Financial Times

Are leaders hearing the voice of the community?
The wise old owl decided last week to take flight and visit the tsunami affected coastal villages of the Southern, Eastern, Northern and Western regions of Sri Lanka.

During day time perched on a tree top, attentive and listening with closed eyes and at night time flying about observant of the ground situation, led the owl to sigh and mutter to himself "Are leaders hearing the voice of the community?"

The 100 metre rule and housing were the most vociferous topics in debate followed by non delivery of relief and promised handouts, livelihood issues, replacement of lost documents, "no action talk only", blatant discrimination, politics before justice and fair play, nepotism, corruption and ineffective governance structures. Issues impacting the vulnerable groups women, children and elders were also hotly debated. Water, sanitation, environment, education, health, psychosocial and restoration of the damaged infrastructure were of lesser priority, whilst yet in focus.

The South was vehemently against the 100 metre rule, whilst the North and East were willing to be accommodative if other real grievances (no support and commitment) were addressed within an acceptable, understanding and sympathetic governance framework.

It was obvious that preaching from the pulpit leaders, with no effective selling and buying in of village level opinion, had mishandled the issue from the beginning. Having now escalated to a political issue and with apparent discrimination being demonstrated towards some residents and especially the powerful hotel lobby, this is bound to have a series of consequential challenges in the days ahead.

Housing is a potential time bomb with leaders and officials having got it all wrong every where in the island. Unless decisive action is demonstrated soon and the community given the comfort that a fair, acceptable and timely solution is likely, there is a danger that government buildings will be occupied before the Sinhalese and Tamil new year by those under tents and in camps. Business communities beware, even the hotels may not be spared of this assault! The blinker wearing leaders with their instant and biased solutions may even set in motion another issue to the melting pot of issues by raising clashes and open differences amongst people of different castes.

When will politicians and leaders learn never to over promise? If they promised temporary structures within three months and permanent homes in two years and delivered early on both, these would be issues of a lesser magnitude today.

Relief distribution issues were always expected to be major. However, the inefficiency and ineffectiveness, laced with a fair amount of political interference and hands off attitude of officials have compounded the negative impact. Camp management is pathetic, where private sector active and effective involvement is not there.

The community voice is clear "there was no risk mitigation plans nor a disaster management action framework in place." Requisite systems, practices and leadership if at all was only on paper. Nobody is focussing on documentation related issues. The best equipped for these activities is not anyone else but the community itself. The neighbouring village communities in an emergency assisted by village level NGO networks are the best options.

Despite recently celebrating the International Women's Day, a history of women leaders and Ministers Sri Lanka boasts of, women, children and elders issues have not been focussed on at all. The security, safety and special needs of this segment, including lactating and pregnant mothers have been forgotten, though high in political agenda and in bold type in the women's charter.

The plight of the children is terrible and frightening. Colombo high society and pundits have messed up the orphans and single parent children's issues. Professionals have endorsed all that leaders said and theorized. International organizations have added their flavouring to this mess and happily erroneously interpreted statistics. Practices of the west like foster care have been pronounced without taking account of ground realities and quality of life of these innocent kids.

The twin dinosaurs of health and education are not yet focussed effectively and the results of waste, delays and unhealthy practices will be seen only when the nation's future resources are taken account of and historians assess the loss in national productivity.

The children are not going to school in many areas of the north and east, with disincentives evident in their environment. Why not arrange to provide special meals in all tsunami affected area schools, with parents and the community being activated by possibly small financial support commitments and encouraged to serve Kola Kenda in the mornings and a mid day meal. Are we sacrificing our achievements in Millennium Development targets?

Wise old owl laments remembering the saying " Bihiri alingta veena vadana karanawa ? - what is the use of the voice of the community to deaf and all knowing all powerful leaders?" (The writer, a respected business leader, could be reached at - wo_owl@yahoo.co.uk).

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