When the mountain broke: disaster governance in Sierra Leone

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>When a major landslide and floods devastated Freetown, Sierra Leone had just overcome the Ebola crisis, which had left its mark on socio-political relations between different disaster response actors. With international disaster response frameworks increasingly shifting to local ownership, the national government was expected to assume a coordinating role. However, in “post-conflict” settings such as Sierra Leone, intra-state and state–society relations are continuously being renegotiated. This study aimed to uncover the complexities of state-led disaster response in hybrid governance setting at national and community levels in the response to the 2017 landslide and floods.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>During the four months of fieldwork in Freetown in 2017, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with various state, aid and societal actors were conducted.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>The findings show that a response to policy building on the idea of a uniform state response did not take into account intra-state power politics or the complexity of Sierra Leone's hybrid governance.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title><jats:p>This paper argues for a more nuanced debate in humanitarian governance and practice on the localisation of aid in post-conflict and fragile settings.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>The study's findings contribute to the literature on the disaster–conflict nexus, identifying paradoxes of localised disaster response in an environment with strong national–local tensions. The study highlights intra-local state dynamics that are usually overlooked but have a great impact on the legitimacy of different state authorities in disaster response.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Preparing Social Work Students for International Field Education through Intercultural Awareness

“…There are several factors pressing up against these crisis drivers which interrupt responses to humanitarian contexts. There is the active presence of international humanitarian organisations who convey imperialistic tendencies [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] and different military groups [37]. There is also the heavy presence of reputable Christian charities like Save The Children [38,39] alongside other Christian charities engaged in questionable actions and possible proselyting programmes [40][41][42][43].…”

Telemedicine for Patient Management in Remote Areas and Underserved Populations

“…Challenges for telemedicine in the forested areas include: (1) poor communication in forested areas due to high trees, (2) dependence of communication on the atmospheric condition, (3) energy supply, (4) connection increment and attenuation due to heavy rains, (5) frequent storms, (6) vulnerability of electronic equipment against the rain and moisture, (7) network instability, (8) cost of maintenance and training of technicians and health-care workers, (9) the need for a large number of resources, people, and time to prepare telemedicine, (10) allocation of a suitable place for the installation of telemedicine equipment, (11) difficult transportation of equipment by small aircraft due to the high weight of the equipment, and ( 12) the need for a local guide for passing through difficult and dangerous terrains. OR "Mobile Health" OR "Telehealth" OR "mHealth" OR "mobile health" OR "eHealth" OR " Remote Consultation " OR "Teleconsultation" OR "Teleconsultations" OR "teleconference" OR "Teleradiology" OR "Telepathology" OR "Telerehabilitation" OR "telemonitoring" OR "telecare" OR "videoconference" OR "telepractice" OR "telenursing" OR "televisit") AND ("Mountain" OR "Mountains " OR "Mountaineering" OR "Altitude"[Mesh] OR "Altitudes" OR "Jungle" OR "Forest") 397 Scopus TITLE-ABS-KEY (("Telemedicine" OR "Mobile Health" OR "Telehealth" OR "mHealth" OR "mobile health" OR "eHealth" OR "Remote Consultation" OR "Teleconsultation" OR "Teleconsultations" OR "teleconference" OR "Teleradiology" OR "Telepathology" OR "Telerehabilitation" OR "telemonitoring" OR "telecare" OR "videoconference" OR "telepractice" OR "telenursing" OR "televisit") AND ("Mountain" OR "Mountains" OR "Mountaineering" OR "Altitude" OR "Altitudes" OR "Jungle" OR "Forest")…”

“…8 In addition to the mentioned reasons for needing telemedicine, mountainous and forested areas have always faced natural and man-made disasters, such as train accidents in mountainous areas, mountain falls, avalanches, landslides, floods, mudslides, debris, and forest fire. [9][10][11] They cause massive injuries and losses every year. In these cases, immediate disaster response is required, where the lack of facilities related to providing health services in these remote areas is more serious.…”

Weathering the storm: contesting disaster governance after Hurricane Matthew in Haiti

“…The contrast between international policies and the experienced reality of people affected by disasters highlights the importance of understanding the different structures that shape the power relations limiting society's role in disaster response. Scholars have critically examined the international aid system and aid-society relations (Hilhorst 2013(Hilhorst , 2016Barnett 2013;Cunningham 2018), explored community perspectives and understandings of disasters (Bakewell 2000;Bankoff 2003;Krüger et al 2015) and engaged with state-society disarticulation in the wake of disaster (Pelling and Dill 2010;Venugopal and Yasir 2017;Siddiqi and Canuday 2018;Melis and Hilhorst 2020). Nevertheless, the impact of state-society relations on how the response to disasters is governed has received less attention, especially seen from a bottom-up, societal perspective.…”