Workshop Summary: Partnerships for Disaster Relief: Learning from the Tsunami Experience

From: "Business Unusual: Partnerships as Strategic Investments" Conference

Berlin 12-13 December 2005

Resource Persons:

Jörg-Eduard Krumsiek, Director, Corporate Cultural Affairs, Deutsche Bank AG

Christelle Loupforest, External and Donor Relations Officer, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Activities (OCHA)

Susanne Meier, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Deutsche Post AG

Moderator:

Thorsten Benner, Associate Director, Global Public Policy Institute

Key outcomes:

- "Stand-by partnerships" for better coordination of relief efforts are key to improving disaster preparedness.

- Successful partnerships need to leverage core competencies of respective partners.

- Cash contributions are crucial to ensuring swift response to disasters.

- "Rush to help" needs to be combined with a respect for the experience of disaster relief professionals.

The Indian Ocean tsunami disaster in late 2004 triggered a massive relief effort. In an interview three weeks after the catastrophe struck, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland emphasized that never in his 25 years of working in emergencies had he seen "governments, the private sector and individuals respond with such tremendous speed and generosity to a humanitarian crisis." A year after the devastating tsunami, the workshop on "partnerships for disaster relief" assessed how business, NGOs and the public sector worked together and what lessons we can draw disaster relief.

The workshop brought together 25 participants from international organizations, humanitarian NGOs and businesses. The discussion used the experience of Deutsche Post, Deutsche Bank and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as a starting point.

Jörg-Eduard Krumsiek, Director of Corporate Cultural Affairs at Deutsche Bank, laid out his bank’s disaster relief efforts in the wake of the tsunami. He emphasized that Deutsche Bank did not need to wait for any television appeals for relief to take action, because the bank had many South East Asia employees close to the disaster area and South East Asia is an important market. Deutsche Bank quickly committed €10 million for disaster relief. It decided to give half of this sum to various humanitarian relief agencies. Another €5 million was entrusted to local managers who then decided on how to best use the money to support local relief and reconstruction efforts. This also includes €2.5 million for small grants and microfinance project to re-start local businesses.

Susanne Meier, Director for Strategic Partnerships at Deutsche Post, analyzed her company’s experience with providing support for disaster relief. Within hours after the disaster hit, Deutsche Post mobilized its global logistics network to support the relief effort. This included for example the deployment of DHL disaster response teams to help deal with crucial logistic bottlenecks at airports. Susanne Meier presented a number of crucial success factors for effective business involvement in relief efforts: Leveraging the core competencies of the company ("bringing in what we do best"), i.e. logistics; mobilizing the company’s staff and putting employees into the driver’s seat; building trust with cooperation partners from the public and private sectors. This includes for example coordination of relief activities with competitors—a position also emphasized by Luke Disney representing TNT at the workshop. Susanne Meier underlined that through mobilizing its employees and its global logistics network, Deutsche Post has been providing valuable disaster relief support in cooperation with UN and other non-profit partners. Deutsche Post seeks to leverage this experience also to foster initiatives for disaster preparedness.

Reflecting on the experience of the UN system with the business contribution to disaster relief, Christelle Loupforest of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Activities (OCHA) first of all emphasized the importance of cash contributions to allow for a swift response to disasters. Cash allows for the speedy and flexible response that is needed. Christelle Loupforest stressed the need to be selective in leveraging in-kind contributions of business partners. Many well-intentioned offers turn out to be unworkable in an emergency situation. OCHA has compiled a guide for partners from the business community on how to best allow for jointly leveraging resources and capabilities ("Business Contributions to Emergency Relief Efforts: An Orientation Guide"). As one example for a successful partnership and a useful in-kind contribution on the part of business, Christelle Loupforest pointed out OCHA’s partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers. The auditing company provided 8.000 hours of its staff time pro bono to help set up a sophisticated financial tracking system that has greatly improved the transparency of the UN’s relief efforts.

During the discussion, participants first of took a critical look at the challenge of coordination. One participant from a relief NGO spoke of the "second tsunami" that hit the affected countries with an uncoordinated influx of relief efforts. In a similar vein, another participant criticized the tendency to ‘re-invent the wheel’ after each disaster instead of relying on the accumulated expertise and experience of the disaster relief professionals. The desire to help and to get into the headlines with one’s contribution often leads to non-professional approaches with sub-optimal outcomes. One example is the abundance of new schools being built by private donors (also from the business community) in disaster-stricken areas that contrasts with the lack of resources for paying teaching to staff these schools. A business participant retorted that the relief professionals could do well with "a little competition" by independent private sector initiatives. However, the discussion led to a consensus that better coordination is needed for more effective disaster relief operations. Partnerships for disaster preparedness can play an important role. One idea developed in the discussion is that of "stand-by partnerships" for disaster relief that provide the backbone for a swift and coordinated response of the public, private and non-profit sectors in case disaster strikes.