People queue at a tent distribution point in north-west Pakistan. DFID via Flickr
Pakistan is slowly being overfled, facing its worst natural disaster since the 1950's. Right now about 20 million people are affected, and UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon came up with some catchy oneliners ("In the past I have visited scenes of many natural disasters around the world, but nothing like this", "Pakistan is facing a slow-motion tsunami"). Still, numerous blogs and news websites argue that aid is not enough and not fast enough. Is that the case? And why?
In the Huffington Post, UN-reporter Evelyn Leopold argues that "The world has been slow to react in Pakistan". She compares the amount of aid raised (now $815.58 million, since july 22) within two weeks after the earth quake in Haiti ($742 million) and the tsunami in Asia in 2004 ($1.8 billion within a week). She quotes Martin Mogwanja, UN humanitarian coordinator for Pakistan, who says the disaster is "difficult to visualize".
In the Washington Post, Jan Egeland, UN relief coordinator during the 2004 tsunami , says that "We got more in a single day just after the tsunami than Pakistan got in a month." The article comes up with "disaster fatigue" as a reason for "sluggish response".
How do you explain the slow(er) aid response? I am interested in your opinion, and in links to blogs/news souces that claim otherwise. Or, is the problem not the (pledged) money, but rapid aid on the spot, as Helena argued commenting on Andrew's post?
Just to widen the focus: Due to the worst floods since a decade on the border between China and North Korea, more than 100.000 people have been evacuated.
It is quite common to see a “slow” response from the UN and different NGOs during natural disasters. This is explained by them as “they need time to set up their plans and develop better strategies”. What do you think about this?
Hieke,
I truly believe that donor fatigue plays a mayor role. Whatever the reasons may be, it seems that disasters are following each other with increasing speed and donors are just getting tired of it.
And then we also have the numbers. The fewer people die, the longer it takes for aid to kick in. Donors apparently are triggered by death, not by 20 million people that are ‘effected’.
Hieke, thanks for this post, I also considered mentioning it inspired by Andrew’s post. I think Johan has got a point there - number of people ‘affected’ is less sexy than people calling for help from under the rubble.
Today in the morning the footage from Pakistan by Al Jazeera was Pakistanis moving in deep water, with their things.
The question I would state is - as development journalists - are we supposed to make this topic sexier? Why? If so, how? How to represent these people in more appealing way? How should a journalist find himself days after a disaster?
@Helena,
Although we want to be ‘there’ where a disaster struck, it is the instant live streaming of misery that has put callous on our souls. Many years back viewers would receive warnings about ‘shocking content’. At present I feel that there is not much that shocks me. If that goes for more people, it might also be the reason for not taking out the wallet.
So now we can ask ourselves if live footage should be gruesome and horrible. I don’t think so. How about filming (let’s say the flooding in Pakistan) through the eyes of a 6 year old child? Can you imagine a camera lense full of flies, so the viewer at home can hardly see images. That is how a poor child sees. Those are the small stories that should be covered more maybe.
@ Johan. I think you are right in saying shocking content is not the way to go. It requires a lot of commitment and creativity to find a footage and stories that would be real and very appealing to the audience already tired and used to the horrible images.
Breaking the rules with the camera and trying to connect to the audience in the best way possible is one of the ways, I believe.
@ Andrea: I think every disaster is unique, so improvisation is always needed. But skilled and trained aid workers help a lot.
@ Helena & Johan: I also think citizen journalism might be another, creative perspective to report (the aftermath of) a disaster, but especially in emergency situations it is hard to keep a camera still, let alone by a 6 year old…
@ Hieke and Johan - did Johan actually mean that the camera would literally need to be kept by a kid or that it would be from a child’s perspective (as I understood it) ?
@Helena,
You got it right. An adult should handle the cam but through the eyes of a kid everything should get recorded.
@ Johan: Do you mean, the cameraman films what he/she thinks a six year old sees? In that case, I don’t know how to justify that to the viewer as a trustworthy source of information. I mean, an adult filming as a six year old is not literally a six year old…
Or am I completely misunderstanding this?
I understand your concerns and I share them, but at least there IS money being collected and 70% of the needed aid is now going to Pakistan. That’s more than we can say of Niger and the food crisis that is happening there: http://development.thinkaboutit.eu/think3/post/nigers_dying_in_silence_shall_we_clean_our_ears.
I totally agree with the fact that the Pakistanis need all the help they can get and more, and that we should all donate for them, but at the same time we forget about all the other countries where crisis isn’t as visible but victimizes maybe even more people than the flood. Why don’t we think about that?