The Hindu : National : `Lessons learnt should help meet food needs after tsunami'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 12, 2005

National

National

`Lessons learnt should help meet food needs after tsunami'

By G. Venkataramani

Suresh Chandra Babu

CHENNAI, JAN. 11 . "A major challenge in meeting the emergency food needs of the population in the event of a natural calamity such as tsunami is the preparedness to feed the affected communities. Fortunately, we have learnt a great deal while coping with other natural disasters such as internal floods, drought and famine related food emergencies in the past. Such lessons should be shared with planners and policy-makers to facilitate quick action at times like tsunami disaster," said Suresh Chandra Babu, Leader of the Capacity Strengthening Programme at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington D.C.

Dr. Babu, who is on a visit to Tamil Nadu to observe food needs of the tsunami victims both in short and long-terms, said the toughest task was the assessment of the food needs of the affected population, which would form the basis for seeking assistance from the governments. "Generating such information requires a great understanding of the affected population, their livelihood options and their path of recovery from emergency to development."

The IFPRI Director-General, Joachim von Braun, in his special message following the catastrophic tsunami in Asia, has emphasised that the lessons learnt while addressing previous food-aid emergencies in South Asia and Africa could be effectively used in speeding up relief measures. "As a research institute we will contribute with lessons learnt and experiences gathered elsewhere around coping with disasters."

To assist the efforts of the region to rebuild and cope, the IFPRI has compiled a new "disaster relief page" with research-based information on floods, rehabilitation and reconstruction related resources from several regions.

Malnourishment

"In general, it is not only the population in the affected regions, which requires the food assistance, but also those inhabiting the surrounding areas. It has to be carefully accounted [for] while making [an] assessment of the emergency food-aid. The local administration quite often lacks the capacity to make such assessments in a short period. It requires a multi-sectoral approach with several governmental departments such as agriculture, food, health, rural development, transport, fisheries and forests coming closely. The various departments need to share the information on the losses in several production-related activities, and develop a comprehensive action plan that will not only meet the immediate food needs, but also for the long-term sustainable development of the affected population," said Dr. Babu.

For the short-term, it is important that the affected people should be prevented from becoming malnourished and hunger-related deaths arrested. "It requires, in the case of tsunami, geographical targeting for extending relief measures. In the long run, food can be effectively used to rehabilitate the affected population by organising food-for-work programmes to build roads and other rural infrastructures," he said. Food for regenerating the natural resources base, which will protect the community from such shocks in the future, is another long-term measure suggested by him. It will help put the people on a sustainable pathway of recovery from poverty, and ensure household food, nutrition and livelihood security in the rural areas. It will include planting frontline defence such as mangroves and multi-species shelterbelts along the coastline, according to him.

"We should have a synchronised advanced warning systems for tsunami and other natural disasters such as cyclones, earthquakes and internal floods to be prepared for meeting food emergencies. To build such systems we need to maintain databases carefully on the food needs in different vulnerable regions, and above all, a perfect coordination among the forecasting agencies is needed for an effective emergency food-aid delivery mechanism to be in place," Dr. Babu said.

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