Ethical Challenges of Disaster Management Faced by Humanitarian Populations: Empirical Insights from a Developing Country
Abstract
Disaster management in Pakistan has been merely focusing on managing medical, food, and rehabilitation resources, but not so much on the humanitarian ethics during the relief efforts. The National Disaster Management Framework in Pakistan focuses on documenting the ethical approaches but fails to practically incorporate them when administering relief and recovery services in Pakistan. There is not so much knowledge, awareness, and practical implications about standards of conduct, which could guide the disaster management team and social service providers about actions and behaviors conforming to morals and professional values throughout the disaster recovery phase. This study is one of the first to explore the ethical issues faced by disaster survivors after relief providers respond to their needs in the posthumanitarian fields of Pakistan. It aims to identify the gaps that exist in ethical practices required in disaster management, particularly in the relief and recovery stages of humanitarian crises in Pakistan. This study gathered data from flood victims in the Pakistani cities of Sambhrial, Hafizabad, and Rajanpur. The data collection activities were funded by the Humanitarian Innovation Initiative, Brown University, and conducted in collaboration with the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS). Our results indicate that relief workers are trained technically but not on the humanitarian ethics in terms of handling humanitarian populations on equitable and rights-based disaster management grounds.
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Data Availability Statement
All data generated or analyzed during the study are included in the published paper.
Acknowledgments
This project was partly funded by the Center of Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies (CHRHS), Brown University, USA.
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Published In
Natural Hazards Review
Volume 25 • Issue 3 • August 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 12, 2023
Accepted: Dec 21, 2023
Published online: Mar 30, 2024
Published in print: Aug 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Aug 30, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Business management
- Developing countries
- Disaster preparedness
- Disaster recovery
- Disaster response
- Disaster risk management
- Emergency management
- Engineering profession
- Ethics
- Freight transportation
- Infrastructure
- Logistics
- Population projection
- Practice and Profession
- Professional practice
- Resource management
- Sustainable development
- Transportation engineering
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