From Disaster to Development; Introduction
by
Phil Bartle, PhD

Module Introduction.

Documents Included in this Disaster Module
 Disaster's End, transforming a programme of charity to empowerment;
 SWOT, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; using the process; and
 Disaster Illustrations. downloadable to make local training material.

Transforming a programme of charity to a programme of empowerment

Continuum or Transformation?

 It sounds reasonable: after a disaster you provide emergency
 response for survival, then recovery, then rehabilitation, then
 development. It is called "The Continuum," and it sounds like a
 smoothly transitional set of steps (or "gears" in car). It is not.

 The transition from providing emergency response (using a charity
 methodology) to providing development assistance (using an
 empowerment methodology) is not a neat series of steps in the same
 direction. It is a radical transformation, almost a complete
 reversal of methods.

 This web site, and all the training documents in it, are dedicated
 to and aimed at the Empowerment of low-income communities. In so
 much as the Dependency Syndrome, waiting for outside charity,
 contributes to the sustaining of poverty, it is seen as the very
 opposite of empowerment. Thus, in a post emergency situation,
 following the very necessary emergency response (which is based upon
 immediate charity to support survival), a radical transformation of
 the way assistance is delivered, is necessary. There is no easy
 indicator of when that should happen, and certainly differences of
 opinion about both its existence and its timing.

 An empowerment methodology is based upon the concept that any
 organism (cultural or biological) needs to exercise (expend energy)
 or "struggle" in order to become stronger, whereas if it only lays
 back and waits for outside help, it becomes weaker. The needed
 transformation from emergency response to development assistance,
 therefore, is not a smooth transition but a radical transformation.
 It needs a change in programme (the way it delivers its output), and
 therefore a radical change in its organizational set-up, and a
 change in the skills and delivery methods of its staff.

 The training documents in this module are intended both for
 mobilizers and their field co-ordinators, and for managers and boards
 of assistance agencies. Before a transformation is considered,
 these documents should provide some issues to consider. Perhaps
 there should be no transformation. If an agency does not have a
 mandate or the capacity to transform itself from an emergency
 response organization, or if the conditions in a current location
 (output from the SWOT process) indicate, then it should not be
 transformed, but it must end its emergency assistance when the
 emergency is over, and dissolve or move to another emergency
 location.

 The decision to undergo a transformation is not an easy decision,
 and the process of carrying it through is not an easy thing to
 do. The documents in this module will help in making the decision,
 and in carrying it through if that is the decision.

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Updated: 2003 April 18