Tsunami One Year On: Inside DFID's Operations Team

Related pages: Tsunami Frequently Asked Questions | Emergencies: How You Can Help | Tsunami One Year On

Ian Howard-Williams has a job that keeps him away from his family, working long and unsociable hours, but it is a job that he has held and enjoyed for nearly six years now.

Ian is the Head of the Operations Group working with DFID’s Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department Operations Team. As part of its responsibility to provide humanitarian services to DFID, the Operations Team - run by Crown Agents - is key to the immediate UK Government response to any humanitarian disaster where DFID support is to be provided, usually in a developing country.

For Ian and the rest of the Operations Team this means, as well as the ongoing work that everybody has, being on call 24 hours a day, ready to respond swiftly and effectively to any new disaster.

• Question and answers on relief supplies, NGOs, recruitment and more
• Feature on how the team responded when the tsunami hit in 2004
• More on DFID's work on conflict reduction and humanitarian assistance

Inside the Operations Team: Day One

Once the team is alerted to a disaster (in the case of an earthquake, through an SMS message from automatic monitoring sites), members of staff scramble to the Operations Room in central London where they quickly establish the Response Team for the operation.

From here, Ian coordinates the initial gathering of information about the impact of the disaster: What area has been affected? How many people live there? What is the geography of the affected area?

The Operations Room is quickly adapted to focus on the new disaster: maps are put up showing the affected region, clocks are set to local time, and white boards detailing the latest information begin to fill up.

The team monitors initial reports of the disaster from the affected government, scientists and international agencies and makes a number of urgent telephone calls to help with the team’s initial assessments.

Information flows rapidly in the earliest stages of a disaster, and the information officer in the response team is absolutely vital to compiling and analysing relevant information quickly.

Depending upon the information gathered and the severity of the disaster, the recommendation to DFID is often that the Operations Team immediately deploy a team of experts to the affected area to help with the needs assessment.

In the case of an earthquake, if there is a chance that they will save lives, DFID may also make a decision to despatch Urban Search and Rescue Teams, accompanied by two Operations Team coordinators.

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The right place at the right time

Whilst initial assessments are made, other elements of the Operations Team have already swung into action. The procurement and logistics experts have a great deal of experience finding, procuring and shipping goods such as tents and blankets around the globe at short notice.

DFID keeps a stockpile of non-food relief items in locations as far flung as Dubai and Miami. This means that when disaster strikes, appropriate relief supplies are always available regionally, to be despatched as soon as DFID makes the decision to send them.

The logisticians work closely with DFID’s air brokers to identify available transport options for relief goods and they can, as in the case of the Mozambique floods and tsunami, negotiate the charter of helicopters to be provided for the emergency phase of the relief effort.

Central to the work of the Operations Team is ensuring that the right assistance reaches the people who need it most. Misdirected aid can clog up transport hubs and mean that the neediest people miss out.

In every disaster, DFID works closely with the United Nations, the Red Cross Movement and many NGOs. For any agency to receive funding from DFID, their project proposal must first be appraised by one of the team’s Advisers, who aim to match the agencies’ assessment of need with information that DFID has gathered. The Advisers work hard to ensure that UK taxpayers’ money is spent quickly but effectively.

For Ian and the Response Team, an average day in the Operations Room during a crisis response starts very early and ends late. As well as overseeing the response, he and his team liaise with DFID staff in the field, maintain contact with the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office and FCO.

Ian works closely with DFID Press Office, briefs Ministers and the media as necessary and keeps a watchful eye on the wellbeing of his staff. He summarises his work as:

“Challenging, but completely rewarding. I know that a timely and professional response by the Operations Team will help to save lives in the affected areas. We are responsible for large amounts of UK taxpayers money and our job is to make sure that our work allows it to be spent in the most timely, effective and accountable way possible.”

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