Humanitarian news flying high

While still on mission here in the Dominican Republic, shuttling between Santo Domingo and Haiti, I had to put blogging a bit more on the background.

The good news is that my automatic aggregation website Humanitarian News, continues to fly high. We're now at almost 20,000 visitors a month. Last month, we retrieved 19,000 articles from 790 different sources. Humanitarian News now stores about 115,000 articles since I started it in six months ago.

The main Twitter accounts linked to this site, @aidnews and @humanitynews grew to 4,600 and 1,900 followers respectively.

It seems more and more people also use customized RSS feeds, allowing you to get the latest updates on the topics you are interested in, via RSS or automatics email updates.

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Staff security - about being a pain in the ass

Have been involved in most humanitarian emergencies since I started this job, back in 1994, with a break of the last four years when I took a sabbatical, and worked for three years in our headquarters.

For eight years, I lead an intervention team, which went into any humanitarian emergency operation way before anyone else was allowed in, as we had to install the technical infrastructure ensuring the safety of the other staff.

As a manager, I have always taken the responsibility for the safety and well-being of my staff seriously. No matter what the rules, procedures and regulations were, I have always put the mark higher for my own staff. I have publicly questioned existing rules where I found them lacking. I have opened many a can of worms where I felt "the system" was inadequate to deal with safety. I have taken difficult decisions which did not always make me popular. Sometimes amongst the staff involved, sometimes amongst management. Over the years, I earned the reputation of being a pain in the ass.

Let me get the record straight: I *am* a pain in the ass. I would not like to be my own supervisor, as I am very difficult to be managed. But I have always found pride in the fact that - taking away my un-orthodox ways of working - people deep down inside realize at one point or the other, that I was right.

Now that, once more, I am leading a team in an emergency operation, many past experiences come back to me. Including the feeling of "these people must think I am a pain in the ass". Particularly concerning staff safety.

All too many times, as managers, people think of staff safety in the context of the political situations. In context of cost to implement the security measure. In context of the operational impact, when implementing strict security rules. But in all of this complexity, some questions continuously come back to me:
Would Pero still be alive if I had spoken up more openly about the obvious insecurity in West-Timor? Would Magda still be alive if I had spoken up more openly about the obvious decreased security in Baghdad?

Since those days, I leave no stone unturned unless if I can say to myself "I did all I could".

That does not make me very popular. But I don't care. I have to live with my conscience. Staff safety and security is not a responsibility of "a system", but also for each individual manager. And they should take that responsibility personal.

Picture courtesy AnneMarie VanDenBerg

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Haiti, where Mañana is not an option...

"Mañana, por favor!", I answer when housekeeping knocks on my door. Mañana, please, I am working...

I sit, computer on my lap, on my bed reading through a backlog of emails, catching up on work done, being done, and work to do.

I just got back from two days in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It has been almost two months since I landed in Santo Domingo to coordinate the support functions for the Haiti crisis, out of the Dominican Republic. My days are full. My attention is switching from a meeting with one of the ministers, staff recruitment, debugging a cash advance problem, a meeting on limiting the overtime the drivers can do, a shipment which seems to be lost but really is not, stamping the numbering on the food coupons, staffing contracts and a security incident.

It is not the amount of work that tires me, it is the intensity in which issues come, and need to be dealt with. Not that I don't like it, but in the evening, I pass out on my bed...

After two days in Haiti, I wonder how my colleagues can deal with their work, which is a ten fold more complex than mine. They don't have a comfortable hotel room, five floors up and 1 minute away from the office. They either live in Camp Charly, the tent camp for the humanitarians, or have to shuttle to the boat anchored off shore, to spend the night. Given, the boat is more comfortable, but it takes anything between one to two hours to get there. Some of the staff pitched their tent in the back of the container park, in "Log Base", right next to the airport, where most UN agencies set up tents, tarps and office containers, making it the "humanitarian nerve center" of the operation.

The humanitarian part of Log Base is nothing but one narrow road, lined with parked vehicles, crowded with people moving around between the offices, and filled on either side with "offices".

The fortunate have a 20 foot office container, some with airconditioning, with tarps over them to avoid water sipping through the joints. The less fortunate have massive tents to work in. Meetings are held in open spaces covered with tarps, or half open shelters. Lack of working space is common with most containers cramped with four people, hardly fitting the make shift desks, filled with files and folders hardly leaving space to fit their legs inbetween.

The noise is constant, mostly from planes and helicopters taking off or landing on the airstrip a few hundred feet away. During the meetings, when the screaming noise of yet another Ilutsin taking off builds up, people just stop their sentence for thirty seconds, and then continue as if nothing happened. Like pushing the 'pause' button on a video.

Most of the containers are now properly wired up onto the generators, and have network connections to the servers and satellite links. Nothing much we can do these days anymore without connectivity, be it for emails, telephone calls, or registering all procurement or logistics transactions onto the central servers in HQ.

Luckily, during my two days, it was neither hot, nor raining, and many staff commented "this weather is as good as it gets". I can imagine the dust, humidity or mud on other days.

There is a constant flow of visitors. Army personnel, staff from the other agencies and NGOs, civilians, people from the government and local communities, people coming back from assessment missions or distribution points. It makes it hard to keep concentrated to the task at hand, as people get interrupted every other minute.

And although the spotlight of the world's cameras is no longer focused on Haiti, the humanitarian operation is still to peak. While during the first six weeks, the utmost urgent needs were being met with loads of cargo being flown in, the steady massive flow of the aid cargo coming in per ship has started. While one plane can bring in up to 100,000 kgs of aid supplies, a ship can bring in 400,000,000 kgs in one go. So the logistics and distribution challenges are only starting now.

On top of it all, the rainy season has begun, making the need of the bringing in supplies even more urgent. And we have the hurricane season just around the corner.

So, sitting back in my hotel room on this Sunday, I can not have but admiration for the staff working in Haiti. Many of them were present during the earthquake. They have lost their homes, suffered from loosing family or friends, scarred by seeing the human misery day by day.

I wish anyone criticizing the humanitarian agencies on the ground in Haiti, could spend a week there, working with them and feel what it is to be faced with the daunting tasks ahead, where "Mañana" might not be an option.


Pictures from my visit to Haiti, and random snapshot from day to day life here, can be found on Shot from the Hip.

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Being a manager of an emergency team

For almost 9 years, I headed different emergency response teams while I was based in Uganda (the Great Lakes emergency), Kosovo, Pakistan/Afghanistan and later out of Dubai. Back in 2006, I took a sabbatical and after that worked for three years in Italy, outside of the emergency response scene.

The Haiti operation is my first emergency since four years. Just before leaving Rome, on my way to the Dominican Republic, I wondered by myself, if I still had it in me. If the tools I built for myself over the years were not rusty. But already the first day on the ground in Santo Domingo, it was clear the past experience I was able to build up, did not fade. I felt -once again- as a fish in the water.

In our office, we manage about 80 people, most of them coming from different operations all over the globe. People were picked from other offices, all over the world. From North Korea to Ecuador, from Rome to Indonesia and Malawi. I think they must come from 50 odd different offices. Some are experienced staff, and for some, this was their first emergency response. Some are logisticians, others finance officers or procurement staff, others are administrative assistants, fleet managers, air operations specialist, counsellors, warehouse managers or nutritionists.

How, as a manager, do you make these people fold into one team? I often think about what makes a team work. And the role of a manager in a team. Off the top of my head, let me sum up some points I find crucial.

1. Give direction
Define the team goals from the beginning. It gives people a sense of direction, it helps you face all the different units the same way.

2. Care
As a manager, your staff is your main asset. Your staff will make or break an operation. Be sensitive to the individuals in your team. Debug conflicts right at the start, before they become major issues. Ensure your staff keeps healthy, care for their wellbeing. A fruitbasket a day sometimes makes all the difference. Mind their energy levels. Chase them out of the office when needed, so they don't burn out.

3. Give feedback
Tell your staff when things are not done well, knowing they do their best, and have the best intentions. Praise when praise is due.

4. Structure
Draw up the team organigram from the start. People need to know who they report to, and what unit they belong to. Put a person in charge of each unit. Ensure the reporting structure is respected, and assist the unit heads where needed.
Brief new staff as they arrive. Explain the team goals, the organigram, the way the office is run.


5. Smile
Everyone has a bad day once in a while. I for one, never hide it when I am in a pissy mood. But I also love to walk around my team and hand out a friendly word and a smile from time to time... Amazing how much difference it sometimes makes.

6. Enable
As a manager, you are an enabler. You have to give the people the tools they need. Be it the budget, connectivity, a decent office space, or equipment. Without their tools, the best team members will not be able to function.

7. Debug
After defining the initial team structures, the basic systems and procedures are put in place, and your team has the tools it needs, one of the main tasks of a manager in emergency operations, is to be a debugger. Ensure people come to you with their issues, and help them on the spot. Don't let problems 'breed' or 'simmer'... Keep your door open.
Often people ask me what I do, as a manager. Apart from my task in linking the teams to the 'outside world', be it the government, the UN system or our HQ, my main day-to-day task is "debugging". I see myself as the guy who walks around with the stick and the rubber tab, sticking it into the toilets and going 'Zwonk-Zwonk', until the garbage is gone, and the water flows again. I am the toilet-declogger.

8. Involve
Teams working in emergencies tend to become very focused, which is good. Well functioning units concentrate on their task at hand. All well, but ensure also they maintain the overall focus and the context of the operation. Even after the first month in this emergency, I still have an all-team meeting once per day. Even if it was to get people from behind their desk, even if, for a few minutes, I can give some info on what is going on beyond our office, within the emergency. Everyone likes to feel part 'of the big machine'.

9. Delegate
In a fast evolving emergency, it is impossible to micromanage. Ensure you have staff you can entrust with the task at hand. Empower the supervisors within their own team, and delegate the tasks. Pass through the supervisors rather than tasking people directly. Often one of my big challenges, by the way.

10. Spot check
It is impossible to check everything going on. But random spot checks on what's up, gives you as a manager a good idea what's going on. Read the signs. Sloppy expense reports might point to a sloppy finance officer. Delayed attendance sheets, might point to a sloppy HR officer...

And now I am thinking "Where did I sin against my own rules, today?" :-)

Picture courtesy Jonathan Thompson

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The unreality of an emergency

It is hard to imagine, but we put up our office next to this pool in a Santo Domingo hotel.



From the 'pingpong room', which the hotel converted into an open office space for about 80 people, we manage the transport of aid cargo for most relief agencies into Haiti.



With a 180 degree view of people sitting by the pool, sipping drinks, in one month, we coordinated the offloadeding of 90 cargo planes and a dozen sea vessels. We dispatched 514 trucks from Santo Domingo to Haiti, carrying a total of 1,658 tons of food aid (that is right, 1.6 million kgs) and some 10,000 m³ of other relief goods, from 46 different aid organizations.

As we also run the aid flights from the Dominican Republic into Haiti with four helicopters, two cargo and two passenger planes, we transported 1,650 passengers from 250 different organizations from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince.

The funny thing is that you can't see through the office windows from the outside... So yesterday we had this girl in bikini pacing to and fro in front of the window, talking on her mobile...



It was funny to hear the people in the office on the phone talking about truck dispatches, the offloading of containers, while this little lady was standing with her back against the window...

Ah.. sometimes pleasures can be found in simple things in life...

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Aid, logistics, helicopters and Haiti

Last week, we flew with a team from the government to Jimani, Barahona and Cabo Rojo to check out the condition at the main border crossing between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and two airstrips - one of which we already use as a contingency base. In view of the amount of aid (food, shelter, sanitation equipment, medicins,...) which is moved into Haiti, the logistics aspect, one of the areas we are responsible for, is critical. While things are very busy - to say the least - at this moment, in my view, the peak of the movement of goods still has to come, at the time we are shifting from emergency response to basic reconstruction.

In many aspects, for the Haiti operation, the logistics of the aid operation will determine the success of the relief efforts.

For last Sunday's assessment mission, we used one of the MI-171 helicopters we have deployed in the Haiti operations. We have four helicopters, two cargo planes and two passengers planes which ferry mostly people, but also urgent or fragile cargo between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

On the way back from the mission, the pilot followed the Southern coast of the Dominican Republic, from the Haiti border up to halfway to Santo Domingo. The views were astonishing, and in sharp contrast with the devastation in Haiti.

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