ブックタイトルRecommendations to prepare for future mega-disasters in Japan

概要

Recommendations to prepare for future mega-disasters in Japan

Among such actors other than the governmental and public institutions, this section willparticularly focus on NGOs and NPOs.? As for the role of the private companies, the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren)provides detailed insights and recommendations in a report titled“Toward a MoreResilient Society ? Further Actions of the Business Sector and Government.”on the rolethey played during the GEJE.(2) Issues emerged during the response to the GEJE? In the initial first month, NGOs and NPOs were perceived as akin to individual volunteers.The organisations, that actually entered the disaster affected areas, were required tocoordinate with the Volunteer Coordination Office of the Cabinet Office or localdisaster-volunteer centres that were tasked to coordinate the individual volunteers.? Many Japanese NGOs experienced with emergency relief operations overseas ranactivities in the areas affected by the GEJE. However, quite a few of such NGO stafffound it more difficult to perform their functions inside Japan rather than outside. Oneof the biggest reasons was the absence of a mechanism for coordination andinformation sharing, through which an overview of a variety of assistance provided byboth public and private actors should have been established. As a result, NGOs andNPOs were not included in the planning and coordination processes among the disasterresponders for assisting the affected populations, which were led by local authorities. Insome areas and after a while, public and private actors began to come together, andsome NPOs started to apparently play a complementary role in support of localauthorities. For example, NPOs distributed heating equipments for the evacuees intemporary shelters, and such an arrangement was made to meet the urgent needs thatwent beyond what the local authorities were required to cover under the Disaster ReliefAct. Such NGO/NPO operations were made possible thanks to the efforts of thededicated staff members on the ground, especially by building relationships withinstitutional aid providers on a personal basis. Nevertheless, such coordination effortsdid not happen everywhere in the affected communities and did not always yieldpositive results in terms of responding to the needs of the people in need of assistance.Based on pre-agreements with local councils of social welfare, volunteer centres wereestablished at the level of disaster-affected municipalities. However, as their scope ofwork varied by localities, the councils were unable to provide overall coordinationfunctions covering all the assistance coming into the communities.? Many aid workers pointed out the absence of humanitarian coordinators who werecharged with the overall coordination of assistance efforts during the disaster ? unlike asoften seen in international humanitarian aid operations. As a result, aid workers felt thatthey could not work together and closely coordinate their activities at the central,prefectural and municipal levels. In other words, they were unable to grasp“3Ws”?namely, a comprehensive picture of who provided, what kinds of assistance and where.There were attempts to consolidate information related to assistance, develop matrixesper disaster affected areas, and share them among the aid providers concerned.However, a limited number of partners supported these initiatives, thus the amount ofinformation collected was relatively small. While the humanitarian situation on theground evolved rapidly, the relevant data could not be collected or updated in a timely28