56. Ethical Issue #1

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Balancing disaster survivors' abilities, resources and strengths with their needs

Indicate that one frequent issue is that of finding the balance between recognizing disaster survivors' abilities, resources and strengths AND the need for support and assistance. For example, encouraging community organizing and the development of local advocacy and response efforts is a laudable long-term objective in any development effort. However, in the context of disaster, a community may be ill-prepared or unable to organize advocacy efforts. Government and international assistance providers may be required to intervene and import resources in order to respond to critical need, alleviate human suffering, and end a crisis. On the other hand, the involvement of disaster survivors and utilization of local resources is essential to effective recovery and long-term development. Ask participants to offer examples from their experience or knowledge where humanitarian assistance providers have had to sort out ethical issues as they have sought to balance these two disaster response strategies.

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"It is unethical... to let empowerment stand in the way of timely, effective disaster response that often must be facilitated from the outside."