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In Myanmar Cyclone's Wake, Lack of Disaster Risk Reduction Follow-up Raised

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 6 -- With the death toll in Myanmar continuing to rise, five days after Cyclone Nargis, among the lost is what follow-up there was to the June 2007 "Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction," which was chaired by John Holmes of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. At the time, much was said about setting up systems of early warning. On Tuesday at UN Headquarters Inner City Press asked OCHA's New York director Rashid Khalikov what follow-up there had been to the UN's Disaster Risk Reduction announcements, which extend at least back to the so-called Hyogo Framework for Action adopted in January 2005 at the the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Kobe, Japan.

   "I'm not sure I'm the person to articulate an answer for you," he said. "After the tsunami there were various ideas... I cannot give you information on any progress achieved." Video here, from Minute 44:22. He referred to the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction -- but it was his OCHA boss John Holmes who chaired the July 2007 meeting on the the topic.

In fact, OCHA's Holmes gave a briefing in the same room in October 2007 about Disaster Risk Reduction. Ironically or by coincidence, Inner City Press on that day Inner City Press had asked Holmes about humanitarian access to Myanmar, on which Holmes gave a rosy answer. Video here, from Minute 37:27. Amazingly, even on Tuesday Mr. Khalikov said there was nothing out of the norm in not yet having visas for access to Myanmar, five days after the cyclone.  He blamed the delay on Monday having been a holiday in Bangkok. But did OCHA even call the Myanmar authorities to ask them to open the embassy for visa review? Put otherwise, who's taken the C out of OCHA? If this is a test, maybe that's where the C has gone. What are they coordinating? UNICEF, for example, put out its own press release about its accomplishments in Myanmar.  One from WFP is sure to follow, and UNHCR after that.

OCHA's John Holmes at UN October 2007 talkin Risk Reduction, impementation not shown

            Many at Tuesday's press conference wondered at how little information was provided, including on such basis issues as what UN aid has gotten into the country. A flash appeal is due Friday, we'll continue to follow this aspect of the story.

Footnote: in both the October 2007 and May 2008 press conferences linked-to above, the spokesman for the General Assembly was left to be the last speaker, to a nearly empty room. Both times he wryly thanked those reporters who remained, the second time suggesting they might be members of the "Friends of the General Assembly." Actually, it was the General Assembly which called for the Disaster Risk Reduction strategy. So where is their follow up?

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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