How to ensure not one village is left behind

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By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-24 07:43

After days of grief and pain, compassion and help, China has already initiated the fundamentals of the challenging reconstruction tasks caused by Wenchuan earthquake.

Facing such a huge number of dead, injured and homeless in the earthquake, one of the tough tasks for both the government and the civil society is to deliver help, aid and love precisely to those affected. And as reconstruction unfolds, China would need to ensure that infrastructure is rebuilt, social services are restored and livelihoods lost are regained in the earthquake-affected areas.

This is what the international community, such as the World Bank, has been concerned about. The expert teams have submitted heaps of ideas on institutional reform and building of platforms to achieve the goals.

Several days ago a panel of World Bank experts, policy makers and academics came to China offering their package of ideas on the post-quake reconstruction in Sichuan. What impressed me most was lead economist Tara Vishwanath's ideas on the essential need for social protection at community or village level to cushion households from falling into poverty and the role that Internet technologies could play in ensuring that no community is left behind.

As president Hu Jintao pointed out earlier, the soldiers and the disaster relief efforts should reach every village. She echoed Hu's instructions that relief should be coordinated to reach every affected village and that transparency is vital for delivering successful reconstruction.

In fact, some township and village heads in the remote mountainous counties of Sichuan were frowning at the earlier stage when the aid was shorter than the mounting demand. But as enough disaster relief materials reached the affected areas, the grass-root heads in some counties simply distributed them evenly to every villager. This sometimes caused people to complain, especially among households with members among the dead, missing or homeless.

With more than a month gone after the earthquake, and rescue and relief operations stabilized, Vishwanath said, the government must gradually move its "universal relief" to a social protection system for those identified as the most vulnerable victims and survivors.

To make the system function well and tackle thorny problems, it was essential to be transparent about the "targeting system", she said.

Actually, not all of the grass-root officials were frowning and some local officials have already set good examples of being transparent even though there is no access to modern facilities such as Internet.

On the condition of not being named, the head from Gaocun town of mountainous Pingwu county, where the quake killed more than 5,000, said her method is simply to bring everything into the sunshine.

All the villagers in the town could see their names and descriptions of quake-caused casualties, damages and losses on the blackboard. And then the township head let the extent of damage and loss decide which households would benefit from the relief efforts. And every day, two township governmental staffs are updating all the information on the blackboard.

Despite the fact that the relief materials came slowly due to the road blockage, the transparent ways of their distribution have left people with no complaints but more understanding and unity among themselves.

Vishwanath gave "thumbs up" for the grass-root leader's innovative way of being transparent. And she hoped, if Internet technologies can be used in the efforts, the way of being transparent would be more efficient.

She said this can allow all parties to track the progress of reconstruction and know who is doing what and where. This is essential to coordinating an effective response, and good for the public morale. As recovery and reconstruction proceed, more extensive and detailed communication will be needed regionally and locally.

Bearing that in mind, Vishwanath cited the excellent example in the Pakistan earthquake relief in 2005 to make the help reach villages by using the Internet. There were 4,000 villages affected by the earthquake in Pakistan and of these, 2,500 suffered severe damage and some of them located in high mountains as well.

She said there was an immediate need for information on damage, access and relief in these villages to help coordinate emergency relief. At the very beginning, her team believed that coordinating relief efforts in disaster situations was of paramount importance yet rarely done effectively. Identifying and allocating resources was a big challenge; less accessible areas often receive less attention.

With her initiative, which she co-founded with others -the web portal -www.risepak.com - was managed by a growing network of volunteers drawn from a variety of institutions including NGOs and the relief community, individuals sending information from the field, academic institutions in Pakistan and the United States, the World Bank, the private sector and government organizations.

The Relief Information System for Earthquakes Pakistan (RISEPAK) gives pre-earthquake information on population, housing, electricity and water in each of the 4000 villages with the distance of each from the epicenter, from Islamabad and from a major road. The system also offers updated Information on access, damage, relief received from individuals and relief organization and detailed maps to pinpoint every patwar-circle in the affected areas.

"Our goal is to gather and provide information so that "no village be left behind," said Vishwanath. "RISEPAK is a 'give and take' system."

Currently, a quick village search has allowed Internet users to use population data, disaster-index data and relief data to evaluate the best options to provide the most effective relief. And this can help a volunteer or relief worker and know which village to go to.

The RISEPAK system also takes information from the relief community and individuals about damage, access and relief and the information is solicited using standardized submission forms at the level of census villages. And this information can be sent using online forms in "add new information", synchronous meteorological satellite, fax or phone.

The RISEPAK promises that all information the public provides will be publicly available within 12 hours of submission, so that everyone benefits. And the RISEPAK promises that every individual and all members of the relief-community - large or small, public or private - are treated equally.

And the RISEPAK is founded on the belief that every person affected by the earthquake has a voice that must be heard by all so that no village is left behind and no voice is left unheard, according to the famed World Bank expert.

Currently, Internet has already played an important role in facilitating disaster relief in China. The government has used it to mobilize and distribute resources. The civil society and NGOs have already used it to channel donations and upload their charitable practices. And every county in the quake-rocked regions has already updated part of the relief efforts on the websites.

However, there is no such portal exclusively targeted at communities and villages.

If we combine the efforts made by Pingwu's Gaocun township and the World Bank, a portal could provide necessary help to the public to monitor every step of a village and community's rebirth after such a massive disaster.

And the portal could also help donors and volunteers make their decisions on charity. It helps to coordinate aid and relief to those who need it most and ensures that no village is left behind.

(China Daily 06/24/2008 page9)