Natural disasters are inevitable, but their catastrophic impact can be systematically minimised. Hilda Cleofe, Executive Director at the
Corporate Network for Disaster Response (CNDR), the Philippines, and Terry Chapman, Enterprise Strategist at
Microsoft New Zealand, share with Rahul Joshi their experiences in helping agencies sidestep the most brutal consequences of large-scale disasters.
As a nation, the Philippines has experienced an inordinate number of natural disasters striking its many islands over the past few years. In 1990, the Luzon Island earthquake affected 228,000 families and cost the country US$300 million in damages. This event gave birth to
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Natural disasters are inevitable, but their catastrophic impact can be systematically minimised. Hilda Cleofe, Executive Director at the
Corporate Network for Disaster Response (CNDR), the Philippines, and Terry Chapman, Enterprise Strategist at
Microsoft New Zealand, share with Rahul Joshi their experiences in helping agencies sidestep the most brutal consequences of large-scale disasters.
As a nation, the Philippines has experienced an inordinate number of natural disasters striking its many islands over the past few years. In 1990, the Luzon Island earthquake affected 228,000 families and cost the country US$300 million in damages. This event gave birth to CNDR since at the time, the corporate sector realised that there was a need to have formal coordinating mechanisms among responding companies and the government, in order to optimise the deployment of resources.
The CNDR is a network of business groups, associations, corporations and corporate foundations whose objective is to rationalise and institutionalise disaster risk management efforts of the business community in the Philippines. As of April 2012, CNDR has 45 members, of which four are business associations, ten are corporate foundations and 31 are corporations.
Hilda Cleofe, Executive Director, lists the two principal foci of CNDR: to help its members get back to their operations immediately after disasters (under private sector preparedness or business continuity planning), and to assist CNDR members prepare to be more effective in responding to their communities (under community–based disaster risk management and emergency response).
BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING
Cleofe reports that there has been a significant improvement in the coordination between the government and the private sector over the past two decades, with resources now being better deployed to affected areas before, during and after disasters. Use of email, social networking and mobile phones has enabled the government and the private sector (through CNDR) to discuss the damages, needs and capacities in disaster-affected areas.
“In terms of preparedness, there are now hazard maps available on the websites of concerned government agencies that are easily accessible to CNDR and its members to conduct community risk assessments. These are crucial in community–based disaster risk management programmes, as well as integrating disaster risk reduction into the corporate social responsibility framework of companies. There is easier exchange of real time information and sharing of best practices,” Cleofe declares.
Cleofe’s role is to ensure the achievement of the following goals for CNDR: to expand the CNDR membership base and strengthen relationships among members of CNDR; to build capacity for business continuity plans; to mobilise members to adopt disaster risk management initiatives; and to strengthen the institutional capacity of CNDR.
Access to accurate and real time information is crucial to decision making in crisis situations, but the framework for this needs developmental funding and a gestation period. Cleofe also identifies the active involvement of high risk communities (from capacity building to actual implementation of disaster risk reduction measures) in the disaster risk management workflow as a key element of being well-prepared, as they are the ones who are likely to be the most affected by losses.
“In addition, active involvement and support of local government units in high risk communities and integration of disaster response and recovery measures in development plans is essential. Multi-sectoral (private / public / Nongovernment organisation) partnerships can lead to maximisation of limited resources,” she notes. “There should be proper and regular coordination between government and the private sector.”
Consequently, CNDR has applied as the private sector representative in the
National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council of the Philippines (NDRRMC).
THE CHRISTCHURCH EXPERIENCE
Terry Chapman, Enterprise Strategist at Microsoft New Zealand – and the company’s disaster response lead for the country – fully agrees with Cleofe. “Seek guidance and support from peer NGO’s and agencies in other countries that have experience in disaster preparedness and response. Not only do these valuable connections help upskill your first responder staff prior to a disaster event, they are also able to supplement the capabilities of your own agencies during disaster response,” he remarks.
Chapman worked closely with the New Zealand government after the Christchurch earthquakes of 2011. “Preparation is key,” he says, highlighting the fact that even if a country has significant resources, they can be rendered ineffective during a major disaster due to a lack of thoughtful planning and preparation.
Like Cleofe, Chapman believes that agencies need to have a coordinated multi-agency response planthat is realistic, pragmatic and well rehearsed.
“Account for the possibility that agency staff may be displaced and that standard means of communications between first responder teams may be disrupted. During disaster preparedness planning is critical to factor in people, process and technology elements to ensure an effective response plan."
NOAH’S ARK
CNDR is implementing a community based disaster risk management project called Noah’s Ark. This was initiated by CNDR in 2010 as a pilot and is now being replicated in six communities throughout the country with funding from several companies in the Philippines, including the
Ayala Foundation,
Smart Communications and Philippine Transmarine Carriers-Carlos Salinas Jr. Foundation (PTC-CSJ Foundation).
Other than the physical security safeguards that Noah’s Ark seeks to put in place – such as retrofitting public places like schools to serve as emergency evacuation centres – the project heavily focuses on drills and training workshops to raise awareness, and helping communities and the local DRRMC develop contingency plans focusing on the objective of attaining “zero casualties” during flooding.
The CNDR, in partnership with
Microsoft, SMART Technologies and
De La Salle College of Saint Benilde has another trick up its sleeve: a
SharePoint project, comprised of a knowledge management tool “to improve collaboration among our members and with the concerned government agencies, before, during and after disasters”, is to be re-launched this year, according to Cleofe.
“It will be our repository for best practices and a facility for disaster experts in the Philippines to discuss and meet as a community of practice. It also has a capability for disaster monitoring, coordination and response.”
For the SharePoint project, Microsoft donated over 200 software licenses, which will be used by CNDR members, secretariat staff, board members and partners.
The six key features of the CNDR SharePoint framework:
1. Posting of Announcements and Invitations
2. Providing a Disaster Monitoring, Coordination and Response System
3. Sharing of Best Practices
4. Encouraging a Community of Practice
5. Providing Feedback and Online Surveys
6. Posting of Guidelines and Standards on Disaster Risk Management
PEOPLE, PROCESS AND TECHNOLOGY
Cleofe recommends sharing of best practices on disaster risk reduction across nations – either through forums, site visits, publications or other means. She considers it particularly relevant to the Asia Pacific region, as those countries share common hazards and vulnerabilities.
“Investment on community based preparedness and business continuity planning should also be encouraged among countries,” she suggests. “I don’t think it is possible at this point to have a cross-national plan–what is important is to ensure that each country has policies and programmeson disaster risk management, considering climate change and environmental damage. It is important that they are implemented and funded from the national down to the community level.”
Chapman classifies Microsoft’s work in disaster situations into two categories: proactively, before disaster strikes, and reactively, during disaster response.
“Proactively, we engage with many government and NGO agencies to assist these organisations to increase their response capacity by helping to improve their business continuity planning, logistics, communications and collaboration capabilities. Reactively, Microsoft works in partnership with first responder agencies to bring the full weight of Microsoft’s technology, people and experience to assist during disaster response.”
He divides the common challenges that he has encountered in disaster response situations into three broad categories: people, process and technology.
“An organisation may have considered only one of these elements in their disaster preparedness: building a great technology–based disaster recovery capability but without sufficient focus on how staff may need to work under vastly different conditions or environments following a significant event,” he says.
A typical challenge, according to Chapman, is the ability for first responder staff to effectively collaborate with each other when typical messaging and document collaboration systems may have been rendered non-functional.
“In these situations it has been critical to help organisations be able to work from anywhere that has power and Internet connectivity - and in many cases, this is away from the office building,” he concludes.
Some of the key lessons Microsoft New Zealand learnt from its involvement
in the Christchurch earthquakes response operations of 2011:
• Seek to establish a single source of truth for information prior to a response event. Defining careful information dissemination between different organisations and agencies in advance of an event is critical.
• Prepare for a significant influx of requests for help AND offers to assist from communities and businesses during a disaster. Microsoft and our local partner
Provoke created a simple but effective cloud based ‘pledge portal’ for citizens and businesses to submit offers of assistance through the
Civil Defence website, which the call centre staff were then able to quickly and easily match to requests for help.
• Leverage cloud collaboration services, which become critical for many businesses initially to connect with staff members following the disaster, and to continue business operations during recovery.
• Work with the NGOs and government agencies tasked with undertaking disaster response to supplement their efforts rather than duplicate services independently. Microsoft formulated an internal response team to develop a ‘shopping list’ of potential ways that our teams and other organisations could donate goods and services, quickly matching resources and technologies to provide the most impactful assistance.