THE ARCHITECT OF UNDAC AND INSARAG

SALLY GRIFFITHS, OCHA

Can you briefly say what FCSS does?
The Field Coordination Support Section sits in the Emergency Services Branch in OCHA, Geneva. Our core function is to support Governments and UN country teams affected by a sudden onset emergency e.g. a major earthquake, tsunami, floods, technological disaster, etc. To this end, we manage a number of different tools and services, most notably the UN Disaster Assessment & Coordination system (UNDAC) which trains national disaster managers from all over the world in the UNDAC methodology and deploys them to disaster sites to assist with coordination of the international response; the International Search & Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) network which brings together over 90% of the world’s urban search and rescue providers to set standards in collapsed structure rescue including operational coordination through the UNDAC system; and finally our network of partners from Member States, UN specialized technical agencies, technical NGOs and the private sector which provide technical support to UNDAC teams in disaster response.

Since UNDAC’s inception in 1993, 998 UNDAC members have been deployed on 194 UNDAC missions in over a hundred countries.

Who else is involved in UNDAC – who are your partners?
In addition to the Member States who are members of the INSARAG and UNDAC networks, we work with regional organizations such as the EU, ASEAN and ECOWAS, consortia of countries from the International Humanitarian Partnership and Asia Pacific Humanitarian Partnership for technical support modules and personnel, UN humanitarian agencies and technical programmes such as UNOSAT (satellite mapping), technical NGOs such as Telecoms sans Frontières (emergency telecoms and connectivity), MapAction (specialized mapping services) and private sector partners Ericsson (telecoms), Microsoft (software), DHL (emergency airport logistics) and others. We work together in missions, training and simulation exercises – it is a very wide network of responders indeed.

After 11 years at the helm of FCSS, you have been called the architect of UNDAC. What does it take to become an UNDAC member and how long does it take to deploy a team to a disaster site? How effective is this assistance?
UNDAC members are not only experienced disaster managers – they also need to be physically and mentally resilient, adaptable, able to think on the go, used to working in situations of chaos, hardship and stress, and willing to take a certain amount of calculated risk!

Teams can be mobilized within 6–24 hours and on the ground within 48, depending on the type of disaster. In earthquake response UNDAC’s mandate is to operationally coordinate urban search and rescue activities, so it is important that they arrive with the first international USAR teams. Using a plane provided by the Swiss Government, we have been able to arrive in-country within 24 hours of an earthquake occurring. In the recent Padang Earthquake in Indonesia, the UNDAC team leader travelled with the advance Swiss Rescue team who were the first international USAR team on the ground and others followed within a few hours with other USAR responders.

The assistance provided by an UNDAC team is very much welcomed by those affected by disasters, not least because UNDAC members have a collective wealth of disaster management experience which they put at the service of the national authorities in helping them to coordinate the response. In addition to being multi-national and provided free of charge to the affected country, an UNDAC team is also self-sufficient and places no burden on already overstretched resources in a disaster situation – this is why our partners are so important in allowing us to be fully supported in terms of everything from emergency telecoms to provision of base camps and support services.

What continents/regions receive the most UNDAC missions and for which type of disasters? Do you see climate change as causing a trend in the way OCHA will have to respond in the future? In what missions did you participate personally? What were the most difficult and/or dangerous or memorable anecdotes amongst them? Understand that you were the first team going into the Cyclone Nargis OCHA Mission to Myanmar in 2008 – was that a challenging mission?
Historically Latin America and the Caribbean and the Asia-Pacific Region are the most disaster- prone but with climate change we are seeing other regions being badly affected by extreme meteorological events, particularly floods. Floods are now the cause of a majority of UNDAC deployments – whether flash floods, hurricane or cyclone-induced, tsunamis and sea swells, or more severe annual cycles. This year we have seen UNDAC teams deployed to Namibia, Benin and Burkina Faso for serious flooding.

What else does UNDAC do while waiting for the next disaster to strike?
How has the UN/international response evolved over the years it has been involved? (role of governments, etc.) We carry out a programme of UNDAC and INSARAG meetings and training activities, including simulation exercises, with our partners and other organizations and responders. We have annual Induction Courses for the UNDAC system and Refresher training to ensure members’ skills and knowledge of the UN humanitarian response system are kept up to date. We also conduct Awareness Courses on the UNDAC and INSARAG networks to encourage other countries to join and participate in international disaster response. We also have the possibility to field, upon request, UNDAC disaster response preparedness missions, where a team of UNDAC disaster management experts can evaluate a country’s national disaster response action plans and provide recommendations on improvement. Through all these activities, we can make a meaningful contribution to capacity building and disaster response preparedness. This is particularly important given the primary role of national governments in preparing for and responding to disasters in their territory.

The bulk of the humanitarian response and assistance is always provided from within the affected country – the international community is there to support and assist where capacity and/or resources are overwhelmed. The UNDAC and INSARAG systems both provide support to a country when it is most needed and at the same time allow that country to contribute and be part of the wider international humanitarian community by participating in these networks.

You are also the Secretary of INSARAG ? How would you describe the key developments of INSARAG under your leadership?
INSARAG is a global network of more than eighty countries and disaster response organisations dealing with urban search and rescue (USAR) related issues. Its aim is to establish global standards for international USAR teams and methodology for international coordination in earthquake response. Members of INSARAG are both earthquakeprone and responding countries and organisations.

INSARAG was established in 1991, following initiatives of international search and rescue teams that responded to the 1988 Armenia Spitak earthquake which saw an influx of dozens of international USAR teams without any effective coordination mechanism in place.

INSARAG is now globally recognized and comprises most of the international USAR responders worldwide. A major programme of classification of international USAR teams is currently underway to assess their response capacity and ensure that standards are met. The INSARAG Guidelines were endorsed in General Assembly Resolution 75/150 of 16 December 2002. The recent earthquake in Padang saw twenty-one international USAR teams on the ground with seventy-seven search dogs and 512 rescuers engaging in search and rescue activities alongside their Indonesia counterparts and being operationally coordinated by an UNDAC team. This is of great assistance to the affected country and a far cry from the chaotic situation of 1988 so I think we say that we have achieved a great deal.