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3.
Solving these various problems is not simply a case of creating a theoretical command infrastructure. Disasters require rapid action; tidy bureaucratic layers encourage delay and are really only appropriate to slow-developing man-made disasters. The major factors that need to be taken into account when considering how to solve the problem of coordination seem to be:
4.
a)
How do we provide for a flexible response which maximises the resources available while ensuring adequate overall control of crisis management from the outset?
b) Is it possible to evolve a formula for defining an emergency and laying down guidelines for the most efficient response?
c) Could a single agency be the clearing house for all decisions and subsequent actions, or should different agencies be asked to develop expertise in particular types of emergency?
d) Is there any administratively acceptable method for switching responsibility for relief efforts from a 'disaster' agency to, for example, UNDP?
e) How can the system better profit from past successes and failures?
f)
How does any re-organisation take account of the significant contribution which independent voluntary agencies can make?
So far, there is no comprehensive assessment of the steps the international community might take to minimise the shortcomings that exist. Nor, for that matter, is there any clear exposition of the nature and extent of the problem; it could be said that a mythology has grown up about the inadequacies of coordination (and about duplication and gaps) which nobody cares to dispute but which have never been comprehensively recorded. The Davidson Report (paragraph 5, below) should provide more hard information, although even that will be second or third hand. This is a less than satisfactory basis for intergovernmental conclusions and there is clearly a need to tap independent sources with direct experience of emergency relief so that our assessment can be made in the light of the best available information. ODA might for example invite OXFAM and SCF to
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