Skip main navigation

New offer! Get 30% off one whole year of Unlimited learning. Subscribe for just £249.99 £174.99. New subscribers only T&Cs apply

Find out more
Home / Nature & Environment / Disease Outbreak Prevention / Humanitarian Action, Response and Relief / Working with local people

Working with local people

Many previous approaches used by external agencies to engage local people have been met with criticism.
View transcript
2
To be honest, it’s quite amazing. People are different. People responded to disaster differently. Sometimes the community gets stronger and comes together and help each other, and sometimes some people get violent because they don’t trust the system. They don’t trust the government. They feel that they lost everything and this aid might go to the wrong hands or to the wrong people, whatever. When we started rebuilding Lunda - a young man from the next-door village came with a Kalashnikov and he put it on my head, and he said you need to start in my village first before you do this, and he said you are not gonna work in this village before you start in my village.
47.6
I tried to negotiate - we failed at the beginning. So we have to use a different method of negotiation. We tell them that we withdraw completely and we close the projects. We were lucky enough that his father was from Lunda, so his father starts putting pressure on him to withdraw and later on he became really very helpful. It is a negotiation exercise.

In Pakistan, the national disaster management structure was undergoing a period of change.

The new disaster management authority was still under development, local government agencies struggled to understand their new responsibilities and mobilise sufficient capacity, and in many districts there were issues of public trust and confidence in elected local government.

Watch the video above to see some more of the challenges faced by response agencies trying to meet the needs of those in Pakistan with limited resources and time.

Your task

What socio-cultural and environmental differences should influence the humanitarian interventions in the different parts of flood-affected Pakistan? Post your thoughts in the comments area.
Some examples are given in this paper:
Arai, T. (2012) ‘Rebuilding Pakistan in the Aftermath of the Floods: Disaster Relief as Conflict Prevention’. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development [online] 7 (1), 51-65. available from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15423166.2012.719331 [28 April 2020]

Want to keep
learning?

This content is taken from
Coventry University online course,

Humanitarian Action, Response and Relief

View Course

Want to keep learning?

This content is taken from Coventry University online course
Humanitarian Action, Response and Relief
View Course
See other articles from this course
This article is from the online course:

Humanitarian Action, Response and Relief

Created by
Join Now
This article is from the free online

Humanitarian Action, Response and Relief

Created by
Join Now
FutureLearn - Learning For Life

Reach your personal and professional goals

Unlock access to hundreds of expert online courses and degrees from top universities and educators to gain accredited qualifications and professional CV-building certificates.

Join over 18 million learners to launch, switch or build upon your career, all at your own pace, across a wide range of topic areas.

Start Learning now

Register to receive updates

  • Create an account to receive our newsletter, course recommendations and promotions.

    Register for free