An Overview of the Structure of the Current System

Abstract

The most salient characteristic of the international disaster relief system is its complexity, a characteristic that until the beginning of the 1970s effectively discouraged most attempts to reform the channels through which relief assistance is provided. Barbara Brown describes the roles of the major governmental and nongovernmental actors that participate in providing relief and notes the numerous efforts to increase their efficiency and effectiveness. The “system” that presently exists was not, for the most part, designed to provide relief with the result that requests for this form of assistance must pass through multiple bureaucratic levels before those requests are finally acted upon. Dr. Brown argues that despite these initial efforts at reform, both the efficiency and effectiveness of major relief agencies leave much to be desired if they are viewed from the standpoint of the recipients of disaster aid and that these objectives can only be achieved by further institutionalization of what is all too frequently a fleeting international concern with disaster relief.