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Building disaster resilience through capacity building in Ethiopia

Feleke Tadele
Oxfam Canada, Ethiopia and Save the Children Canada, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and

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Siambabala Bernard Manyena

Disaster and Development Centre, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Abstract
Purpose Building institutional capacity to prevent, prepare and respond to disasters is among aspects emphasized in the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015 to enhance the resilience of disaster-affected communities. Lessons from past programmes could help the design and implementation of future capacity building interventions with a view to making them both a means and an end in themselves in building disaster resilience of communities and nations. This paper aims to explore the issues. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on the authors experiences and reports in institutional capacity building in Ethiopia. Findings Institutional capacity building programmes should adopt a non-intervention approach, using existing structures. Programmes should be demand-driven and beneciary-based rather than supply-driven and should be holistic and integrated with coordination being an important ingredient. Capacity building is a slow process and unless all partners are willing to make a choice in favour of assessing and working the holistic and integrated capacity building will struggle to make a lasting inuence in reducing disasters and their impacts to Ethiopians. Practical implications With capacity building being at the centre of the building community, resilience, coordination by donors as well as government agencies is fundamental. Originality/value The paper illuminates areas of good practice as well as complexities surrounding the delivery of the disaster resilience through capacity building and how governments and development and humanitarian agencies are implicated. Keywords Disasters, Buildings, Ethiopia Paper type Research paper

Introduction The growing realization of the intimacy between disaster recovery and resilience has added a new impetus to the concept of capacity building in Ethiopia. Building capacity for institutions to prevent, prepare and respond to disasters has become one of the common features in development programmes in Ethiopia. Emphasis on resilience, to enhance the capacity of disaster-affected Ethiopians to bounce back or recover with little or no external assistance following a disaster, are gradually nding more space in the policies and practice of development and humanitarian agencies. Recurrent disasters, mainly triggered by drought, have remained the leading cause of human suffering in Ethiopia. The probability of a drought occurring increased from one in ten years (in 1970s and 1980s) to one in three years in 2000s. In 2003, 13 million

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 18 No. 3, 2009 pp. 317-326 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/09653560910965664

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people required international assistance, against an annual average of ve million. A total of about 1.85 million metric tonnes were provided at a cost of US$800 million (Middlebrook, 2003). To effectively and efciently prevent, prepare and reduce disaster risks means nding ways of tackling well-known government deciencies and building its institutional capacity. It means building the capacity of the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC). But institutionalization of disaster risk reduction is not new in Ethiopia. The rst institutionalization effort was made after the establishment of Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) in 1973, which was mandated mainly for coordinating emergency relief operations and settlement schemes in the country. Since then the main theme of disaster management was to avert drought induced famine. The government of Ethiopia (GoE), following the promulgation of National Policy on Disaster Prevention and Management (NPDPM) 1993, has received support from aid agencies to enhance its capability in preventing, preparing and responding to disasters. In 1996, GoE appealed for support to build the capacity of the DPPC in three main: the popularization of the disaster management policy and strengthening of coordination; strengthening of the early warning system; and linking relief to development through labour intensive employment generation schemes. The Institutional Support Project (ISP), funded by The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) from 1997 to 2006, and implemented by Save the Children (Canada) was tasked was to assist the GoE in building institutional support to enable it prepare for, prevent and respond to disasters. It was piloted in Oromiya and Amhara Regional States. This paper attempts to share some reections on the strategies and practices that have been pursued by ISP in building the capacity of DPPC and non-governmental organizations to build disaster resilience in Ethiopia. ISP adopted a four-in-one strategy (see Table I), which focused on human resources development, action research, physical capacity building and enhancement of systems and structures for each of the project component. This strategic direction is in line with current global thinking and trends in international development (Thompson, 1995; Loubser, 1996; International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), 1997). The concept of capacity building Despite the efforts made during 1990-1999, the UN International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR), disasters have not gone away. Ironically, it can be argued that problems surrounding disasters are now so great that the decade made a negligible impact. Stronger emphasis on approaches to humanitarian work, risk reduction and development work, which put resilience, rather than just need or vulnerability, have brought has added a new impetus to the concept of capacity building. Enhancing the resilience of disaster-affected nations and communities to bounce back or recover with little or no external assistance following a disaster, is one of the aspects implicated in the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015 (UNISDR, 2005). Increased attention is being given to what affected communities can do for themselves and how best to strengthen them (World Disaster Report, 2004). This means building on existing resilience, which essentially makes an emphasis on enhancing capacity of the affected communities to recover with little or no assistance following a disaster.

Components Transport Computers

Human resource development

Physical capacity

Strategies Operational systems and Action research, advocacy and communication for sustainability lesson sharing Review of intersectoral approach Networking with partners Regional discussion and national conference Publication and dissemination

Disaster management

Informal coaching and mentoring Formal courses Training of trainers (ToT) programmes Exposure visits Material development Transport Information communication infrastructure Computers and other equipment Technical design equipment Hand tools Relief food warehouses Transport

Early warning system

Integration of activities with action plans Strengthening the disaster management coordination system Identifying and working with partners for institutionalization of approaches Integrate and strengthening existing system at all levels, e.g. develop quality control mechanisms Monitor strengths and constraints

Linking relief to development

Formal training of professionals ToT approach to train Early Warning System (EWS) practitioners at woreda level training in Ethiopian EWS (EEWS) methods and techniques of data collection Report production ToT programmes Development of training modules and materials Familiarization and skill training programmes

Test implementation of EEWS Build baseline information from various sources to EEWS and understand the level of chronic problem in the region Review and evaluate piloted system and draw lessons for further development Integrate activities within annual Strengthen monitoring, review and evaluation plans Maintain participation principle Experiment with more productive works Strengthen monitoring system Experiment with gender specic activities

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Table I. The four-in-one strategy

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Capacity building, sometimes used interchangeably with institution building, institutional and organizational development and institutional capacity building (Jones and Blunt, 1999), is still a contested concept (Harrow, 2001). However, for the purpose of this discussion, capacity building is a process by which individual, organisations, institutions and societies develop abilities to perform functions, solve problems and set and achieve objectives (UNDP, 1997). Capacity building gained currency during the last two decades. But capacitation was used as early as 1974 in an effort to measure and promote relief and development programmes by donors (Wolfe, 1996). A capabilities approach was later pronounced in the 1980s by various development scholars like Amartya Sen, whose work on entitlements has been inuential in shaping the analysis of famine causation and prevention. Sen argues that any intervention that strives to improve peoples quality of life is best achieved by giving them access to a wider sector of capabilities (Sen, 1981). This was signaled later with the development of Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA), which helped to show the importance of the three categories of capacity analysis which include material, social and attitudinal dimensions (Anderson and Woodrow, 1989). The CVA was developed as a framework based on the assumptions that development is the process by which vulnerabilities are reduced and capacities are increased. It also assumes that no one develops every one else and, hence, relief efforts which do not strengthen peoples existing development capacities necessarily intensify their vulnerabilities (Anderson and Woodrow, 1989). Capacity building has risen to a higher level of prominence since the mid-1990s and has shaped signicant trends in disaster management thinking, policy and practice. In the context of the GoE and donors, capacity building is dened as:
the process of improving the ability of an institution to carry out its mandate in an effective manner, by using its resources in the most efcient manner possible. These interventions can be physical, technical/managerial and human resource based with an overall integrated effect of improving institutional performance (SC/UK and SC/Canada, 2002b).

This denition suggests that the process of capacity building is as important as the delivery of services in disaster management and requires multi-dimensional interventions. In the sections that follow, we examine the various components and aspects of capacity building in disaster management. Capacity building in human resources development Human resources development has been one of the core strategies in enhancing the capacity of DPPC to adequately prevent, prepare and respond to disasters. When the 1993 NPDPM policy and directives were promulgated, the GoE and its stakeholders acknowledged that there have been gaps in policy awareness, knowledge and skills of staff and coordination within government structures. International organizations have risen to this challenge. Efforts have been made to help staff at both individual and organizational level in the target line departments to help them change attitudes and improve job performance through knowledge and skills development. Various guidelines and training manuals helped greatly in setting the stage for changing the institutional effectiveness of the DPPC. As a result, considerable achievements were observed in operational areas like Amhara and Oromiya where the government partnered with international organizations to deliver quality training interventions in

disaster management. Their knowledge of disaster management, early warning and labor-intensive public works was reportedly improved. Increased numbers of government staff at regional and Woreda[1] levels have reportedly developed positive attitudes towards inter-sectoral collaboration, participatory planning and training in disaster management. There are many spin off benets as well since individuals trained in disaster management skills are able to use their new abilities for disaster management interventions (SC/UK and SC/Canada, 2006). However, successive government restructuring of departments has led to continuous high staff turn-over in the government sectors. In these circumstances, the sustainability (whatever that means) of activities and positive impacts of human resources capacity building endeavors remain at high risk. But the situation is exacerbated by inadequate induction systems. Lack of handover to new employees, for example, has led to limited knowledge and skills transfer to new employees, as well as limited access to existing resources. Lack of organizational preparedness and limited participation of new employees in disaster related activities is a manifestation of gradual loss of institutional memory. When trained people leave line departments, taking away with them new knowledge, skills and abilities, the departments have reportedly struggled with existing systems and ways of working. In addition, there has been little exibility within the government structure for individual employees to inuence change. Such a scenario is likely to increase uncertainty among international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) supporting disaster risk reduction programmes. The risk that new knowledge and abilities in disaster management is likely to be lost if the existing staff turn-over remains to be high and the government structure continues to be either less exible or excessively unstable. The response by INGOs to the GoEs appeal in 1996 for assistance to build institutional capacity to prevent, prepare and respond to disasters is highly commended. The assistance has indeed made an impact. In 2002/2003, for example, a humanitarian crisis on a scale of 1974 and 1984/1985 was averted due to, among others, effective coordination and transparency by DPPC at federal level and to varied extent at regional, zonal and woreda levels with task forces in food and logistics, health and nutrition, water and sanitation and agriculture established. Questions have however been asked regarding the efcacy of capacity building approaches that have been employed by INGOs. It has been argued that new abilities developed in line with the NPDPM policy have even been perceived more by donors rather than by DPPC. Capacity building and disaster management coordination Improved coordination of disaster management is one of the aspects emphasized by NPDPM. A multi-sectoral approach and integration of disaster risk reduction into development planning policies is seen as a new culture of managing disasters; thus departing from the culture of being reactive to that of being proactive. To this end, government and INGOs have attempted to clarify the roles and responsibilities of different line departments as well as strengthen disaster management structure. Disaster Prevention and Preparedness (DPP) Committees capacity to coordinate and implement disaster management is said to have signicantly improved (Overseas Development Institute (ODI), 2005). It is observed from various reports that there are numerous examples of good cooperation and coordination in a number of woredas, zones and regions. DPP Committee meetings have generally improved with some

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woredas holding weekly meetings to integrate disaster risk activities into woreda action plans. The government decentralization programme has been an important factor in improving coordination. The establishment of rural development supreme ofces at regional and federal levels, reorganization of woreda structures and the opening of Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency (DPPA) cells at district level, has created a better environment for the coordination and harmonization of disaster management activities especially in Amhara and Oromiya Regional States. The devolution of power to woreda and the merger of the DPPA with Agriculture and Rural Development, offers a window of opportunity to facilitate effective collaboration and strong institutional basis for implementation of disaster risk management activities. However, improved cooperation and coordination at Woreda level seem to require longer time than it was initially anticipated. Some Woreda structures have been handicapped by limited budget resources allocation, inadequate lack of trained human resources and lack of integrated disaster management plan and absence of legally accountable acts. This calls for the attention of the government and the donor community to work with various line departments to mainstream and integrate disaster management plan with development. Mainstreaming of disaster management training Ethiopia, unlike much of the rest of Africa has a long recorded history of disasters of both natural and anthropogenic origin. The 1984-1985 famine, for example, is estimated to have claimed one million lives, and will go down in history as one of the greatest disasters on the African continent the last century. Yet, there is still a yawning gap in the provision of training facilities to produce technically qualied people in disaster management. This yawning gap is one of the threats to the sustainability of capacity building interventions (SC/UK and SC/Canada, 2002a). Although the link between availability of trained personnel in disaster-affected communities and reduction in disaster incidence still requires further investigation, the introduction of disaster programmes at Bahir Dar and Gondar Universities is historic. The former has launched a Bachelor of Science Degree programme in Disaster Risk Management and Sustainable Development in 2005/2006 academic year with an initial enrolment of 45 students. The later has incorporated disaster management course in Masters of Arts in Applied Nutrition. This initiative will go a long way in producing disaster management professionals in Ethiopia. But the initiative will have to contend with a number of challenges. Firstly, availability of resources especially nancial and human resources remain one of the challenges given limited budgetary constraints for the GoE. Secondly, given the generally poor conditions of service in the government, graduates of the system may nd it unattractive to join the government, if not migrate to other countries offering better remuneration. Capacity building and early warning system (EWS) Enhancing the governments ability to collect, process and disseminate accurate early warning information is one of the distinct features of NPDPM. An effective and efcient EWS is essential for predicting and preparing for disasters. The presence of advance warning makes a difference between life and death. The National Early Warning System has been in place since 1976 and various approaches have been

attempted to build its capacity. But disasters, triggered by a complex combination of stresses and shocks, with drought being the easier one to discern, have continued to wreak havoc and suffering on the Ethiopian society. UNICEF, USAID, CIDA, SC-UK/Canada and CARE have been variously involved in strengthening the Ethiopian EWS. Training programmes have included, among others: basic EWS concepts; EWS data analysis; EWS computer software; server administration; EW technical report writing skills; and radio management and maintenance. EW capacity building interventions by international organizations and the government of Ethiopia in the targeted communities, woredas, zones and regions have begun to demonstrate better data collection system and a timely ow of EW information in consistent manner. A recent evaluation report (Overseas Development Institute (ODI), 2005) indicates that the EWS, which is being coordinated by DPPA and using data from federal, regional, zonal and woreda, is accurately predicting the effects of the drought on pastoral and farming communities. Mid-Belg and mid-Meher crop assessment missions and nutrition surveys have become a common feature of the Ethiopian EWS. These are complemented by weekly and monthly monitoring early warning reports which have also become important sources of informing interventions at the Peasant Farmers Association (also known as kebele[2]) and woreda levels. The use of the Wide Area Network (WAN) has not only improved the transmission of data from lower structures to federal level but also data sharing within users within and outside the government. The early warning reports are widely disseminated including through the internet and manage to trigger local and international responses. That a culture towards accurate and timely prediction of the onset and extent of the effects of disasters in Ethiopia has began, and might be one of the best in Sub-Saharan African. But the EWS is still facing a few challenges. While attempts have been made to integrate EW data with livelihoods, weaknesses are still apparent not only in disaggregating data according to gender, age, disability and chronic illness (HIV/AIDS in particular) but also integrating data with health, nutrition, and water and sanitation. Data quality also still needs some improvement at the community level given that some of the woredas still lack human, nancial and physical resources in data collection. Dependence on donor funding by the GoE is perhaps biggest area of concern. If support from agencies like UNICEF, USAID-FEWS, WFP and SCF-UK/Canada is withdrawn, the sustainability of EWS capacity is, therefore, risky if donor funding declines especially in light of declining development assistance and donor fatigue in recent years. Capacity building and linking relief to development Linking relief to development has considerable attention in the humanitarian industry. The criteria applied to planning relief operations are primarily concerned with physical survival, that is, they emphasise saving lives; development activities are usually planned with respect to the sustainability and appropriateness of social and economic systems (Macrae et al., 1997). The GoE has been working NGOs in building disaster resilience through linking relief to development projects. These have taken a form of labour intensive public works, generally referred to as Employment Generation Scheme (EGS) or Safety Net Programmes.

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EGS, modelled on the Maharashtran[3] programme in India, are labour intensive public works aimed at addressing unemployment and underemployment problems facing the rural and urban poor. In the Indian context for example, EGS works are funded by government and employment in the public works programmes is guaranteed, that is, individuals seeking employment and prepared to work at wages lower than the market labour wage rate gets employed. It is also self-targeting in the sense that there is no organized body (government or otherwise) setting criteria to select individuals. Jobs and wages on offer are advertised at the job centre where prospective employees decide to register or look for better alternatives (Middlebrook, 2003). The Ethiopian variant of EGS differs from that of India: it is nanced by relief food; designed to generate short employment; implemented during disaster times and is organized by the government. Further, EGS, in which communities have active participation, are seen (at start of the project) as effective response to mitigate disasters by providing access to food items for able-bodied individuals in exchange for their labour. The primary function of EGS is to act as a protective mechanism during the pre-crisis period, enabling a timely transfer of resources to prevent vulnerable groups from liquidating their assets to purchase food (Middlebrook, 2003). The projects piloted by SC/Canada provide models of good practice they have encouraged policy debate, and provided policy recommendations which have informed the Productive Safety Net Programme introduced in 2005. Over the past few years, communities in pilot areas have reportedly developed capacities to implement small-scale and labour intensive projects. These include hillside terracing, soil and stone band and check dam construction, watershed management, road construction and compost making. Gender issues were mainstreamed to promote to promote the level of womens participation in EGS. However, recurrent droughts, lack of sufcient investment in long-term food security and strong community-led governance continue to undermine the benets created by micro-disaster risk reduction schemes and food-based safety net programs. There should always be a strong coherence in the consistent application of relief, safety net and food security policies and programs to excel the results obtained through the implementation of community led projects. Conclusion Building disaster resilient communities through capacity building should be viewed as a process of change where there are no easy ways or answers in terms of design and implementation. There are however, a few lessons that can be shared from Ethiopia. Firstly, the Ethiopian experience shows interventions should be demand-driven and beneciary based. Institutional capacity programmes were based on needs of the Ethiopian government to strengthen the capacity of DPPC from kebele to federal levels to prevent, prepare and respond to disasters. The needs included policy familiarization of NPDPM, human resources development, physical capacity development and testing the policy using EGS whose lessons have been applied to the Productive Safety Net Programme. Secondly, holistic and integrated programmes are likely to be more successful than those taking a fragmented approach. Disasters are multifaceted. If only one or two elements are targeted for change while the big picture and problems within other

elements remain the same or static, the intervention is likely to either have little or no effect, if not reduce the resilience of communities build over centuries. The four-in-one strategy comprising human resources development, physical resources development, systems and organizational development and action research was an attempt to address the problems in a holistic manner. Project designs should incorporate beyond the workshop, or beyond delivery of food or cash and should attempt to build synergies between hard or tangible aspects and soft or intangible aspects such as local knowledge systems of target institutions and communities. Thirdly, programmes are likely to more successful if they adopt a non-intervention approach, that is, if they work within the existing structures rather than create parallel or new structures. ISP worked within DPPC structures and experienced the change when DPPC merged with Food Security Ofce. This made ISP programmes not only exible and responsive to DPPC needs as they arose but also identied opportunities for further development. For instance, the devolution of responsibility to the woreda level opened an opportunity for the project to target them as new points of service delivery to communities. Finally, capacity building of an institution need to be coordinated taking into account areas such as policy, resource mobilization, human resources development. Unless all partners are willing to make a choice in favour of assessing and working with all of these elements, capacity building will struggle to make a lasting inuence on the organization or achieve its impacts on reducing vulnerability of Ethiopians in the long term.
Notes 1. Woreda is the fourth tier of elected government in the administrative structure of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. 2. Peasant Farmers Association or kebele is the lowest administrative unit in a settled rural area with its own jurisdiction. It is an association of rural dwellers formed by inhabitants of a given area whose members are engaged either in agriculture and/or non-agricultural activities. 3. Maharashtra is one of the states in the northern part of India where Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) has successfully operated in the last three decades creating employment for thousands of its inhabitants. References Anderson, M.B. and Woodrow, P.J. (1989), Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Times of Disaster, West View Press, Paris. Harrow, J. (2001), Capacity building as a public management goal: myth, magic or the main chance?, Public Management Review, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 209-30. International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) (1997), International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) A Users Guide to the IISD Sustainable Development Analysis Framework, IISD, Winnipeg. Jones, M.L. and Blunt, P. (1999), Twinning as a method of sustainable institutional capacity building, Public Administration and Development, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 381-402. Loubser, J. (1996), Capacity Development a Conceptual Overview, Scientic, TaID, Policy Branch Canadian International Development Agency, Ottawa.

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Macrae, J., Bradbury, M., Jaspars, S., Johnson, D. and Dufeld, M. (1997), Conict, the continuum and chronic emergencies: a critical analysis of the scope for linking relief, rehabilitation and development planning in Sudan, Disasters, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 223-43. Middlebrook, P.J. (2003), Fighting Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia: Ethiopias Experience in Implementing Employment Generation Schemes (EGS) as Part of National Policy for Disaster Prevention and Management (NPDPM), University of Durham, Durham. Overseas Development Institute (ODI) (2005), Overseas Development Institute (ODI) A Review of Emergency Food Security Assessment Practice in Ethiopia, ODI, London. SC/UK and SC/Canada (2002a), Institutional Support Project: Semi-Annual Report-Year II-01, SC/UK and SC/Canada, September. SC/UK and SC/Canada (2002b), SC/UK and SC/Canada Institutional Support Project: The ISP Approach, SC/UK and SC/Canada. SC/UK and SC/Canada (2006), Impact Assessment of ISP III, SC/UK and SC/Canada, February. Sen, A. (1981), Poverty and Famine: An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation, Clarendon, Oxford. Thompson, J. (1995), Participatory approaches in government bureaucracies: facilitating the process of institutional change, World Development, Vol. 23 No. 9, pp. 1521-54. UNDP (1997), Capacity Development, Management Development and Governance Division Technical Advisory Paper 2, UNDP, Geneva. UNISDR (2005), Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters: Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, paper presented at the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction UNISDR, 18-22 January. Wolfe, M. (1996), Elusive Development, Zed Books, London. World Disaster Report (2004), World Disaster Report Focus on Resilience, IFRC, Geneva. About the authors Feleke Tadele currently serves as the Country Representative of Oxfam Canada in Ethiopia. At the time of writing this paper he was working as the Country Representative of Save the Children Canada. Siambabala Bernard Manyena is a Research Associate at the Disaster and Development Centre, Northumbria University. His research interests are in resilience, sustainable livelihoods and institutions in disaster and development. Siambabala Bernard Manyena is the corresponding author and can be contacted at bernard.manyena@unn.ac.uk

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