‘We want a world where disasters are paid for with money not with lives’, says Daniel Clarke at Climate: Red
Daniel Clarke, Director, Centre for Disaster Protection
Daniel Clarke, Director of the Centre for Disaster Protection, joined Alexandra Rüth, Head of Anticipation Hub and Ben Webster, Head of Secretariat at Risk Informed-Early Action Partnership, in a ‘Call for Collaboration’ at the IFRC’s virtual global summit Climate: Red Headline Feature: Scaling-up Anticipatory Humanitarian Action – More. Better. Together.
Watch the full event here. A transcript of Daniel Clarke’s remarks is below.
“The Red Cross Red Crescent movement and other humanitarian actors are leading the way towards humanitarian action that is earlier and more dignified.
“In particular I’d like to highlight three things that I believe you are getting right that most governments and development institutions involved in disaster preparedness and relief get wrong.
“Firstly, your model is based on locally-led teams, working together with humility and respect. You involve at risk communities, emergency response experts, scientists and financial planning experts. They all work together towards a common goal.
“Secondly, you focus your planning for those who might have the most need, not for those who are easiest to plan for or who might shout the loudest.
“And thirdly, you have the bravery to share mistakes and learn from the experience of others. If all we are doing with anticipatory humanitarian action is learning one country at a time we will learn slowly. But to learn collectively we need to be able to share successes and mistakes. Successes are easy to share, mistakes are more difficult to share. But I congratulate you, from the very outset of your work on this, for openly sharing mistakes to help us to learn much quicker for the world that we need for tomorrow.
“How can the Centre for Disaster Protection help? We are kindred spirits. We are a mission driven organisation. Our mission is to stop disasters being treated like surprises. And we believe in the same things that you do - in the power of locally-led teams, in the focus on those who may need the most help, and on bravery to learn. And whilst our particular expertise is on the nitty gritty of the pre-arranged financing, we have been set up to be free from conflicts of interest. We are not trying to sell you anything.
“So how can we help?
“First, we offer a free and impartial quality assurance service for any government or international organisation developing risk finance or anticipatory action schemes, to help improve planning. I would encourage you to make use of this service and to help us to shape our approach.
“Secondly, as we trialled yesterday with IFRC and the Anticipation Hub, we can join with the movement to deliver training to your people, helping them to bring their skills and expertise to contribute to and to lead teams that deliver anticipatory action.
“And then thirdly, as has already been discussed with the panel, some time this year, next year, the year after, when covid is no longer on the front page of every newspaper every day the world over, there will be an opportunity to channel our shared global experience of the covid crisis into reform of the global crisis architecture, to prioritise risk and deliver protection for the most vulnerable.
“We want a world where disasters are paid for with money, not with lives, with debt, and with compromise.
“We want to build a campaign for a better world, with you all.
“In just over an hour and a half we are leading a session with IFRC on ‘Beyond the begging bowl: is now the right time for a new vision of global crisis finance?’. I encourage you to join that and join with us in a discussion about how together we can help to scale up anticipatory humanitarian action, as well as encourage governments to learn those lessons as well.”
Find out more about the Centre’s involvement at this year’s Climate:Red here.