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The biggest challenge facing all
organizations working in the region is coordination. From a chaotic
start, the organization of the direct relief activities emerged
relatively smoothly. But for the transition to sustainable livelihood
programs, more is needed than just continuing at the locations where
the various organizations happened to start. Parts of the affected
area are over-supplied with agencies. Others parts are still ignored.
Representatives of locally-based NGOs who witnessed the arrival of the
international agencies tell stories of up to five of them trying to
work in the same area with overlapping agendas and without any
coordination.
In spite of the multiple programs
attempting to provide boats, a lack of adequate communication has
meant that this has also not been as useful an exercise as it might
have been. For young fishermen from Samatiga, near Meulaboh, the cost
of replacing boats is still prohibitive, both due to the price of the
wood, transported over a long distance, and the labour for
construction.
There are many more stories about the
difficulties the boat building programs have encountered, such as
donated boats being sold instead of used, boats being delivered to
farmers instead of fishers, boats of the wrong type and in inadequate
number. Although there are clearly many difficulties in transaction,
the basic problem appears to be one of needs assessment.
Lack of coordination in rebuilding is
not only a problem between NGOs. While the Rehabilitation and
Reconstruction Agency (BRR) that is responsible for managing the
government's activities in the area has made valiant efforts, local
government has not been sufficiently involved. Current efforts are not
building human capacity at this level. Again, the "micro"
approach of the NGO's and their hope for "community
initiatives" could become tokenism if there is no improvement in
the missing middle layer of co-ordination.
Clearly, many of Aceh's problems
cannot be solved through short-term measures. Yet at the Meulaboh
workshop there was a great deal of goodwill expressed between
organizations, and there appeared to be a real desire for greater
unity in addressing the problems.
It is time for us to recognise how
the available human, natural and financial resources can be best used
to re-build not only houses, but to build livelihoods to a standard
better than those before the tsunami disaster.
For details please contact:
- Meine van Noordwijk (m.van-noordwijk@cgiar.org)
- Trudy O'Connor (t.oconnor@cgiar.org)
or
- Gerhard Manurung (g.manurung@cgiar.org) Further
Information: http://www.cgiar.org/tsunami
Interested to know more detail about the CGIAR Tsunami website? Please contact Anggoro
Santoso.
More updates info on Aceh: http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/W-New/aceh.asp
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