Disaster Relief Aid by Bimal Kanti Paul

Author:Bimal Kanti Paul
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Effectiveness of Disaster Relief Distribution

Because all these problems associated with disaster relief distribution , distribution performance must be critically evaluated after each major disaster. As noted, many public agencies , humanitarian organizations, and others are involved in delivering emergency aid to disaster victims . For various social, political, geographical, economic, and cultural factors, each relief operation confronts unique challenges. This means, every disaster differs, and every disaster requires different responses in relief distribution . A careful evaluation of relief operation can provide valuable insights and lessons for those who disburse emergency assistance . These insights and lessons can assist both public and other relevant organizations in developing efficient and orderly relief operation plans for survivors of future natural disasters .

All distributors together can be evaluated at once for their overall effectiveness in distributing emergency aid . Alternatively, a comparative approach, such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs ) Versus government organizations (GOs) , can also examine the effectiveness of disaster aid distribution . Such a comparison might be useful if the official response is widely criticized for inefficiency that fails to deliver timely relief at the disaster site (Holguin-Veras et al. 2007; Holguin-Veras and Jaller 2012). Disaster literature suggests that, until recently, NGO responses were more efficient, effective, and impartial in disbursing critical emergency assistance to disaster survivors than most governmental agencies , which are controlled by elite groups and hard-core bureaucrats, also known as command-and-control disaster relief operations (e.g., Paul 2003, 2006, 2007). This implies that GOs systematically discriminate against marginal households and socially vulnerable populations in providing disaster aid. A comparative approach among linking networks , bonding social networks , and bridging networks can also be pursued to examine the effectiveness of disaster relief distribution .

Ideally, evaluating the effectiveness of emergency aid should use the opinions of disaster survivors or others not directly involved in delivering aid but with clear knowledge about a specific relief operation. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches can be used to examine emergency aid effectiveness . In either case, several salient features of emergency relief disbursement should be considered in developing a composite index of effectiveness . While little effort has gone into developing such an index, Paul et al. (2017) recently developed a spatial level additive composite index of effectiveness of disaster aid distribution in Nepal after the two major earthquakes in 2015. This index was based on respondent opinions of the appropriateness, adequacy, timeliness, and fairness of aid distribution . According Paul et al. (2017), these four components/dimensions captured all salient features of effective emergency aid . A 1–5 Likert scale , anchored at 1 signifying the lowest opinion and 5 signifying the best, was used to record how respondents rated each of the four components measuring emergency relief efforts for each selected study unit and the entire study area. 8

Using the answers from 272 respondents selected from two study districts (Sindhupalchok and Lalitpur), Paul et al. (2017) calculated the overall effectiveness of relief efforts first by adding the scores of all four components and then by taking the mean of the scores.

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