The latest official death toll has risen to 12,750 and nearly 14,706 people are still missing. These are the dramatic figures, following the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on 11 March. In addition, stocks of food, water, fuel and medicine are insufficient to supply the 350,000 people who have been evacuated to shelters in the North and East of the country, and to make matters worse, there are nearly 760,000 households that are still without water and 216,000 without electricity. Moreover, it is next to impossible to determine how the level of radioactivity may affect people, food and goods produced near the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. A natural disaster of this magnitude causes both a devastated country and a humanitarian crisis. In terms of human resources, such an unpredictable event represents one of the hardest challenges, with an urgent need for volunteer workers who must be deployed effectively.

Climate change, latent pandemics and increasing urbanisation have all aggravated the magnitude of natural catastrophes, even when they occur in a developed country such as Japan. Unprecedented phenomena such as the Indonesian tsunami in 2005 and last year’s earthquake in Haiti and floods in Pakistan all highlighted the need to design a more systematic and professional approach in the event of massive disasters.

Traditionally, humanitarian organisations provide both professionals and volunteers from local and international sources and their appeal for help depends on the nature of the work that is needed. It has been argued, however, that teams brought together in such a rapid manner are not ideal because there are always the occasional individuals who are out to make their mark without realising that the way they perform may affect the achievements of the team as a whole.

Ideally, the workforce to fulfil assignments around the world and support the local authorities and the affected population in the event of a humanitarian crisis should be composed of a large number of humanitarian support personnel (HSPs) specialising across a range of disciplines. Unfortunately, however, this plan is less feasible than ever. 

The recession has hit the level of development aid to under-developed countries and international agencies need to take this into consideration when determining projects. Even though the EU is considered to be the largest development aid contributor in the world, donating 60 per cent of global aid, the majority of EU member states dismissed the promise – made at the G8 Summit in Scotland in July 2005 – to raise aid budgets to 0.56 per cent of GNP by 2010 (and to reach 0.7 per cent by 2015) by indicating that this was unattainable, due to the worldwide financial crisis.

Moreover, official cuts in humanitarian and development aid are also being made by developed countries due to what analysts call “donor fatigue”, meaning that donors do not see tangible results from the money they give to the most disadvantaged countries.

Both the current economic climate, and the speed and magnitude with which natural disasters strike nowadays, are forcing international organisations to organise a greater number of developed – and fewer improvised – schemes in terms of HR.

Firstly, an organisation should draw up new international, regional and local lists with an agreed level of skills and availability of people. International professional staff will be combined with a larger number of local and regional staff working temporarily with humanitarian organisation. All the workers in these situations have to show that they possess the right training, skills and competencies, as well as the willingness to play their part in a larger undertaking. In the People in Aid Report entitled Building Resilient Managers in Humanitarian Organisations, an emphasis was placed on the importance of resilience, which embraces qualities such as adaptability, hardness and creativity in problem-solving. Such resilience was seen as a major skill, needed in order to succeed in a devastated landscape.

Once humanitarian organisations have arranged for the ideal staff, they can start to develop a range of simple HR tools and processes that can help to not only build teams quickly, but to keep them motivated. Some examples of such processes could be fast information about corporate culture, task-oriented terms of reference and working conditions. Trust and cooperation between international, regional and local staff are the foundation for a humanitarian organisation’s philosophy. 

In this way, these organisations can ensure that they are working without wasting resources, the local staff gain career development opportunities and emergency responses can be linked with continued long-term development, especially in less developed countries.