IRIN
MYANMAR: Local agency staff step into the breach
21 May 2008


BANGKOK, 21 May 2008 (IRIN) - Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has
developed an extensive health-care programme in Myanmar over the past
decade, with more than 1,000, mainly local, employees working on
HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. So when Cyclone Nargis struck, MSF was well
placed to deploy medical personnel into the Ayeyarwady Delta, despite
the restrictions on foreign aid workers.

MSF deployed about 200 people - divided into 40 relief teams, each with
a doctor, nurse and paramedic - to deliver emergency food and other
supplies and to treat some of the 20,000 people that Myanmar authorities
estimate were injured in the cyclone.

"There is a great enthusiasm among the staff," Frank Smithius, country
director of MSF Holland, said. "But to increase the response, it would
be good to bring in extra people."

Long-term NGO presence

Like MSF, many large international NGOs, including Save the Children,
Care, World Vision and Merlin, were running projects on health,
nutrition, education and poverty alleviation long before the cyclone
struck.

Since the disaster, hundreds of local employees of these organisations,
along with volunteers from the Myanmar Red Cross, have been on the
frontlines of the emergency relief effort. Local aid workers have
struggled to deliver food, water, shelter, medical care and other
support to the estimated 2.4 million survivors of the cyclone.

But international organisations are chafing at the restrictions that
with only a few exceptions continue to prevent nearly all foreign
technical specialists - including veterans of other natural disasters -
from entering the delta area.

Specialists needed

"We don't need an invasion of foreigners - we have doctors to treat the
wounds in general - but most people [in Myanmar] have not dealt with
this kind of emergency before," said Smithius, adding that MSF had
specialists in Yangon, the largest city and former capital, who could
deal with this kind of crisis.

After more than a week of waiting, MSF has finally received official
permission for eight of its foreign specialists, including water and
sanitation specialists and a medical coordinator, to begin working
directly in the Ayeyarwady Delta area.

But most other organisations say their foreign experts are still
confined to Yangon. Agencies say the lack of specialists on the ground
is adding to the strain on Burmese aid workers.

"It's very hard for our staff, who are reacting to something on this
scale for the first time," said Katie Barrett, a Save the Children child
protection specialist, in Yangon. "There is no capacity for me to . help
put their work in perspective, to keep giving pep talks and to top up
training."

Training local staff

However, aid agencies are doing their best to surmount these obstacles
by using their specialists to train local colleagues before they go out
to the disaster areas.

After the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies found out that their foreign specialists would not be able to
leave Yangon to operate emergency water purification systems at the
disaster sites, they began training local engineers to do it.

The IFRC is also training local staff to run 10 distribution hubs in the
delta. Jack Sparrow, a spokesman for the IFRC, said: "We're having to do
things that we haven't done before. You just have to be as creative as
you can - and flexible."

For organisations such as Oxfam GB, which had no prior presence in
Myanmar, the frustration is being completely shut out of the relief
effort. "We are not officially working there, so we are looking at other
ways to support the relief effort," said Sarah Ireland, Asia regional
director of Oxfam GB. "We are funding international NGOs and local
partners to do basic relief operations at this stage."

Andrew Kirkwood, country director of Save the Children, which has people
on the ground in Myanmar, hoped other humanitarian organisations would
eventually be able to join the effort. "The scale of this has
overwhelmed everybody, and all the existing agencies' abilities to
respond," he said. "We'd like the government to let in other agencies to
help."


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International              web: www.cidi.org
.  Disaster Information          listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
.                              guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Myanmar: Cyclone Nargis           www.cidi.org/incident/myanmar-08e