Floods in NPG

Judging from the BBC website, it looks like the South Asian floods have slipped from the news headlines pretty quickly. The waters have receded from most areas here in Nepal, but leave behind a lot of destitute people and a high risk of disease. This has been my first experience of working in any sort of humanitarian activity that has been in the news, and it has been interesting to see how people react.

INF has a very good team based in Nepalgunj, probably the town worst affected by the flooding in Nepal. They are mostly involved in community development or supporting people who have been displaced from their homes. They have worked for years with some of the poorest rural communities in the area and have a deep understanding of the people and their needs. It is through this close personal relationship, rather than any systems or infrastructure, that they have been able to help people through the floods.

Fundraising is often a slow process: relationships need to be built, plans written, reviewed and discussed, objectives and measures agreed. In the last couple of weeks however, well over £30,000 has been raised for flood relief with hardly a question asked. People and organisations seem to relate to the immediacy of news headlines and the opportunity to save 100 lives now in a very different way to community education and development programmes that might save 1000 in the future.

Don't get me wrong, the money INF has received in the last week was badly needed and will prevent people dying. There will always be disasters that can't be planned for and large amounts of money will be needed to save lives in an emergency, but I can't help feeling that if people and governments had a longer term vision for their giving, some of these disasters could be prevented.