Development and Cooperation


	Contributions from the Column InWEnt Forum Peace lessons for Colombi Early warning systems: useless without social action Meeting local needs 03/2006		Meeting local needs “From concept to action” is the motto of the Third International Conference on Early Warning (EWC III) in Bonn from 27 to 29 March 2006. Christina Kamlage of InWEnt discussed the situation in poor countries with geoscientist Katharina Thywissen ahead of the event, which will be attended by more than 400 experts from all over the world. The Indian Ocean tsunami made the world painfully aware of how important early warning systems are in the case of natural hazards. Are there any systems successfully in place in the developing world? Yes, definitely. Mauritius and Bangladesh, for example, have very good early warning systems for tropical cyclones. In the Horn of Africa and in West Africa, countries have set up supra-regional systems for detecting and communicating early signs of drought. And Mexico City has an early warning system for earthquakes. As is true of the world’s other early warning systems, however, there is still room for improvement. Incidentally, the Caribbean nation of Cuba boasts a particularly interesting example. It has a successful early warning system for hurricanes and the landslides and flooding that occur in their wake. Why Cuba, of all places? Partly because of the far-reaching powers of Cuba’s centralised administration, partly because the country is institutionally very well organised. Cuba will also be represented at the conference in Bonn. Will the conference mainly be concerned with the exchange of best practice models? No, it will not. The format is unusual, combining governance aspects with research. The conference will be very application-oriented. Participants will present new multidisciplinary research as well as early warning activities dealing with known gaps in our understanding of global warning. Best practices serve only to illustrate successful approaches. Projects from all over the world will be discussed for protecting people from most types of natural hazards. All the projects found to have merit by a special selection committee will be presented to experts and potential investors in a kind of marketplace. What are the weak links in the early warning chain? Past catastrophes have shown that information-gathering is often very good. But what happens with the data? Problems frequently occur when agencies exchange information across national borders. In many cases, warning messages are not communicated as clearly as one might wish. And the response of the people affected on the ground is not always appropriate either. Hence the conference’s emphasis on people-centred systems – systems in which the people who receive the warnings and need to react play the key role. Automated systems can monitor rising water levels in rivers, but that job can also be done by simply checking poles driven into a riverbank at hazard locations.... We don’t always call for high-tech. Traditional expertise also offers solutions, which are tailored to the cultural and regional context. We must not pit one option against the other. The high-tech approach – gathering terrestrial data from space – provides precise information fast. At the same time, though, there are some very simple steps that need to be taken and incorporated into a good early warning system. And if systems sound the alarm too often? That is a risk. There have already been a few false alarms. For example, on the volcanic island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. Where false alarms occur, the risk is that people fail to respond when they really should do so. A year ago in Kobe, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a global early warning system for natural disasters to be created within ten years. Is that possible? In principle, yes. But it should not be pictured as a single worldwide warning system. What is the point of warning a landlocked country about a tsunami? “Global” means that every country is institutionally prepared for the natural hazards it faces. Each country should have the early warning system it needs. And multinational systems should be created wherever it is sensible to do so. Quesitions by Christina Kamlage. Dr. Katharina Thywissen works as a geoscientist at the Institute for Environment and Human Security of the United Nations University in Bonn. thywissen@ehs.unu.edu