• Responding to natural disasters

Responding to natural disasters

This brief asserts that research relating to humanitarian crises has largely focused on what international aid agencies and donor governments do in response to disasters. Much less attention has been given to, the author states, analysis of the role of the affected state in responding to the needs of its own
citizens. This paper seeks to provide such an analysis, and provides a number of key messages, including:

• One of the goals of international humanitarian actors should always be to encourage and support states to fulfil their responsibilities to assist and protect their own citizens in times of disaster
  
• Too often, aid agencies have neglected the central role of the state, and neutrality and independence have been taken as shorthand for disengagement from state structures, rather than as necessitating principled engagement with them
  
• States should invest their own resources in assisting and protecting their citizens in disasters, both because it is the humane thing to do and because it can be politically popular and economically effective
  
• Understanding state roles: the roles and responsibilities of states in relation to humanitarian aid are four-fold: they are responsible for ‘calling’ a crisis and inviting international aid; they provide assistance and protection for themselves; they are responsible for monitoring and coordinating external assistance; and they set the regulatory and legal frameworks governing assistance

In conclusion the author states that substitution for the state may sometimes be appropriate, particularly in conflicts, and in both conflicts and natural disasters there will always be a need for independent and neutral humanitarian action. However, one of the goals of international humanitarian actors should always be to encourage and support states to fulfil their responsibilities to assist and protect their own citizens in times of disaster.

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