19 January 2005

World Conference on Disaster Reduction
Kobe, Japan, January 2005
Remarks by Ad de Raad
Executive Coordinator, United Nations Volunteers (UNV)
 
Mr. President, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues

Ten years and two days ago, Kobe and its surrounding region suffered a terrifying earthquake killing over 6.400 people. It injured some 40.000 and left over 300,000 homeless. Over a million people responded by volunteering their time, skills, energy and compassion to help out.

Ten years later, an even more devastating natural disaster – the Sumatra earthquake and resulting Tsunami - has befallen the peoples of another part of the Asia region. Far greater numbers have volunteered time to assist the affected communities, including from within communities themselves. Perhaps, Mr. President, one thing that this conference should not omit to do is to pay a special tribute to those millions of volunteers who are making all the difference and should continue to be a source of great inspiration to all of us here.

The International Year of Volunteers in 2001 arose out of the ashes of the Kobe tragedy. Both Prime Minister Koizumi and Governor Ido of the Hyogo Prefecture, in their statements yesterday, referred to the fact that at the time, volunteers from all over Japan and around the world made contributions. That those were of a magnitude that was unparalleled in Japanese history and gave Japanese society an opportunity to see the importance of their role. As a result, the Government of Japan took on a leading role in bringing about the International Year of Volunteers. That Year put the spotlight on the enormous contribution that volunteers make to economic and social development, neither of which can really be achieved successfully if not also for the ingenuity, creativity, commitment and solidarity of millions of ordinary people through voluntary action, especially in their own countries and communities. Decision 56/38 of the UN General Assembly on support for volunteering singled out disasters as one of the leading areas where volunteers contribute to society. It also reflected an acceptance by the international community that it would be a mistake to take volunteering for granted, but rather that it should be addressed strategically, and factored into national polices and programmes. That it should be actively recognized, facilitated, networked and promoted.

Mr. President,

There is a telling example of what difference that can make. Samiyarpettai and Pudukuppam are two villages on the south coast of Tamil Nadu in India. Both of almost identical size and development levels. There was one difference however, Samiyarpettai, had taken part in disaster preparedness training and awareness raising programmes that build community capacity through the extensive involvement and participation of volunteers. The programme is sponsored by the Government of India, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Volunteer programme (UNV). Pudukuppam had not taken part as yet and lost 5 times more lives to the Tsunami than Samiyarpettai..
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Of course there is almost always a volunteer response to disasters. UNV has been tracking closely the various forms that voluntary action is taking in the wake of the Tsunami, as well as the media coverage of this phenomenon. If one can use the word “gratified” at such a devastating moment, it has been indeed gratifying to record the massive volunteer response. While the media has focused on volunteers coming from the developed world, their contribution is dwarfed by the volunteer support flowing in from citizens in the countries and communities directly hit. The volunteer spirit is deeply embedded in all these countries. The disaster has served as a catalyst for turning, in the words of Mr. Ariyaratne of Sri Lanka’s Sarvodaya, a wave of destruction into a wave of humanity.

Mr. President

I would like to bring to the attention of this conference two, not unrelated, matters. The first is to underline that in the field of disasters, volunteering is generally associated in the mind of the general public with response in the immediate aftermath of the event. In reality however, by far the greatest contribution of volunteers is in helping communities to prevent disasters and to mitigate their impact. As part of the daily routine of weather observation of the World Meteorological Organization, for example, millions of farmers, fishermen pilots and sea captains volunteer to measure rainfall and test climatic conditions and report their findings to national meteorological and hydrological surveys around the world.

Volunteers also relay such information to people who need it. Over 30,000 village volunteers work for the Cyclone Preparedness Programme of the Bangladesh Red Cross and Red Crescent Society. Equipped with hand sirens, megaphones, transistor radios, signal flags, first aid and rescue kits, they are a communications channel relaying weather bulletins from the national meteorological services to more than 10 million people living in areas of high cyclone risk.

All these volunteers are the core of modern weather reporting. They facilitate accurate forecasting of weather patterns around the world, predicting potential dangers.

Other examples of community based volunteer mitigation action are abound. Volunteers at community level are engaged in risk awareness raising, capacity building and resource mobilization. I gave an example of that. In well organized situations traditional volunteer based coping mechanisms are known to potential sources of aid. When an emergency occurs, available volunteer skills are readily identified, tabulated and tapped. Our partners and colleagues of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) represent close to 100 million of such volunteers. Community volunteers are also involved in building of earthquake proof buildings and flood protection facilities, and they participate in disaster response committees.

So volunteers can always be counted on – whether in disaster preparedness or response.

I don’t believe a single person in this room would deny that volunteers are a huge resource for supporting public and private agencies to address disaster prevention and response. In the process billions of dollars are saved every year. Hundreds of thousands of permanent, affiliated and trained volunteers make up a reserve army of national and international disaster relief agencies, including many UN organizations through the UNV programme. In addition, in the wake of disasters we have seen repeatedly how considerably larger numbers of generally unskilled, untrained, and unaffiliated ordinary citizens are mobilized through volunteerism to lend a hand.

Mr. President

That brings me then to my second point that I wish to draw the attention of this conference to. Much of it can be ad hoc and uncoordinated. At best this can result in a considerable loss of effectiveness and squandering of opportunities for promoting synergies. At worst, undirected volunteers can become part of the problem in a disaster situation. The key to realizing the full potential of voluntary action in disaster risk management is therefore to deliberately factor volunteerism into related policies and programmes. I mention a few measures this might include:

Legislation that encourages the formation of volunteer involving organizations and which supports their operations;
Specific measures that facilitate volunteer activities such as provision of seed funding, tax exemption, special leave for volunteering;
Planning and implementation of training activities which develop the organizational and operational capacity of volunteer groups;
Involving volunteer based organizations in discussions regarding development of early warning systems for natural disasters;
Integrating volunteer contributions into national plans of action for natural disasters;
Ensuring volunteer groups participate in monitoring and evaluation of disaster plans to enable them to learn from experiences.
Mr. President, I am very pleased to note that the WCDR documentation reflects the need to factor volunteerism into the planning and implementation of disaster risk management policies and programmes. This will go a long way to help ensure that we fully harness the potential of the vast resource represented by the world’s oldest and most widespread disaster management mechanism – the volunteer – . That will certainly go a long way to help ensure that disaster reduction measures will also be people centered and take the empowerment of communities seriously. During this conference, I have heard both aspects being referred to many times.

Mr. President

Allow me to end on a personal note. This is my second visit to Kobe. Once again I am struck by the abundance of beautiful natural surroundings framed by mountains, the sea and the countryside. Yet there is another feature of the region that is not so visible to the visitor. This is the sense of solidarity of a people that responded with so much compassion to the disaster that struck suddenly one early morning ten years ago. This solidarity has been the firm basis on which citizens of Kobe have worked together to rebuild their city – and their lives. The volunteer spirit has also shone through in the dreadful times experienced by the coastal regions of many affected Indian Ocean countries. Cities such as Galle and Ampara which are now devastated will, I am sure, reemerge with renewed energy and hope – if nothing else, the volunteer spirit will see to that.

If it sounds ambitious, my answer to that would be ………….. so are volunteers.

Thank you.