Since 1984, International Medical Corps has built a well-earned reputation for our ability to deploy quickly to reach those in crisis, wherever they may be. In those nearly four decades, our emergency response teams have helped those caught up in natural or manmade disasters in more than 80 countries on six continents.
Because disaster can strike anywhere, at any time, the skills we’ve developed and the lessons we’ve learned are invaluable assets for effective emergency response. And with the acute phase of a disaster—that brief window when the most lives can be saved—measured in just hours, we know that speed saves lives. We also know that preparedness is a key ingredient needed to achieve that speed and, with it, the key to saving the most lives possible.
A Fast-Moving Project for a Fast-Changing World
To meet emerging challenges more effectively, the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) and all our country teams are working together on an organization-wide project to upgrade our preparedness capacity. The goal is ambitious: to increase the speed and widen the breadth of our ability to respond effectively to humanitarian emergencies anywhere, no matter the conditions. The timing of this project lies in the need to stay abreast of a fast-changing global environment that has blurred the once-clear lines signaling the end of a deployment’s emergency phase and the transition to programs that support recovery, encourage stability and lay the foundation for a better future.
The programs we implement after an initial crisis can mature with time, but today there’s a need to do more than just help a ministry of health provide essential services,” says Dr. Javed Ali, the ERU Senior Director responsible for International Medical Corps’ emergency deployments globally. “Now, we’re often dealing with a kind of acute, chronic crisis in these countries.”
Today, the emergency conditions that trigger our initial deployment to a country often persist stubbornly or fade briefly, only to resurface in a different form. Ongoing crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen are all reminders that our country teams frequently must implement recovery programs amid continued violence, crisis and the ever-present threat of a new emergency.
The preparedness project is designed to deal more effectively with the threat of new or suddenly revived emergencies and requires every country mission to work closely with the ERU to develop an emergency preparedness plan (EPP) to prepare for a crisis and anticipate what might be required to actually respond to it—all before it happens.
“We’ve found that the majority of emergencies are quite predictable,” Javed says. “Conflict can be a bit challenging, but natural disasters or public health emergencies can be predictable, so the idea is for us to anticipate some of the emerging triggering events and organize a more rapid response to the most likely emergencies and disasters.”
Risk Analysis and Emergency Calendars
This all begins with a careful analysis of a country’s emergency landscape, identifying and studying closely commonly recurring emergencies using tools such as risk analysis to develop scenarios to guide the actual preparation of an efficient and rapid response to the crisis. The ERU has already worked with country teams to produce emergency calendars that include items such as basic rainfall patterns—which Javed says can help predict the gravity of an impending food crisis, the severity of a cholera outbreak or a spike of malaria cases.
“It’s the same with the dry season and possible outbreaks of Lassa fever, meningitis and measles,” he adds.
These preparedness steps can include the prepositioning of emergency stocks—both what they should include and where they should be located—as well as a search for possible gaps in a country team’s readiness, such as available skills and knowledge to deal with a specific emergency, the possible absence of a trauma specialist to address the needs of armed conflict or gender-based violence survivors, or a nutritionist to deal with the malnutrition that so often accompanies the food scarcity triggered by violence or drought.
Solutions could include adding a specialist to the country team, training existing staff or finding a local partner who has such skills. Whatever option is chosen, it must be addressed early, as part of the emergency preparedness planning phase. Waiting until the emergency is triggered is too late.
“When you look at the emergency response cycle—disaster, response, mitigation and preparedness—we’re quite good at responding. But often we react to the events that trigger an emergency without having thought through the preparedness that’s in place in those countries,” Javed says.
Two of our largest-ever emergency responses—the global COVID 19 pandemic and the early days of the Ukraine war—also reinforced the sense at the highest levels of the organization that we needed to update the way we prepared our responses, to better fit a new and fast-changing global landscape. In fact, in 2021 when the pandemic was at its height and Ukraine was still a political crisis rather than a full-scale war, Javed—then ERU director responsible for Africa—was already working with a few country teams on ways to strengthen cooperation between programs and the ERU, to better prepare our responses. In January 2023, with the pandemic receding but no end in sight to Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the ERU reorganized, formalizing a closer relationship with the country teams. This step included the appointment of three ERU staff members who each were assigned to work with country teams in our three geographical platforms—East, Middle and West. The ERU specialists and country team staff work together on both the team’s emergency preparedness planning and its emergency preparedness response plan. They also collaborate on other tasks related to preparedness.
A Formal Kickoff
In March 2023, the ERU team and country team directors came together in Dubai to formally kick off the newly organized system that now underpins the Preparedness Project.
“We had the opportunity to sit and work directly with country directors and introduce them to the preparedness tools we’re interested in using,” notes Caroline Farris, who spent two months as part of the Ukraine country team in late 2022 before joining the ERU earlier this year as a Specialist for Programs and Partnerships. She works with the six countries in the West platform, where she earlier worked as a Senior Program Officer. “The feedback I got in Dubai was overwhelmingly positive, because the country teams can see the value of the emergency preparedness planning tool,” she says.
The tool identifies potential crises by scanning a country’s emergency landscape and identifying commonly occurring emergencies (such as the weather extremes of floods and droughts that plague many African nations), followed by risk analysis, possible scenarios and activity planning (such as prepositioning of stock and drafting administrative procedures for efficient and rapid responses).
“The idea is that it will be a living document that is owned and frequently updated by each country team,” Caroline explains. Although the country teams are responsible for keeping the plans up to date, the ERU funds the preparedness planning and creation of response documents. It also administers a dedicated emergency response fund for pre-positioned stocks of medicines and other immediate short-term response costs that are critical for quick action at the onset of an emergency. Somalia was one of the first countries supported with pre-positioned resources, due to its high vulnerability to humanitarian emergencies.
Ron Veilleux, our Country Director in Somalia, says that droughts, floods and conflict are his top priorities when it comes to pre-positioning. “Within the country team, we know we have to move quickly when we respond, but sometimes the lack of immediately available resources has been challenging,” he says.
“The fact that we now have these resources is a godsend,” Ron adds. “It’s not only good for the affected populations, but it’s also good for our reputation as a first responder.” He estimates that if resources—including medicines and other emergency supplies—are already in a warehouse in the country and ready to ship when a crisis hits, it will likely take 24 to 48 hours to get them anywhere in Somalia they need to be. And if those meds need to come from outside the country? “That would take about 30 to 60 days,” Veilleux responds.
During the Dubai meeting, attendees selected five countries—Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan—where the risk of disaster is extremely high and where the limited funds could be used to strengthen preparedness measures. Since then, the group has added Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan to the list of countries where we’ve started prepositioning supplies and conducted emergency-related staff training. Even more preparedness measures are expected to be rolled out soon.
Javed says the exercise has already led to a deeper understanding of what we need in vulnerable countries to strengthen preparedness. As the project gains momentum, Javed is optimistic about the future and the commitment of those working to turn plans and ideas into reality.
“The team chemistry, the vision we all share, the fact that we’re comfortable speaking our minds—that’s something I’m really happy about,” he says.