Sustaining relief with development

Linking development assistance with long-term relief of poverty

Description

Utilizing approaches to emergency relief to try to ensure that the assistance is developmental. At the same time, using development assistance to provide both immediate relief and longer term capacity building for sustainable development.

Implementation

Rehabilitation programmes should introduce elements of employment-generating safety nets that would assist beneficiaries in acquiring new skills in development and thereby reducing dependency. During and after a relief programme draws to a close, people's participation must imply a smooth transition to development. Primarily, this requires that indigenous organizations and networks take a lead at national and local levels.

Increasing the income of those in poverty is the most efficacious for improving health because the poor are most likely to spend additional income in ways that enhance their health: improving their diet, obtaining safe water, and upgrading sanitation and housing. In the 1980s, even in countries in which average incomes fell, death rates of children under age 5 declined by almost 30%. But the child mortality rate fell more than twice as much in countries in which average incomes rose by more than 1% a year.

Claim

It is imperative that relief efforts are focused on the creation of a favourable and conducive external environment for human development, a substantial increase in resource flows, debt relief, equitable trading arrangements, a fundamental reassessment of aid policies, and an unwavering commitment to support human-centred development.

International intervention often undermines existing local structures, which weakens local capacity upon withdrawal.

The poor must be seen as potential partners in development rather than the passive and helpless recipients of welfare or charity. Their poverty often owes more to social systems and structures than a limitation of abilities. More than just a poverty of material goods, many also suffer from a lack of knowledge and training which prevents them from escaping from undignified living conditions. Continuing training and personal growth can enhance productivity as well as independence, motivation and contentment.