Avoiding the Second Disaster: 5 Tips for Matching Needs to Resources in Disaster Response
When you start working on solutions to address “the second disaster” — the mass influx of unsolicited in-kind donations that inevitably follow catastrophe — people like to tell you stories. Stories about all the items that they received that survivors just didn’t need. There were the boxes and bales of used clothing that blocked the runway after Hurricane Mitch: the result was that a planeload of urgently needed medical supplies had to be diverted from the only available airstrip in Honduras. Or the pallets of Viagra that arrived in Japan following the 2011 Tsunami. Or more recently, the flights and ships that arrived in Nassau following Hurricane Dorian chock full of cartons with no-one to claim them or distribute them, let alone get them through customs.
“While cash is always the most flexible and useful contribution — allowing NGOs to be nimble and purchase locally — there are often times when, in fact, specific products or services are needed.”
— Natasha Freidus, NeedsList CEO & Co-Founder
There are also times, such as after Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas, where the entire infrastructure was wiped out, leaving few options to buy locally. The pervasive problem when it comes to in-kind donations is is that nobody knows what is needed and where, until formal assessments are underway.
Need Met!
On October 30th, after Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas, the first donation of water filtration systems was distributed to OpenWorld Relief from Business Connect World, Latin America, including 125 bucket filter systems. The OpenWorld Relief Team ran a series of workshops in the hardest hit areas to teach local residents how to use the water filtration systems.
In The Bahamas this autumn, we witnessed astonishing generosity as private sector companies flooded USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) with offers of satellite systems and drones and search and rescue teams and more. The challenge of course was overwhelmed staff had no easy way of documenting and matching these offers. This year, they decided to try something different. USAID partnered with us at NeedsList to deploy our matching software to streamline the communication to better leverage the products and service offerings emerging from the private sector.
NeedsList quickly deployed a landing page for NGOs and private sector companies to list needs and offers, provided USAID/OFDA with language and graphics for social media, and directly engaged participating organizations to facilitate matched donations.
In under two months, over two dozen companies committed to over four million dollars of in-kind donations.
It was a start — and of course as in any pilot, there were challenges and lessons learned. We wanted to share a few key takeaways for future efforts in testing a new technology or systems in disaster response.
Tip 1: Timing is everything.
The deployment of NeedsList to engage the private sector in The Bahamas was, according to all stakeholders, initiated too late to maximize efficiency. Given what we know about private sector engagement in disasters and media cycles, it is essential to have the landing page for needs and offers set up within 72 hours, if not prior to the event. Using a platform such as NeedsList for ongoing resiliency and risk reduction work would mean that users are already familiar with the platform before the crisis hits.
Tip 2: Local buy-in is also everything.
While disaster response and development work differ in many ways there is one common thread: top-down approaches will always have limited effect. In order to get local buy-in, we’d love to see local partners from disaster-prone areas directly involved in designing and testing the platform. Having the public sector engaged can support customs clearance, regulation around airspace, communications networks, etc. Having a physical presence on the ground on Day One will also support the key relationships that will enable effective deployment — it’s all about who you know!
Tip 3: Don’t let the logistics get you down.
Matching needs to offers is only the beginning when it comes to disaster relief. At times, when the two parties are able to connect and facilitate the logistics on their own, it is enough for them to work out details together. Unfortunately, more often than not, finalizing the matches in The Bahamas was stymied by logistics and transportation barriers. In order to maximize efficiency, we suggest bringing on a logistics partner(s) from the beginning to cover all needed transport and/or provide support and consulting as needed, as well as establishing a “logistics fund” to help cover costs of essential items for that last mile delivery.
Tip 4: Streamline your communications.
We know that in order to get everyone on the same page, literally, we need to…send them all to the same page. Disaster response can be confusing, so it’s essential to have consistent messaging and one clear call to action directed to a single landing page in order to communicate across sectors. In the case of The Bahamas, the BahamasStrong.info page was developed in tandem with the NeedsList microsite. Given the proliferation of Whatsapp groups for communication, consider deployment of a Whatsapp Chatbot to provide basic information and to aggregate needs (NeedsList is currently piloting a similar “NeedsBot” in Uganda that could fill this function in the future).
Tip 5: Get long-term commitments for a long-term recovery.
While the buzz about Hurricane Dorian has subsided, the effects are just beginning to be understood. Consider Puerto Rico, where two years after Hurricane Maria, homes in rural areas still have tarps instead of roofs, and uprooted trees and tumbled utility poles still mark the landscape. We approached private sector offers with an eye to capturing the movement in the moments immediately following the storm, yet knowing that certain products and services may not be immediately needed. We asked all donors if they would be willing the commit these offers through the trajectory of the humanitarian response — and the vast majority were happy to do so. With local government buy-in, the platform could be used to facilitate additional engagement over the trajectory of the months/years of recovery.
The Power of Partnerships
Channeling donors’ good intentions to maximize benefit for survivors has been a decades-long, expensive challenge. NeedsList’s partnership with USAID/OFDA has opened a door for private sector donors to provide needed, short-term and longer-term relief to disaster-affected communities. Lessons learned after Hurricane Dorian have provided a solid foundation for further exploration of public-private partnerships and the good they can do, all the way through the “last mile” of the recovery phase post-disaster.
