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SAQuake caught our attention as we were compiling earthquake relief and support information for our readers. We found www.saquake.org to be an extremely useful, concise, and well-organized portal for anyone interested in finding out what they could do to help, or just see what others were doing. In our continued quest to inform our readers about earthquake relief options, we reached out to SAQuake with some questions about this initiative and their alliance with several noteworthy relief and professional organizations. We strongly urge you to make www.saquake.org a frequent stop while you're surfing the net for information related to earthquake relief and use it for informing your forthcoming support for the earthquake victims.
We are very grateful to Ali Hanafi, a member of SAQuake, for taking the time to answer our questions and help us compile this feature.. (Photographs courtesy Bruno Stevens, shared with The Saturday Post by SAQUAKE.org; photographs depicting latest weather conditions courtesy Pakistan Meteorological Department).
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What exactly is SAQUAKE.ORG and what are its goals and objectives?
SAQUAKE.ORG is an alliance of professional and non-profit organizations that is working to help raise awareness of the earthquake aid relief crisis in the government, media, corporate and community sectors. The alliance’s founding members (ADP, AOPP, DIL, OPEN and Youth Outreach DIL) were all working on earthquake relief efforts individually before then. Also, www.saquake.org was already in place as a blog, fulfilling the key function of guiding people to find ways to help. We all felt the urgency to help the short-term emergency relief efforts needed to protect and save the earthquake survivors before the start of winter. At that time, it was clear that the aid response to the earthquake had not been as extensive as we had all hoped. A group of us felt that we needed to come together to create a meaningful impact in a very short period of time, especially when appealing to the government and media. That was our driving force: what could we do to improve things before the onset of winter? |
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How is the organization structured, and what are the roles and responsibilities of its different components?
The alliance is a great illustration of the virtual, networked organization. There are no headquarters or physical offices. We communicate via email, conference calls, and in person (when several of us are in the same city). Most of us are either based in the Bay Area, L.A., New York City or Washington, D.C. We shrink and expand as the occasion demands. There are less than twenty of us working in the alliance on a day-to-day basis. Obviously, the alliance’s member organizations have thousands of members. The total network must be close to 20,000 or more.
We realized early on that all of us could not be involved in every awareness-generating activity (political, media, corporate and grassroots/community). We would be stretched too thin. We had to create teams for each area with coordinators for each of them. We have five teams: political, media, corporate, grassroots and Web. It was a logical thing to do given the different nature of each activity. Where it makes sense for groups to coordinate, they do. We have a core-decision making team that consists of people that are not closely affiliated with any of the member organizations. That team helps coordinate the efforts of the functional groups and helps ensure that a consistent strategy is being followed. We have an overall coordinator in place who oversees the entire alliance and maintains a dialogue with the member organizations.
For example, the media, grassroots and web teams worked closely together for the vigils that took place on November 8th, 2005. The grassroots team organized the events, the web team made sure that the site could be used effectively as a leverage point to transmit all the key vigil information to the organizers in the more than two dozen cities that took part and the media team engaged with local and national media to ensure that the vigils received the attention they deserved.
We also engaged advisors who help ensure that we are communicating effectively with our various target audiences. Having leverage is key to enabling us to achieve our objectives, but without the right message, it is wasted. There are multiple levers at work here: you have the leverage of each member organization, the alliance itself, the Web site, our advisors and the overall community. It is difficult to imagine a single organization trying to do as much.
This fluid alliance structure (which was designed as such so as not to constrain the original, day-to-day activities of its members) allowed us to create a network of action-oriented organizations and individuals in a very short period of time. It would also have been well-nigh impossible to do so much in such a short amount of time without the benefits of the Internet and telecommunications. Email, discussion groups, the Web site and conference calls have allowed all of this to happen. |
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As a matter of natural reaction, a plethora of alliances and organizations have come up in the aftermath of the earthquake. How is SAQUAKE different from other organizations?
As I mentioned, there is no shortage of groups that are doing important work. I think that our uniqueness lies in our focus on awareness-generation rather than fund-raising. Each of the member groups that were fund-raising were doing so very effectively already. What was more difficult to do as an individual group was to raise media and political awareness of the crisis that in turn would multiply and magnify the aid response. In this respect, collective action achieves so much more. It’s the multiplier effect. While each organization was doing a great job of marshalling its members to act, even more could be achieved by all organizations coming together to form an alliance to help with the emergency relief efforts. The founding members agreed that anything beyond helping with these short-term efforts would have to be agreed by everybody. The alliance is very fluid and the association isn’t binding; members can leave whenever they wish. That is its strength and what allowed it to be formed so quickly (over the space of a weekend). That happened because it is flexibly-structured with a key set of clear operating principles around a common goal. Since our start, the alliance has grown in size. The nine additional members enable the alliance to do even more. Working with this group of people has been an amazing experience. We all came together united by a desire to act. What is more important, the member organizations realized that they could achieve so much more by working collectively. It doesn’t mean at all that there are not countless other groups of people doing the same thing at this very moment. In actuality, those individuals and groups that are on the ground in the earthquake-affected areas are the ones that deserve attention, not us.
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What are the most important items on your agenda as far as providing earthquake relief and reconstruction support is concerned?
Again, we are not focused on fund-raising like other alliances. Our agenda instead is to raise awareness of the essential, emergency relief efforts underway. That entails raising awareness of the desperate situation in the earthquake-affected areas and the enormous logistical and monetary challenges facing the aid agencies. Early on, it was obvious that winterized tents and helicopters were the two key components of effective aid relief in the area. In fact, without enough helicopters, even having enough aid materials would not be helpful since there would be no way to get aid to the people in hard-to-reach areas. Our first action as an alliance was to appeal for more helicopters to help in the relief efforts. Even now, the number of helicopters available (approximately a hundred but closer to seventy-five on any given day given maintenance requirements) is far from adequate.
What is more important now is to have enough funding for key organizations such as the WFP, IOM, WHO and UNICEF to do their job. Eight weeks into this disaster, less than 30% of the required funds have been committed to the $550 million U.N. Flash Appeal. The WFP, responsible for providing food to the 2.3 million survivors that are dependent on food assistance, has received less than 40% of the funds it needs. It has had trouble funding the operations of and expanding its own fleet of helicopters. The IOM, responsible for providing shelter, has received less than 20% of the funds it needs. WHO, responsible for healthcare, has received less than 50% of the funds it needs. With that low level of funding, it cannot afford to have a response capacity for any disease outbreaks.
These organizations are all fulfilling essential aid relief functions and it is deplorable that they are so under-funded two months into this disaster. They are all functioning at sub-optimal levels. That cost will be paid in the lives of earthquake victims. The problem becomes very obvious when you compare emergency funding for this disaster to the Indian Ocean Tsunami when 80% of the emergency appeal funding was received within 10 days. Also, aid agencies and survivors there did not have to contend with difficult terrain and a deadly winter which confronts those in the earthquake-affected areas. |
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Based on the information you have, what are the biggest challenges in delivering relief and medical supplies to the affected areas as of today?
The IOM’s “Operation Winter Race” is very aptly named. Time is the biggest challenge. It is a race against time to provide shelter and provisions to those survivors living at high elevations. Unfortunately, it turns out that 75-90% of the tents supplied are not winterized. So, aid agencies have to rush to winterize existing tents or build sturdier shelters to replace them. It is also a race against time to have proper camps in place before disease epidemics break out and claim more lives. People have already started dying from pneumonia and hypothermia. It has started to snow so helicopter operations have already been affected. Landslides are closing down recently-opened roads.
Funding is the key enabler. It allows for existing aid operations to continue; more relief staff to be in place; more supplies to be provided; more shelters to be built; and more helicopters to be leased. This crisis was predicted more than a month ago when more funds were being requested and it is starting to be realized. But there is still time to do more and save precious lives.
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The recent donors' conference raised more than $5 billion in international soft loans for Pakistan. Is there still a need for people to raise funds, or provide other forms of donations, and why?
There is definitely a need for people to continue to raise funds. Unfortunately, the November 19th donor’s conference has created much confusion and led to the misperception that no more aid funding is needed. That donor’s conference was essentially organized to raise funds for medium- and long-term reconstruction efforts. There is an emergency relief component to it, but the money raised consists of pledges and not concrete commitments of cash that can be provided quickly.
People should not forget that we are still in an emergency relief and assistance phase, which the U.N. estimates will go on until at least March of next year. As the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator said, “it is important to start building new hospitals and schools as soon as possible but it's most urgent to save the lives of thousands of children who could then make use of these schools."
Worse, the U.N. Flash Appeal, which is funding much of this emergency relief and assistance phase, has less than 30% in committed funding and about 40% when pledges are taken into account. It is very necessary to understand the difference between pledges and commitments when talking about aid money. Donors are contractually obligated to provide the money to a recipient when they make a commitment. However, a pledge is a non-binding announcement of an intention to donate money. Donors can change their minds. Historically, many pledges made at donor conferences never convert into firm commitments. That is always a risk. |
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What are some of the most effective relief organizations on the ground, in Pakistan, that your alliance members have chosen as beneficiaries of the funds raised, or partners in delivering relief supplies?
Obviously, agencies such as the WFP and the IOM are doing essential life-saving work. There are many other international and local relief aid agencies which are doing incredible work on the ground as well. In terms of local NGO’s in the field, Edhi and Sungi have very solid reputations. On the international side, organizations such as Mercy Corps, CARE and the IRC have extensive aid efforts in place. |
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What lies ahead for Pakistani Americans in terms of collective or individual efforts to help Pakistan get back to its feet after this calamity, especially for protecting the homeless and injured? How do you advise people to gather up their individual or collective support and route it to the earthquake victims?
Obviously, we are only in the first phase of this relief effort. Emergency relief and assistance is estimated to last another four months. Once that ends, more focus can be put on mid- and long-term reconstruction efforts. There will be many challenges remaining for the survivors. They need to start working for their livelihoods again. They have to rebuild their lives both physically and psychologically. Many victims also suffered serious disabilities. We will need aid and rehabilitation efforts that address all of these issues. There are NGO’s such as Rozan already in place that are addressing some of these issues. They will need to expand quickly to address the needs of the many victims. In other cases, prosthetic limb manufacturing skills may need to be brought in from abroad to address the specific needs of the many amputees.
As we all know, the scale of this disaster is unprecedented. It is unlikely that government institutions will be able to cope on their own. Pakistani-Americans can play a part by supporting the efforts of local groups and individuals to rebuild their lives through either monetary or in-kind or in-effort donations. For example, Pakistani-American doctors have played a key role in medical relief efforts. Once the emergency relief period ends, they can go back to help support the development of permanent clinics and specialized healthcare facilities.
People often naturally switch off after helping with initial disaster relief efforts. But we need to be in this for the long-term and that will demand focus and effort from all of us. For example, we need to commit to the long-term support of aid agencies that are on the ground, both international and local. Monthly giving programs offer predictable and consistent support that allow aid agencies to do their job effectively.
It is important, though, that any reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts be thought through fully. Oxfam has already published a white paper called “A Mountain to Climb” which discusses what needs to be done. That sort of forward planning is the right approach. Money given directly to the Government of Pakistan must also be spent wisely and transparently on reconstruction efforts. Pakistani-Americans have donated large sums of money already towards the reconstruction effort. They can play a key role in ensuring that their funds are spent in an accountable and transparent manner by demanding extra scrutiny and third-party audits of reconstruction projects.
The resilience of the earthquake survivors has been remarkable given all that they have suffered. They want desperately to be independent and self-sufficient again. Once the time comes, it behooves us to help them rebuild their lives the right way. |
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SAQuake Alliance Members
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