Rija Rakotoson has been a humanitarian for 21 years. He shares the complexities of his work as?head of a Humanitarian Adviser Team?with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Madagascar:
What inspired you to become a humanitarian?
My passion began long ago while I worked in Madagascar with the BRL company in charge of rural development.
Living and working in a country?chronically prone to natural disasters revealed the complexity and limitations of humanitarian response as we knew it. It soon became clear to me that humanitarian affairs and development must work in tandem.
While humanitarian response provides life-saving assistance to the most vulnerable, development actors must support governments in addressing the structural factors that contribute to creating, and often worsening, recurrent disasters.
Our work also involves helping communities build more resilience, focusing on preparedness, anticipatory action, and response.
What are the main challenges you face in your work?
Resource mobilization for preparedness activities and anticipatory action is challenging because these activities do not receive much visibility from donors in the sense that people are not directly affected yet, they are only exposed to disaster.
Secondly, the lack of baseline data for some sectors, especially when a disaster affects new areas, makes analysis weak or even impossible.
That said, if I look at what we have achieved so far - the many internally displaced people who have been able to return home after cyclones, the averted nutrition crisis, and disease outbreaks, children who are finally back to school ¨C I feel fulfilled and eager to do more and better every day.?
What is the most difficult part of responding to cyclones??
At the operational level, it is conducting a joint post-disaster assessment just one day after a cyclone lands. ?Logistical conditions are always challenging at the onset of the crisis and there is a lot of pressure from the government, donors, the media, and, of course, the affected people.
At the strategic level, convincing actors to share the same analysis of the situation within a difficult context is not easy. Advocating for a common reading of the situation requires a delicate approach supported by reliable data evidence and a good dose of diplomacy. ?
But no matter the challenges, I truly believe that coordination saves lives.
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