Why has transition from relief to rehabilitation been so slow?
Why has transition from relief to rehabilitation been so slow?
Meine van Noordwijk, Trudy O'Connor and Gerhard Manurung, Bogor
Once the word was out about the hundreds of thousands of
Acehnese lives destroyed in last year's Boxing Day tsunami, the
international response was quick in speed, and great in
magnitude. Yet despite the obstacle of poor security being
removed by the creation of a peace treaty, the transition from
relief to rehabilitation of livelihoods has been slower than
expected.
Five main reasons for this slow development became apparent
during a recent workshop in Meulaboh, where representatives of
local government, national and international agencies and NGOs
discussed opportunities to better meet the long term needs of the
affected communities. There was a call for more critical
consideration of local needs, better collaboration between
agencies and attention to a "missing middle" layer of
coordination in rehabilitation efforts.
First of all, some early expectations of a rapid return to
sustainable livelihoods were unrealistic. Livelihood strategies
emerge in response to opportunities, not from preconceived master
plans or blueprints. The tsunami affected all five types of
capital: Natural, human, social, infrastructure and financial,
and a new balance between these will emerge. However, we need to
anticipate the broad range of people's needs in the recovery of
infrastructure and help communities prepare for the future.
Secondly, the public debate on environmental issues has moved
in circles, rather than developing negotiated solutions.
Preventing another tsunami has probably been too high on the
public list and realistic visions of the "coastal protection
forest zone" have been slow to emerge. Several kilometres of
coastal vegetation would be desirable, but anything beyond 50
metres of trees is probably unrealistic. Furthermore, there is
still a great deal of talk about planting mangroves on Aceh's
west coast, where there was very little mangrove forest naturally
present.
Meanwhile, the debate on legality of timber has remained very
purist. The consequence is that after an entire year, many people
still live in tents. The questionable source of locally available
timber slowed the building of houses, so NGOs switched to slower
and more costly building with bricks and cement, to avoid being
"caught". We need to ask if international concerns about the
legality of timber supplies were of such paramount importance,
given the enormity of the crisis?
Thirdly, while most relief agencies have adopted the
"livelihood" approach in name, many of them have omitted some
important aspects of market chains from their considerations.
Also, most efforts have been at a "micro" scale only. Back in
January, fishing communities indicated that reconstruction of ice
factories was their highest priority, as the more valuable fish
obtained further from the coast must be chilled. Eleven months
later, these fishermen have some new or repaired boats, but still
no ice. They say the only available ice must be transported a
great distance by road, which costs three times the old price.
This makes the rebuilding of their livelihoods very difficult
indeed.
Investment in an ice factory is a perfectly valid economic
venture. However, this requires credit and collateral. It also
requires the identification of a suitable location, close to a
local harbour. All NGO-led foreign support is aimed at more micro
issues while the large donors want to rebuild roads or harbours.
The ice factory is in the "missing middle" zone.
Understandably, the initial focus was on the survivors among
the people who lived close to the coast. Yet a large group of
rural households have become secondary victims as the roads and
market channels have disappeared. The price received by farmers
for rubber fell to less than half of what it had been, even
though most of the local rubber trees survived the tsunami.
Farmers need assistance to "bridge" the time period until local
processing and improved accessibility return prices to the levels
received by farmers elsewhere in Sumatra.
Fourthly, the lack of baseline data and the support to collect
and collate these is leading to a slow process of trial and error
in natural resource use. For example, the coastal area around
Meulaboh contains a number of peat areas where the "jungle
rubber" provided effective coastal protection. But clearing trees
to build houses on the unstable peat is risky, as some NGOs are
finding out the hard way. The point is not to criticize the
efforts of the organizations that have tried to provide much
needed housing. However, more collaboration between agencies to
share baseline data such as soil maps could have saved time,
effort and money.
Finally, 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.
The writers are working for World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF),
Bogor.