Background Summary

Jemima now heads up the humanitarian department of a major Australian NGO.  She originally studied in Australia and Latin America, and she now speaks fluent Portuguese and some Spanish.  After a short stint in the Australian community and social services sector, she has spent the past decade or so working with international NGOs.  She spent four years in Mozambique, and since then has worked for a couple of agencies back here in Australia. 

Question 1

You spent four years working in Mozambique with a major international agency, covering a number of interesting roles, and your interaction with the community must have been enhanced by your Portuguese language skills.  For Mozambique, first coming out of a 15 year civil war, which ended in the early 1990’s;  and then facing a number of major disasters at the turn of the century, there seems to be many good and positive lessons which have occurred there.  Could you outline some of the positive disaster risk management (DRM) and development steps which have occurred in that country over the past 20 years, which might be useful lessons learnt for other emerging economies, whether these be in Africa or elsewhere?   

Mozambique is a country that is prone to natural disasters, and at the time I was there, it was also dealing with the impacts and consequences of decades of conflict. Some really positive steps have been taken however, and even though I have been out of the country for a number of years, I do still track what’s going on. So, for example, when I was there, the national disaster management institute was a really nascent entity, with relatively minor status within the government system. However, after having to manage and deal with a number of disasters over the first half of the 2000s, it is now a much more robust entity and given more prominence within the national and sub national systems of government. Likewise, at the community level, a number of organisations have invested heavily in community based disaster management, and disaster risk reduction initiatives and activities, which together have yielded real dividends in terms of the local capacities to prepare for, respond to and mitigate against disasters.

However the issue of building disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiatives into programs remains an issue (as it does almost anywhere)  and, whilst there are examples of really good practice in Mozambique and elsewhere,  this still remains a key challenge for disaster management practitioners. Context based programming is easy enough to talk about,  and seems logical enough;  however the complexities and interdependencies of the real world often get in the way and make it harder than we would like! For example, if you are working in a community that is annually affected by cyclones, you would think that activities that make the community better able to cope with the impact of those cyclones would be part and parcel of good development. However unfortunately that is not always the case.

One thing I believe the Mozambique context does highlight is the importance of national leadership in prioritising DRM. Mozambique learnt many lessons from the 2000 and 2001 floods in particular, but was also able to take advantage of strong donor interest in this sector, and invest heavily in this challenging area.

Question 2

One of the topics covered in this Charles Sturt University Emergency Management program is that of complex emergencies.  What are your thoughts on the so called Democratic Revolution which is sweeping across a number of North African and Middle Eastern countries, and what are the implications of this for an international NGO such as your own, as it possibly is involved in new so-called ‘complex emergencies’ in that region  ?

It seems that each new disaster context throws up a new set of complexities. The current situation in North Africa is interesting, as any humanitarian crisis that exists at the moment (as in Libya),  or will unfold in the months ahead, is as a result of a series of democratic demands being articulated by an ever connected population. By this I mean connected to the world via new media (facebook, twitter etc).  These connections, including centres of power or influence in the Western world, have a real stake in how the situation will play out in North Africa. Contrast this with the situation in Cote d'Ivoire, where there is relatively less focus, but where there is actually the possibility of an even more dire humanitarian crisis developing, and creating an impact across West Africa.

For international organisations, this presents a number of challenges, especially if the agency is not present in the countries in question. Do we start a response? What is our role vis-à-vis that of other organisations? How do we balance playing an advocacy role versus maintaining humanitarian principles?  Perceptions of one’s own organisation are also no longer confined to one location, but are part of a linked up world.  What we do in our operations in Pakistan, for example, can have implications for how we are perceived as an agency in another country,  even one where we may not have direct  on-the-ground operations.

Question 3

Over the past few years, you’ve been involved in (as a trainer) a number of humanitarian-related training courses offered both here in Australia and overseas.  Currently there is an international push ahead, particularly in Australia and the UK,  to take more seriously the professionalisation of the humanitarian sector, this including the development of competency-based training for humanitarian practitioners.  What are your thoughts about the challenges of this movement, particularly as the range of stakeholders involved in disaster-type situations seems to be becoming increasingly diverse?       

It is encouraging to see that there is a real push for the ‘professionalisation’ of the aid sector, including the implications this has for humanitarian work. However that professionalisation is complex and multilayered. Some of it refers to leadership development, for example,  and looking at identifying and developing the next generation of humanitarian leaders; these both being in places such as Australia,  but perhaps, more importantly,  in countries where humanitarian operations are being implemented.

Looking at competency based capacity building is a key part, but this is just one element. It comes out of the recognition that, whilst you can go off and complete formal training, to say to become a plumber, there is currently a dearth of ways and mechanisms by which we can define, build, and then measure improved results.

Linked to this is the emergence of various standards, or benchmarks, that the sector is now trying to apply in a self-regulatory manner – such as the Sphere Standards, HAP, People in Aid,  and the sector-wide or agency-specific Codes of Conducts. When the operating space is very crowded i.e. a plethora of organisations, it can be difficult to enforce, or even communicate, some of these principles and standards to the wider sector.