Improving the capacity to respond: examining the experiences of short-term tsunami relief staff

This paper reports the experiences of staff from one international NGO who undertook short-term deployments to tsunami-affected areas in 2005. This qualitative analysis finds three major issues that impacted upon the capacity of these staff to respond effectively to the tsunami. These issues are (1) effective management, (2) infrastructure and systems and (3) preparation and support of staff. It is argued that the experiences of these staff are not peculiar to the international NGO. Therefore, the lessons distilled from these qualitative interviews will be relevant to other NGOs. Based on these lessons, a number of general recommendations are provided in order to improve the capacity of NGO staff to respond to future emergencies. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.