Markku Niskala, secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), spoke to AlertNet on the opening day of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan.

AlertNet: On top of the several billion dollars that have been pledged by international donors for immediate relief and reconstruction following the Indian Ocean tsunami, the IFRC is calling for greater funds to be invested in helping communities themselves reduce the risks of natural hazards. Why is this needed?

MARKKU NISKALA: Our experience is that communities are very much left alone finally. They should be trained and be prepared in advance. Many organisations are coming in, and when they have spent their money, leaving. And governments are not really taking seriously enough the need to build communities and prepare them for future disasters.

So your message is to keep the aid flowing for immediate relief, but to build risk-reduction strategies into development and reconstruction programmes?

Yes, indeed. I think this is an exceptional crisis. If all the money comes along that has been pledged, we will be in a good situation to make those necessary investments in advance and help people to survive next time if something like this happens.

Are you worried that the tsunami crisis will siphon badly needed funds from other crises around the world that don’t make the daily headlines – the scourge of diseases such as malaria or TB, for example, or under-reported conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo or northern Uganda?

I think the message has been very strong from many governments and many international organisations that this money should not be taken away from anything else, and I don’t really believe that this is going to be the case. The tsunami of course gets the first priority at this point, but actually we’re facing many, many crises in this world altogether. We must keep going on helping people in those other areas.

So what are the main lessons that have come out of this terrible crisis?

I think one clear message is that there were no alert systems. People didn’t understand what was going on. Communications didn’t work, so it was a big surprise at all levels. This should definitely not happen again. Probably it should not have happened at this point either. I think this was the biggest surprise.

Of course, this awful devastation that we are now facing is a very, very difficult starting point for all the rehabilitation and recovery, and it requires some proper planning as to how we match the short-term and the long-term targets. This work is now going on.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the IFRC has been alarmed about the blurring of lines between military and humanitarian operations. Is that a concern in Asia, where we’ve seen, for example, U.S. military planes delivering tsunami relief?

It is a concern because in some tsunami areas there are conflict zones, and the Red Cross really must stay neutral and be very careful. We definitely give priority to private-sector assets in this regard. But actually there are cases when if the army is on a humanitarian mission and not wearing weapons, they can be used temporarily.

What do you hope will be achieved here at the global disaster reduction conference in Kobe?

I think there is a great momentum having this type of conference just after the tsunami, bearing in mind all the targets that were set 10 years ago and following up what has happened and what has not happened. I think there is really momentum to improve.

Disaster preparedness is something that is not very popular when we speak about funding, and we have recognised this in the Red Cross/Red Crescent. And that’s actually why the communities particularly are not prepared enough. And I really hope that the message goes very strongly forward that governments should pay attention to communities and prepare their national plans, and take care of their future needs. I think disaster preparedness should be a part of development plans much more than it is today.

It’s a paradox that for “bottom-up” risk-reduction strategies to work, you often need “top-down” encouragement from policymakers. How important is good governance when it comes to making local initiatives work?

It’s an excellent question because we are dealing with this all the time. Matching local community needs with government priorities, that’s the key element. I think governments should really listen to their people and to their communities, but when the plans are there, there should be very good partnerships between governments and communities to work together.

Can you give me an example of a successful partnership?

I recently visited North Korea. Some villages have been protected against floods and landslides. People were so motivated. If they were given a little bit of seed money, they prepared everything themselves. They guided the rivers and flood flows and everything was done perfectly. It doesn’t require a lot of advice and money and training of people. They all do it if they are given the possibility.

Unfortunately, in most cases it doesn’t work. Because there are so many communities and this is a serious long-term planning process, which must be guided very properly. It’s a difficult area. The Red Cross/Red Crescent wants to help match government priorities and community needs and provide volunteers whenever needed, because manpower, in most cases, is very, very needed when disasters strike.