APIA-BASED UNDP COORDINATOR AND RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVE




“The tsunami hit Samoa within a month of my arrival here. I hit the ground running and in such a situation, one learns fast,” says Neelima Noble, the Apia-based coordinator and resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Her office coordinates the UN’s programmes in Samoa, Niue, Tokelau and the Cook Islands. Noble has worked in a number of developing countries around the world but this is her first time in the Pacific Islands.
Speaking to ISLANDS BUSINESS correspondent Dev Nadkarni in Apia, she commended the Samoan government for its quick response during and immediately after the tsunami that claimed over 170 lives and caused widespread damage to property and infrastructure in September last year.
Noble said the early commitment shown by the Samoan government could well be built up into a momentum to initiate developmental progress in the country.
“Bulk of the impact of the tsunami was felt in the context of the local economy. So there is a possibility of making something good come out of the post tsunami rehabilitation process in terms of increased economic activity at the local level,” she said.
In the course of the interview, Noble also spoke about other Pacific issues like urbanisation, its impact on traditional subsistence economies, trade, agriculture and food security.
What is your assessment of the government’s response to the disaster?
“In very few comparable countries have I seen a government respond so quickly and decisively following a natural disaster. Within four days of the humanitarian crisis, it was already focusing on issues of early recovery. This was highly impressive and the ability of the government and its partners therefore to continue to provide urgent relief support—the New Zealanders, Australians, UN systems—did an incredible amount of work here.
“The government, within four to five days, was already looking at issues of early recovery and reconstruction and in addition to the relief work, the UN system was able to produce with partners—ADB, World Bank and the like—what it called an early recovery framework looking at 12 to 18 months of work that would be needed. We produced a document looking at three policy options for the government in terms of resettlement or support for spontaneous resettlement, which was already happening, and two other options which were providing support and reconstruction in new areas as well as where they were existing; and the third one, which was the business as usual scenario.
“The government has run with that early recovery framework and has, I understand, for the most part been able to do it successfully. These are good signs because in many other humanitarian crises there is a gap between humanitarian support and early recovery action. So, the fashion in which the government managed these two was able to pull its partners and resources together to look at the longer term has been in my experience a very good example of government coordination looking in the immediate and the medium-term, besides working on the immediate recovery process.
“The important point here is that if the same level of energy is dedicated to longer term development issues, then one could catalyse this sense of urgency, this sense of pro-activeness also for development work here. I hope very much that we can do that.”
And what were your perceptions of the reactions from the affected communities?
“It was extremely impressive. I have rarely seen—and I have served in many countries—such a complete sense of the community coming together, the sense of self-reliance. Within days or hours of the tsunami, you saw the community in action, clearing up the debris, tending the injured. They were not necessarily waiting on the government to start that process and that’s a huge social capital that Samoa has and how that can be leveraged beyond emergency in terms of meeting developmental needs. It is something that needs to be harnessed.
“Around the world, when there is a humanitarian crisis, everybody rallies. But if you could only be able to sustain that level of commitment by people for larger development progress after the crisis, I think that would be extremely important. So I think that is a lesson learnt from this exercise, how might we be able to do that and continue to channel that energy.”
How will the recovery process at the community level address the issue of peoples’ livelihoods, which, by and large are subsistence based?
“We see the injection of resources going into the recovery process more efficiently being able to provide support to the people who have been affected on the ground, the local economy. The other issue, which as a matter of strategy is being pursued by UNDP and the UN system, is largely using cash for work, so providing that injection into the system right away is something we are looking at in terms of livelihood, getting people back on their feet. So livelihood is a very important part of the kind of support that is being provided under early recovery. Simultaneously, skills training—not the traditional skills but skills which could be linked with the reconstruction activity—for building roads, electricity, water and sanitation is something which we will look at.”
Statistically, will the disaster result in a backward step now for Samoa, in next year’s country development report?
“One hopes not. It could potentially be so but some of the reading that I have done and the economists who looked at this were also saying that in terms of its impact at the GDP level, it may not have been all that significant because what was impacted was very much the local level economy. So the extent to which we are able to get that geared up could in fact offset losses that the disaster has caused.
“However, there are trade-offs in terms of investment that the government has to make in setting right what has been lost and moving the existing process forward. So it’s yes and no. I did say that the tsunami was also an opportunity, if one is able to capitalise and keep the momentum going beyond the immediate reconstruction phase.”
There is a view that increased development is leading traditional societies towards urbanisation with all its attendant problems of congestion, increased crime, hygiene issues and so on. This is also true of Samoa where there has been migration of people from the villages to Apia as the need to earn cash grows. What is your view on this?
“That is the reality in many cases. UN reports have indicated that more than 50% of the world’s people are living in the urbanised areas. If you ask whether that should be a consequence of development in an ideal world: Absolutely not, but it does happen. The extent to which one can anticipate these things and build it into our planning process, I think, is very important. 
“Let me give an example in terms of the tsunami itself. If the government is pursuing the option, which is to provide services to people where they have spontaneously relocated—and what that has meant at a practical level here is that people have moved to their ancestral lands. This means they are likely to start using the land much more efficiently, hopefully, for much more productive utilisation as opposed to having it only as a backup because bulk of the revenue for them came from their work along the coast in the tourism industry.
“One hopes that once the coastal infrastructure is rebuilt they will be back in the tourism business but in the meantime utilising the land, not only for subsistence living but also, hopefully, for sale of goods and things in the formal sector—there is a great opportunity for that to happen. That is a very small example of how one might be able to manage smartly and turn the aftereffects of the natural disaster to an advantage.”
There seems to be a new realisation in governments across the Pacific about agriculture and the tremendous potential these islands have for organic farming – do you think that deserves a real good boost?
“I think absolutely so and if you looked at the recent records, we all know that over the last several decades, investment in agriculture has just gone down around the world. Of course the prices of food have increased exponentially and all of this in fact requires us to take another look at our own ability to be able to feed ourselves, so absolutely the answer is yes. One needs to do that.”
Is there any kind of thinking in terms of doing a Pacific-wide programme from the developmental side?
“I think that would be better answered by the FAO. We have a huge office here and for us food security is a huge issue. You cannot talk about poverty alleviation without addressing the issue of food. There also needs to be better, quicker and more efficient movement of produce between the islands in terms of inter-island trade. Those are issues the Pacific Islands Forum must look into. As a development partner, it’s very much a part of the UN agenda in Samoa and in the developing countries we work with. To what extent there will be successes, because we are talking about a lot of barriers despite WTO talks around the world and of course ability in countries like Samoa to gear up to the standards that are required. There’s a whole range of issues that we are looking at and supporting the government.”