Speakers at a book-launching ceremony said that the Sindh government had never considered disaster response principles such as sphere, humanitarian accountability principles (HAP) and NGOs’ code of conduct in any response, and the same has been observed during drought response in Thar.
This was informed at the launching-ceremony of book titled “Disasters: Principles for Humanitarian Response” compiled by Waheed Jamali, Executive Director SEARCH Pakistan (Society for Environmental Actions, Reconstruction & Humanitarian response), at SPO-SDE Hall, Hyderabad.
Kashif Bajeer, Manager SPARC, said the collection and translation of sphere, HAP and NGOs code of conduct by SEARCH and Action Aid in local language would aware local people, CBOs and volunteers of mitigating severity of disaster in Sindh province.
Head of SEARCH, and writer of the book, Waheed Jamali, said that the people had suffered huge losses due to disasters in Sindh including 2010 floods, 2011 heavy rains and 2014 droughts.
The magnitude and severity of disaster could be reduced if awareness is raised about the principles and standards of disaster response, relief and rehabilitation activities toward people, he said.
“Even the people participating in relief and response work, do not know about those standards which aggravated situation of response activities rather than helping them.”
He said the response activities were seen across areas hit by disaster but majority of victims could not be benefited due to mismanagement and lack of knowledge about those standards.
Even, the causalities were reported during distribution of food in the province, he said, adding that even vulnerable including women, children, disables and older people have been deprived of those activities due to various reasons. It is fundamental right of each calamity – hit victim to be rehabilitated to same position where it was, Jamali said.
Response, relief and rehabilitation activities should be carried out under prescribed principles and standards developed by SPHERE and international organisations, he said.
“There are many HAP certified organisations which are bound to implement such standards while carrying out relief activities during disaster,” he added.
“We have compiled all material related to principles and standards of response during relief activities and also translated those to Sindhi language as the local NGOs, CBOs and other local people could be aware of such principles.”
Regional Head of HANDS, Razzak Umerani said that the material translated and complied in book form would be beneficial for local people, whenever any kind of disaster occurs in future.
