9th July 2024
Cambio Climático y Asistencia Humanitaria: Respuesta durante la temporada de huracanes en América Latina y el Caribe.
Este es el primer episodio en español de la serie del podcast: ‘Nuevas Perspectivas Humanitarias’ de HLA. En este episodio, Ana Lucía Villagran, Especialista en Soluciones de Aprendizaje en América Latina y el Caribe; obtiene ideas significativas de Mercedes García, líder de HLA para la región y Dan Stothart, Director Humanitario Regional de Save the Children en América Latina y el Caribe.
La conversación profundiza en las experiencias de Dan y Mercedes al responder a las comunidades afectadas por huracanes y lo que se necesita para que la región mitigue los efectos del cambio climático y lidere la respuesta.
Escucha el episodio en Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music y Buzzsprout.
Acerca de los ponentes
Dan Stothart se incorporó a Save the Children en agosto de 2021. Ha trabajado en Naciones Unidas, Plan Internacional, Oxfam e IRC en respuesta a emergencias y reducción del riesgo de desastres en África y América Latina. Ha dirigido misiones de respuesta de las Naciones Unidas en Colombia (Hidroituango y el derrame de petróleo de Barrancabermeja en 2018), San Vicente y las Granadinas y Honduras; y estableció el componente ambiental de la respuesta R4V para ACNUR y ONU Medio Ambiente en la región, y también específicamente para Colombia y Brasil. También movilizó la respuesta de ONU Medio Ambiente a más de 25 emergencias.
Mercedes Garcia es ingeniera civil y ambiental, becaria Fulbright, con más de 20 años de experiencia en el ámbito humanitario y de desarrollo, habiendo trabajado anteriormente con Plan International, Oxfam y el gobierno de El Salvador. Mercedes ha liderado muchas respuestas humanitarias en Centroamérica, ha gestionado programas de reducción de desastres, resiliencia y acción humanitaria, y recientemente se desempeña como consejera de desarrollo de capacidades humanitarias con Save the Children.
Ana Lucía Villagran es Publicista de profesión y obtuvo una maestría en Comercio Internacional y Desarrollo Económico en Corea del Sur. Académicamente, Ana Lucía se desempeñó como asistente de investigación en la Universidad Kyung Hee, participando en importantes proyectos de investigación patrocinados por entidades como el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo y la CEPAL; y también se desempeñó como Profesora en la Universidad Nacional de San Carlos, donde impartió clases de Productividad y Desarrollo Económico. Se ha desempeñado como gerente de proyectos de desarroll social para Good Neighbors International; y actualmente se desempeña como gerente de proyectos y especialista en soluciones de aprendizaje en la Academia de Liderazgo Humanitario.
As this podcast is recorded in Spanish, the excerpt below in English gives insight to the conversation for non-speakers:
Climate change and Humanitarians: Responding to hurricane season in Latin America and the Caribbean
The first Spanish episode in HLA’s ‘Fresh Humanitarian Perspectives’ podcast series. In this episode Ana Lucia Villagran, Learning Solutions Specialist in Latin America and Caribbean gleans meaningful insights from Dan Stothart, Regional Humanitarian Director for Save the Children in Latin America and the Caribbean and Mercedes Garcia, HLA Lead for Latin America and Caribbean.
The conversation delves into Dan and Mercedes’ experiences responding to communities affected by hurricanes and what is needed for the region to mitigate the effects of climate change and lead the response.
Ana Lucia:
We would like to ask you about your experience in this hurricane season, which parts of Latin America and the Caribbean do you think are most prone or which areas have experienced the worst crises during the rainy and hurricane season in the region?
Mercedes:
At an OCHA meeting a couple of weeks ago, we were reminded that this Latin American region has around 1,500 disaster events in the last decade.
This has affected around 200 million people.
Although there are multiple disaster situations, it is also the natural phenomena that has caused many of these effects.
In the case of hurricane season, we have had devastating hurricanes in the region. It affects Mexico, all of Central America, also, the Caribbean is extremely affected. From Cuba, Jamaica, also the Dominican Republic and there we have all the islands, right in the Caribbean and in South America there are countries that, depending on the type of hurricane, are also affected, which are countries like Colombia and Venezuela.
These countries, suffer different types of effects. Where loss of life occurs, we also have effects related to the quality of life that people can have after these situations.
In the case of the most vulnerable territories in the country, it is very difficult to recover after these phenomena occur. I wanted to take the opportunity to draw attention to the fact that we have a rather complicated situation this year.
Historically, in the region the periods of hurricanes have had more effects as they have grown stronger…
We also have the proliferation of diseases such as cholera, added to a situation of lack of access to health services and water that currently exists in this country.
Ana Lucia:
The situation you mention in Acapulco, Mercedes was very difficult after the passage of Hurricane Otis. We are going to delve deeper into the topic with Dan, who is also joining us today.
Mercedes, without a doubt, the resilience of communities is key not only to facing a crisis, but to coming out of it. How can communities be better prepared to address the problems that arise as a consequence of disasters?
Mercedes:
First of all, communities and people are the first to respond to a disaster situation.
Whether we want it or not, because they are the ones who live it in the flesh. It’s important for communities and people in communities to be strengthened both in their knowledge as people in the structures, in what they are called, in those who practice and remember that in the end it is them, they are the ones who are there who are going to be there, always the ones who stay.
Sometimes different organisations come to support or governments support, but the people are the ones who are there and the ones who always stay.
On a personal level and family level, it is important to be prepared as it applies to everyone.
Ana Lucia
I would like to ask you what are the three main things that humanitarian personnel who respond in areas affected by hurricanes should take into account? Is this something more general, you who have had experience responding to various hurricanes, what do you think are the three main things?
Dan:
I think mostly thinking about hurricanes now and not so much maybe hurricane responses like 10 or 15 years ago. But first, one thing that remains true is that hurricanes are phenomena that are announced, they let you know that they are coming, so monitoring counts for a lot, although as I mentioned at the beginning, Otis surprised us, we still knew that Otis was on his way, that Otis was going up the coast of Mexico. And maybe that ties into my second point, which is one more point for response today, which is to expect volatility.
As I said, Otis went from category four to category five in less than 24 hours. And we’re also now seeing storms that take sudden turns and hit an area that maybe wasn’t the area that was initially expected.
But we can factor that into our planning. We already know that a hurricane is more or less on course to an area, but maybe we should open up the preparation area to prepare in a larger area in case a hurricane is going to change course.
Likewise, not to keep thinking ‘ah, ok, they say this is a category un, so we don’t have to do so much, but when it looks like it’s going to be a category more, at least have a preparedness scenario corresponding to a larger storm, just in case that kind of volatility happens, especially in years when the sea temperature is very high, as it was last year, and as also this year the temperature in the Caribbean, the Atlantic is very high and we can expect more storms like Otis in the Atlantic and Caribbean this year.
And perhaps the third point is to know the area. In the end, the hurricane is not going to end with the social problems that existed before, but rather quite the opposite, it is going to amplify them.
And then, if before there was, for example, organised crime, organised crime will return to the area to take control and perhaps take advantage of the situation to extend its territorial control.
If the rule of law in the affected area before was weak, one is going to see that reflected later in the post-hurricane situation and in the response. And if children’s rights were in crisis before the event, after the impact, the situation will be worse.
Hurricanes very rarely come to make things better. So we can know that and focus on child protection from the beginning.
Having that local knowledge through the actors who live there, who never leave the area, is extremely important, because that is how they guided us in a previously mentioned case, to an area that really needed the response that Mexico provided in that case.
Escucha el episodio en Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music y Buzzsprout.
¿Te ha gustado este episodio? Compártelo con alguien que pueda encontrarlo útil.
Comentarios/consultas: envíe un correo electrónico a info@humanitarian.academy o conéctese con nosotros en las redes sociales.
Los puntos de vista y opiniones expresados en nuestro podcast son los de los ponentes y no reflejan necesariamente los puntos de vista o posiciones de sus organizaciones.