Humanitarian Assistance: Building Cultural Competence in Disaster Preparedness and Response

Cultural sensitivity is an important aspect of humanitarian assistance. Efforts to understand local values, habits, and traditions undeniably contribute to the relief operations of international agencies. By “winning the hearts” of the affected population, aid agents not only develop a deep understanding of the context they are immersed in but are also able to provide an adequate treatment to the vulnerable groups. The difficulty of cultural sensitivity, however, is its delivery process and the dispute over who should coordinate it: international or local agencies. Marsella argues that quite often “good intentions go awry”. This happens because victims and service providers feature “constrasting cultural traditions” and invariably “must work with one another” after “the failure to grasp the significance of cultural differences in the provision of services.” The solution to this cultural shock is supposedly “the rendering of care” that “must be responsive to the cultural context of suffering.” Humanitarian workers by “showing sensitivity to the situational and historical dimensions of the disaster including racial, religious, socioeconomic, and political aspects” are able to offset the negative aspects that cultural contrasts create. Working in partnerships with local agencies could be an alternative to prevent undesirable cultural shocks. Local agencies have historical knowledge of local and regional conflicts and can assist affected populations respecting specific traditions and mannerisms. By working with local agencies and letting them be the first responders, international organizations avoid cultural misunderstandings and reduce operational costs since it requires fewer agents to be deployed to the affected location. However, this global-local partnership may not be playing out in accordance with the interests of the international agencies and local governments and are, as a result, frequently disregarded as a cultural effective and cost-reduction alternative. Humanitarian crises are market and political opportunities. International agencies and governments take advantage of crisis to urge for external funding and secure resources for staff’s payroll. In addition, there is no better opportunity to justify the importance of institutional existence and the need for further donations than dramatic situations where the media puts a vulnerable group in the spotlight so that the international community begins operating in its empathy mode. If international agencies are interested in extra funding for their expanded cadres, local governments tap into humanitarian crises to reinforce leadership positions and to be locally perceived as an essential player during crisis response. In this context where financial and political interests are fiercely disputed and placed above the genuine needs of humanitarian idealists, the expected outcomes for cultural shocks seem only to intensify. Reference Marsella, A.J.; Johnson, J.L.; Watson, P.; Gryczynski, J. (Eds.) “Ethnocultural Perspectives on Disaster and Trauma.” Foundations, Issues, and Applications Series, Springer Press, 2007.