helps countries get back to the public service delivery as fast as possible. Additionally, it aims to assist in setting up of aid coordination activities as well as strengthen the local administration to be able to manage the recovery process. During the strategic plan period, the U.N aims at work together with the national partners to integrate information recovered from the disaster and help in the making of national development plans to support the growth of institutional and legislative systems as well as coordinating mechanisms for dealing with disasters. This includes placing measures to deal with gender equality while providing emphasis to the most affected group. The support the U.N provides to national governments is intended to ensure that issues to deal with climate change and the environment are taken into account in implementing national strategies and programmes (Zeph, 2007). Moreover, the U.N support interventions where they are relevant to recovery and strengthening government systems and administration to be able to respond fast and effectively to any disaster as well as reduce future risks. The U.N provided technical expertise and procedures to improve the quality of shelter (Schneider, 2011). They also provide food and clothing to the affected people and their families. In addition, they offer counselling services to help the affected people heal fast and adjust to the current situation. The U.N is involved in disaster prevention and mitigation activities that prevent the occurrence of the extreme natural events either in the short or long term. The U.N has come up with a gender strategy that embodies a strong commitment of U.N to deepen their efforts to promote gender equality as well as empowering women. This is because there was a slow progress in women when it comes to dealing with disaster. The strategy is to make both men and women recover fast during a disaster and promote gender equality to build back a more secure and inclusive society. In addition, the U.N has come up with a set of resources that help the disaster-affected countries especially those with high risks of being affected with recovery planning programs. Currently, the U.N is conducting research in disaster prone countries like Caribbean. Their aim is to understand better the impacts of disasters. In addition, training of the local people on how to deal with disasters has taken place in relevant national institutions and both the national and regional level (Gupta, 2003). There are ongoing efforts to strengthen the training programmes provided by the U.N. moreover, at the community level; women are involved in disaster planning and preparedness. For example, women are receiving training to be able to participate in rescue missions and to serve in local disaster management committees in countries like Haiti and Syria (Copolla, 2007). The U.N disaster and conflicts programme is working towards promoting sound environmental management as a way of reducing the risks associated with disasters and driving sustainable development globally (Newman, 2001). They are able to achieve this by incorporating environment-based risk reduction measures together with development planning. The U.N advocates for the use of environmental management as a tool to build community resilience as well as influence policy making at a global, national, and local level. In addition, the U.N has come up with robust methods for responding to crisis, strengthen the capacities of affected countries, and manage effectively the environmental resources. The U.N has promised to act and continue supporting affected countries like Haiti and Sudan to become strong and regain back their economy (Rao, 2008). In October 2005, the U.N collaborated with Vodafone Foundation to come up with mobile technology programs to support and strengthen the global disaster relief network. They are involved in strengthening communications during emergencies to help connect workers to help in the affected communities. They are also involved in the support of mobile health programs that deal with health challenges to improve the health systems. Additionally, they promote research and innovation with technology as a tool for international development. To deal with health and safety, formulation and implementation of systems should take place to prevent and mitigate these crises to protect the health and safety of the citizens as well as the health of those who have come to provide aid. The U.N also has a sudden onset emergency response system known as the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) that helps the disaster affected countries during the first phase of a sudden emergency. UNDAC assists in the coordination of international relief at a national level. In response to earthquakes, the UNDAC teams deploy persons at short notice from across the world. For example, recently UNDAC deployed members in Liberia to help deal with the Ebola outbreak. It also provided support to the government in the efforts to relief people. The U.N is responsible for coordinating activities of human settlements through the UN-Habitat. They contribute to their objective of reducing poverty and promote development in the urbanizing world. Their work is also reflected in the work of disaster management programme to support people affected by disaster. The UN-HABITAT is expected to be in the forefront in disaster, mitigation, and post disaster rehabilitation of humans after the occurrence of a disaster. The UN through its expertize, conducts risk assessments in different countries to anticipate environmental threats that might affect the human health, peoples livelihoods and security, they are also involved in decision making with the aim of eradicating both short and long term disasters and how to prevent and mitigate them. They use state of the art technology to conduct an in depth fieldwork to identify risks that may happen to humans. Additionally, based on the risks identified through the assessments, the UN helps countries formulate strategies that should help in risk reduction as well as come up with projects to display their innovative approaches to use when a country faces a disaster. Through these findings of each assessment, the U.N is able to plan a recovery process that builds good health and stability of the ecosystem and the population (Leonne, 2000). Whenever a country’s peace is hindered due to a conflict caused by resource exploitation, the U.N helps to transform these conflicts into opportunities for promoting peace and development. They provide moral and technical support to the peace making and peacekeeping communities. Therefore fostering environmental diplomacy and advocating for legal protection especially in times of war and armed conflicts. The U.N is also responsible for promoting dialogue and cooperation over resources (Penuel, 2013). The environment and humanitarian action is responsible for increasing effectives and the need to address matters to do with leadership and accountability. The U.N plays a role in ensuring that leaders are promoting peace and security in their own country. Whenever a disaster occurs, the U.N expects the leaders of the communities to be accountable and to have good practices that will should help in the healing process. This also includes the various actions taken by stakeholders to strive for environmental sustainability in the humanitarian action. The trends of climate related events have huge effects to natural disasters and other emergency events. In addition, disasters related to climate change affected close to 2.4 billion people in 1999 to 2009. Floods and storms are the main causes of disasters to which international assistance is provided. Moreover, due to climate changes, there needs to be accurate forecasting to get early warning and data sharing to help a more programmatic approach that focus more on emergency preparedness. Assessments that are more vulnerable are needed to identify countries that are more prone to face risk or emergencies linked to climate change. It is the mandate of the U.N to be alert in disaster preparedness. In order to be effective, early warning systems should be put in place to address multiple hazards. It is important for the U.N to focus on the local level and help the local governments as well as their communities to take mitigation measures and put early warning and evacuation systems in place. Furthermore, through experience, the local communities are not able to identify the best ways they can protect themselves from the impact, it is therefore the duty of the U.N to provide more effort to empower the national and local governments to inform their citizens on the hazards and ways they can protect themselves and their properties to reduce risks. These efforts should be based on local knowledge and all systems both formal and informal should be involved. Other relevant media platforms should be used as well (Oosterom, 2005). Moreover, when responding to a disaster, the U.N expects the affected country to get international assistance as well as the local governments to assist the victims of a disaster and coordinate all available assistance. Therefore, the international community and the U.N should strengthen the response and approach of the disaster prone countries. International aid helps to improve the faith of the population and enhance government capacity to be able to respond effectively to any disasters that may occur (Pinkowski, 2008). However, the U.N has not been able to provide fully assistance to disaster stricken countries due to the challenges they face while implementing the process. Moreover, much has not been done to reach a level of preparedness that is satisfactory. This is because of lack of commitment and the lack of resources remains the biggest challenge at both the national and international level. Likewise, the lack of funding for awareness is also a challenging factor. It is easy for the U.N to mobilize support for efforts in disaster relief, than to get funds for preparedness and alleviation activities that would help minimize life loss and property destruction. In addition, the contingency planning is an engaging process that helps deal with crisis and disasters. The challenge lies when people doubt the usefulness of the exercise. It should be seen as an important process to disaster management and as an ongoing preparedness process other that a one off exercise. More emphasis should be placed on operationalizing the plan. In addition, the lack of cooperation by some governments proves to be a challenge to the U.N nations. This is because some countries have corrupt systems that hinder the U.Ns role in crisis and disaster management. Egocentric leaders who feel that they do not need help prove to be difficult to work with and this reduces the chances of the U.N to provide their support. Another challenge is the lack of a common approach and a shared understanding, definitions and standards. The local communities have limited knowledge on the complexity and working procedures of the international system. Likewise, the international agencies have a problem dealing with the locals as they have little knowledge of the area in which they operate. In addition, the strengthening of the information and telecommunications technology possess to be a challenge when disaster strikes. The governments of the affected countries have a role to play in crisis and disaster management and relief assistance. The local government should be willing to cooperate with the United Nations to achieve maximum help from them. The need to educate their citizens on ways of handling disasters is important (Sharma, 2001). In addition, the governments should organize for post disaster and healing process where the locals are given assistance and help to be able to deal with disasters. These governments should also plan for coordination activities that encourage the humanitarian operations to take place. The United Nations also play a key role in coordinating international assistance. Whenever a disaster strikes, the U.N resident coordinator reports the matter to the disaster management team that helps in calling for help from other agencies (Westlund, 2007). The post disaster process focuses on saving and restoring lives. It also includes building resilience and the reduction of vulnerability. Adequate attention should be provided to the citizens who are affected by disaster. The provision of opportunities to earn a living should be one of the first steps that should be provided to help the citizens get back to their feet (Walt, 2001). In conclusion, the United Nations has been in the forefront to assist many countries worldwide that have faced disasters. Disasters can be natural or manmade and therefore it is everybody’s responsibility to ensure that they are safe and whenever they come across a threat, they should report the matter as this is the first step to safety. Moreover, the U.N has done an excellent job in ensuring that individuals who face a disaster get all the support they need (Bea, 2003). The provision of food, shelter, clothing, and counselling services proves that the U.N are working hard to ensure that people live comfortably and also help them prepare to deal and continue with life regardless of the experience they have gone through. References Bea, K. 2003. Disaster management. Wash., D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Coppola, D. 2007. Introduction to international disaster management. Amsterdam: Butterworth Heinemann. Gupta, H. 2003. Disaster management. Hyderabad: Universities Press Ishikawa, A., & Tsujimoto, A. 2009. Risk and crisis management (Rev. ed.). Singapore: World Scientific. Leonne, D. 2000. The United Nations and human rights. New York: United Nations. Mahanti, N. 2006. Disaster management. New Delhi: Narosa Pub. House. Mark, A. 2004. Basic facts about the United Nations. New York: United Nations. Newman, E. 2001. The United Nations and human security. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave. Oosterom, P. 2005. Geo-information for disaster management. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Penuel, K. 2013. Encyclopedia of crisis management. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE. Pinkowski, J. 2008. Disaster management. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Prince, J. 1994. Disaster management. Canberra: Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. Rao, K. 2008. Disaster management. New Delhi, India: Serials Publications. Schneider, S. 2011. Dealing with disaster: Public management in crisis situations (2nd ed.). Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. Sharma, V. 2001. Disaster management (Rev. and enl. ed.). New Delhi: National Centre for Disaster Management, Indian Institute of Public Administration. Thomas, R. 2006. Enhancing regional cooperation in infrastructure development including that related to disaster management. New York: United Nations ESCAP. Walt, S. 2001. United Nations peace-keeping. New York, N.Y.: United Nations Dept. of Public Information. Westlund, L. 2007. Disaster response and risk management. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Zeph, L. 2007. United Nations documents related to disaster reduction. Geneva: UN, ISDR. Zlatanova, S. 2013. Intelligent systems for crisis management Geo-information for Disaster Management (Gi4DM) 2012. Berlin: Springer. Read More