In office but not in power

From the start of my work here I have been encouraged that ACTED is working closely with the SATLINMAS, a village-level body for disaster risk reduction and response. Their existence is mandated by national legislation and they can access specific funding from district-level government.

We are not, therefore, artificially creating community organisations from scratch, which might well falter after ACTED leaves. Instead we aim to tap into existing organisations with supporting infrastructure, and so be more confident of longevity and impact.

The reality is not so rosy, a community member explained at a recent village meeting. Higher levels of government are very good at creating village-level organisations and positions, he said. But what is not available in practice is training, guidance or funding.

There is local-level empowerment on paper, but people often hold positions whilst lacking the understanding and capacity to perform their roles effectively.

We aim to achieve some improvement through training courses and trying to mainstream capacity building in all our activities. But knowing the low base from which the SATLINMAS start and the lack of ongoing support available to them in practice, this impact might be quite modest.

That does not demoralise me. We must first accept the existing situation as it is, but understand that it is far beyond the scope of our programme to tackle these problems completely. We can then seek to facilitate whatever improvements are achievable which, though small, could still be valuable.

So I remain, as is the fashion, cautiously optimistic.

Simple, effective and highly unexpected

Here’s an idea that could be all of the above.

Rubber is a major source of livelihoods in Nias. This photo shows the typical method used here for tapping rubber and collecting it in a coconut shell or cup.

Since the shells rest on the ground they can be swept away easily, even by very minor and common floods. The onset of flooding can be quick and the first priority is to protect people, so there is often not time to retrieve the shells.

In one village this loss to a key source of income is so damaging that many people told us it is the most serious disaster impact they experience.

Surely it would be possible, I thought, to find an appropriate method to hold the collecting shell above ground level? Some quick talks with colleagues and internet research confirmed this.

As shown on the right, using a wire to fix the shell or cup to the tree, safely above the ground, is standard practice in many places, for example Thailand, India and other parts of Indonesia.

This technique has a high impact on a problem that the community has prioritised. It offers a direct economic gain that clearly outweighs the small cost of extra materials.

It also requires only a small change in behaviour and has been successfully adopted in numerous similar environments.

So it’s a very promising idea. And all the more fascinating because it’s nothing like what I expected to be involved with when I started.

Sustainability through value

The photo on the left is shows an evacuation route that leads to a safe gathering point on higher ground. It has become overgrown and a quick evacuation of a large number of people would be difficult.

A community leader said it has not been maintained because no money is available to pay for the required labour.

On the right is a spring water supply system in the same village. Installed by the government 30 years ago, it used by over 60 households. Regular maintenance is conducted by the community on a rotating schedule – and the people willingly provide their labour free of charge.

Initially, this infrastructure was donated, not bought. It provides no direct financial gain to the users and no financial incentive is offered for maintenance. Despite all this, the community has sustained the system in the long-term.

People are prepared to do this, a community member explained, because a reliable supply of clean water is a clear benefit that every person appreciates on a daily basis.

To be sustainable, disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities must also be valued by communities to this extent. The difficulty is that their primary benefits occur during times of disaster, which are infrequent, whilst demanding maintenance on a much more regular basis.

Solutions are possible. A colleague pointed out, for example, that DRR interventions can have a secondary benefit that is felt more often. We will look to this and other approaches when working with the villages towards sustainable DRR.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Recently I was trying to convey to a colleague the importance of representative participation in our assessments.

For example, to determine whether the village authorities were running an effective flood warning system, we should not ask those authorities only. They might well be biased, so we should also ask other community members, I explained.

To get this point across I was patient and diplomatic, using a range of methods and simple English to overcome any language barrier. So when, after fifteen minutes of effort, my friend had still not really grasped the concept, I felt I had done all I could and was frustrated that I had not been understood.

But on reflection, my patience and diplomacy were, from the outset, directed entirely at making him understand me and this concept I considered ‘simple’ and ‘correct’.

What I had not done was make any real commitment to first understand my colleague. Why had he taken the approach he did? What did he understand by the concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘bias’ and how they applied to our programme?

To have sought first to understand would have taken more time and discipline. But aside from treating a colleague with more respect and establishing common ground, I might also have got closer to my own goal: to be understood.

In this cross-cultural context I have been given the chance to appreciate more fully ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood’. I hope I will now apply it more whole-heartedly than before.

Small is disastrous

This photo shows a structure that a family of six used as a temporary shelter when they fled their home during a disaster. There is no safe water supply, emergency food reserve or sanitation. The shelter clearly does not provide much privacy or dignity.

So what disaster forced the family into such a desperate situation? The huge tsunami of 2004? The massive earthquake of 2005?

No. The disaster responsible was a flood of the local river.

Far from a freak occurrence, severe floods requiring evacuation to this shelter are common, happening around five times a year. The family stays for up to three nights each time, access to the rest of the community is cut off and, with no alternative, they must drink dirty floodwater.

This highlights the fact that small can be disastrous. Indeed, the majority of disasters are confined to a limited area.

As a result of this, the majority of disaster response is also small-scale and community led. Media attention focuses almost exclusively on the relief efforts of international agencies in response to big disasters. But these are the exception.

So it is all the more important to prioritise building village-level capacity for disaster preparedness and response, acknowledging and improving local coping mechanisms. In strengthening this community resilience, to paraphrase E.F. Schumacher, small would certainly be beautiful.

Half the battle

The photo on the right shows an ACTED hygiene poster. Several of these are posted on walls of the ACTED base in Lahewa, communicating the need to wash hands with soap after going to the toilet.

The photo on the left is a toilet at the base. You might just make out the absence of soap.

The people working at the base here must be among the most aware in the local population of the importance of proper hygiene. Yet this knowledge has not led to the necessary action.

This observation strikes a chord with my work on the DRR programme since, in common with many development interventions, we aim to achieve some key changes in behaviour within the communities.

It might be that a short-term, limited intervention struggles to compete with conflicting aspects of traditions, habits and culture that exist much deeper.

Or perhaps the immediate and real inconvenience of the change might not seem worth the reward, which, though larger, might be distant and speculative.

In the developed world, the knowledge that poor diet and lack of exercise increase risk of heart disease is common. The follow-through with action is less so. Awareness is necessary but not sufficient.

One of America’s most celebrated soldiers was fond of saying ‘knowing is half the battle’. Maybe so. But without winning the other half, the battle is often lost.

Warning received

Development that has impact in the long-term is difficult to achieve. In my first week I saw a water supply system that only works for half the year.

I also visited a tsunami early warning system that no longer has any personnel or equipment – only the physical structure remains. So it’s just a useless collection of wood and nails. No warnings can be issued or received.

These NGO projects were almost certainly written up as successes within the relatively short project cycle, but have run in to serious trouble just a few years later. Warning issued and received.

It is very easy to find fault with other people’s work after the fact. Actually planning and implementing a sustainable intervention is much much harder. This is constantly at the front of my mind as we work here.

With ACTED’s programme we’re strongly emphasising building the capacity of existing local organisations and network; developing a range of relevant skills; and giving communities themselves the opportunity to choose the direction of the projects. I hope we’ll be successful.

But ultimately we, like many before us, will leave and forget. Only the communities themselves will really live with the consequences.

Contrasts

The contrasts all around can be very striking. For example, villages where families commonly own TV satellite dishes yet the children of the same families defecate in the open.

The philosopher Jagger once said that you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

So what is intriguing to me about this example of development is that the opposite appears to be true. What they’ve got, television, might seem to us to be what they ‘want’; whereas what they haven’t, sanitation and hygiene, might be what we think they ‘need’. Water, sanitation and hygiene programmes have been done here, but they have perhaps not led to as durable a change as television has.

It’s clear to me that I have a lot to learn about how development works. But my stay here has only just begun and, as that philosopher also said, time is on my side.

Start

I’ve recently moved to the island of Nias, Indonesia. I’m interning for French NGO ACTED with support from British charity EWB-UK and I’m working on a disaster risk reduction (DRR) programme.

The island was affected by the tsunami in 2004 and then devastated by a massive earthquake a few months later. Our team is working with 10 villages to help them build their resilience to future disasters.

I’ll aim to post to this blog quite frequently with updates that will definitely be brief and will hopefully also be interesting. I welcome your questions and comments.