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By John O'Shea
, Irish Examiner, 9th October 2006
A force is needed to react quickly to disasters.
After yesterday’s anniversary of the Kashmir earthquake, which claimed the lives of 73,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless, the international community is entitled to ask whether any lessons have been learned from the tragedy.
With the anniversary ironically falling on the same week as the United Nation’s International Day of for Natural Reduction, the capacity of the international community to respond to major disasters remains dismal. The world’s vulnerable are still in the same predicament as there is still no designated force on standby to go immediately to their aid.
That the current ad hoc nature of crisis response has failed the world’s vulnerable is beyond dispute.
What is needed is a standing fire brigade-style force to respond immediately to natural disasters, and commence emergency strategies as soon as a crisis is identified, operating in an international environment and cooperating multilaterally.
It should be a rapid response force whose sole purpose is to provide robust and credible high readiness capability who can deploy quickly and participate in the full spectrum of crisis missions. It goes without saying that the army are best placed to fill the role on account of their training, skills, manpower, equipment: they’re highly prepared, technologically advanced and capable of being deployed quickly and whenever needed.
These troops would be able to work in a coordinated way with, and alongside, NGOs on the ground, safeguarding and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Had such a force been in place last year, the teething and recurring problems of overlapping and duplication of national and international emergency aid
which typically plague emergency operations during the first few weeks could have been avoided.
The Kashmir earthquake wrought dreadful destruction and personal tragedy on communities, and a rapid response force would have undoubtedly made a serious difference to the logistics of this disaster clean-up.
It would put the international community in a position, for the first time in history, to speedily deploy resources and stimulate post-disaster development, saving hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars through early and often preventive action.
Until such a time as we have an international rapid-response force, the fall-out of disasters such as the Kashmir earthquake will continue to wreak havoc and inflict further suffering.
When will the lessons be learnt?
John O’Shea is chief executive of GOAL, the international aid agency which responds to natural and man made disasters.
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