Short-term, inflexible funding fails those in need

Fundraising | Becky Slack | 11 Apr 2008

The funding of disaster recovery is too inflexible and focuses on short-term objectives, which prevents smooth and rapid reconstruction and recovery.

This is one of the findings from a report into post-disaster operations by governments and agencies produced for the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors by the Max Lock Centre at the University of Westminster.

Mind the Gap! Post-disaster reconstruction and the transition from humanitarian relief questions why reconstruction after major disasters seems to take so long and why "aid money lies 'paralysed' in the accounts of governments and major agencies".

It highlights a worrying gap in funding and organisational skills between the initial humanitarian relief for natural disasters and the long-term reconstruction of the areas, which it blames on a "lack of planning, co-ordinated management and targeted funding of the response in the post-disaster recovery phase".

The report recommends that government and agencies take a more long-term view: "If the management of disaster recovery is to go forward, co-ordination of effort requires a more flexible pool of funding that can be allocated more appropriately and equitably between the early and later stages of recovery and transferred between different types of recovery effort or even between disasters as the need arises."

The report was presented to the UN's agency for International Disaster Risk Reduction in Switzerland last month, in the hope that it will help to establish an effective framework for long-term reconstruction.

Who's Who: Becky Slack

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