Journey for Assessment

30 June 2013 : At last I was leaving for Uttarakhand. It had taken over 10 days for this plan to happen, because I had few other pending works to complete in Bengal, and then required an organization under whose banner I can move. As a RedR India member, I was scheduled to visit Uttarakhand and do a Emergency Needs Assessment of various districts in the first phase. I had been alerted by RedR India that I may have to stay on in Uttarakhand for about 2 - 3 months to help in the coordination of relief and response. When I reached Bolpur with my heavy suitcase and back-back, I found that my ticket had not been confirmed and that several trains are running late. The one that came when I was standing there was so badly packed that people were over-flowing from the train. It would have been impossible for me to go without a confirmed ticket. So, I hired a car and reached Kolkata where I stayed for the night.

01 July 2013 : Almost all my colleagues who would be part of the team had reached by 11.30 am, and I too reached around the same time in Delhi. We were checked in into a hotel, and then we proceeded to the UNICEF office Lodhi Road.  The meeting with UN team took place at the UNDP Conference room. I was a bit discouraged as the entire meeting dwelt around how to fill an assessment format, which was just a rework on the commonly accepted Rapid Assessment Format. This format is usually used within 24 hours or maximum of 72 hours of a disaster. But we were using it two weeks after the disaster had struck. I did not get the key to this, except that we were informed that this assessment will be collated, mapped, and will be shared with the government and other agencies. 

One of the members from the team said in confidence, "My son in the college could have done this survey!" He felt that it was almost sounding like a survey than an assessment. We returned back to the hotel and wondered why are we waiting here in Delhi....

Assessor and Giver

In Kumarganj block of South Dinajpur district, West Bengal, while giving a training on disaster management to the government officials and local elected representatives of the block, during the discussion on relief management, an interesting issue came up. The issue raised was how to ensure damage and needs assessments are realistic and point towards immediate steps that need to be taken for relief in periods immediately after a disaster, with minimum coloring of political or other sectoral manipulation. The officers in Kumarganj said, "The current system of engaging the same group of people for assessment and response, although they may not be personally the same, but come from the same category, is equal to a examinee correcting his own paper, with no reference to any question or answer at the time of correction! The suggestion is, therefore, segregate the officers doing the assessment from those who give the relief." It can be done in two ways: (a) Let relief be given by the elected representatives with minimum supervision by the administration. But all damage and need assessment must be done by the executive staff only. No elected representatives or political class in it. (b) To strengthen the system further let executive officers from outside the affected area or specially designated persons with appropriate knowledge and skills at the state and district level be entrusted with the task of assessment and the local executive and political class take care of relief distribution. This would minimize the controversies surrounding too much demand for too little relief.

Does someone have any data on, actually what percentage of tarpaulins out of those distributed have been used for setting up temporary shelters ? All such critical data will help re-plan emergency response strategies. Are some of our relief materials really feeding into the "wants" of people rather than "needs of people?