00:00:00:03 - 00:00:24:21
Ilan Kelman
How do we generate trust? How do we create nice women, nice men, nice people? How do we ensure that people want to do good things? Because so many disaster pregnancy opportunities collapse due to lack of interest in having trust, not even saving law. It's not even dropping a disaster from happening. Avoiding a disaster, not even responding to disaster can overcome hate.
00:00:24:23 - 00:00:34:24
Ilan Kelman
So this is the crux. How do we overcome it?
00:00:35:01 - 00:01:01:11
Kyle King
So welcome to another edition of the Crisis Conflict Emergency Summit podcast. My name is Kyle. I'll be your host today. And this podcast episode explores the fascinating world of disaster diplomacy, the concept that international crises, particularly those related to natural disasters, can have an impact on peace and conflict. So today, we're going to discuss the origins and evolution of disaster diplomacy, successful and unsuccessful efforts to use it to address conflicts and the role of communication and trust building and much more.
00:01:01:11 - 00:01:21:19
Kyle King
We're going to delve into the potential for disaster diplomacy to be used as a tool for diplomacy beyond natural disasters and how it intersects with other fields such as health and development. And today, we are joined by Ilan Kelman and is a professor of disaster and health at University College of London in England, and a professor at the University of Edgar Kristiansand, Norway.
00:01:21:21 - 00:01:41:06
Kyle King
His overall research interest is linking disasters and help integrating climate change into both. And three main areas are disaster diplomacy and health diplomacy islands, sustainability involving safe and healthy communities in isolated locations, and risk education for health and disasters. So, Ilan, thank you very much for joining us today. We're happy to have you on the show.
00:01:41:08 - 00:01:43:15
Ilan Kelman
Thanks for the opportunity. Looking forward to it.
00:01:43:17 - 00:01:56:17
Kyle King
So let's just start, I guess, from the very beginning. Right. And let's just define disaster diplomacy. So if you can help our listeners understand sort of the origins of this concept and how it's been evolved or how it's been changing over time.
00:01:56:19 - 00:02:39:15
Ilan Kelman
It's basically disaster diplomacy, investigating how and why disaster related activities do and do not influence conflict and cooperation. So it is very much this whole concept of disaster related activities before prevention, mitigation, preparedness, planning readiness during the emergency response and emergency management, but also after the recovery, the reconstruction, the rehabilitation, the idea being that disasters are absolute horrific situation and long term processes because they take a while to happen due to lack of preparedness and then often people are recovering years afterwards.
00:02:39:17 - 00:03:11:05
Ilan Kelman
They do happen in different areas of conflict or war. Good dealing with the disaster and preferably preventing one actually helped to resolve conflict can lead to peace and cooperation. And sadly, we very much struggle to find clear examples where this obviously happens often. The desire for conflict. Often the war, often animosity between people or institutions or countries, unfortunately, supersedes saving lives and helping people during crisis.
00:03:11:07 - 00:03:44:21
Kyle King
Yeah, thanks for that and for helping us get a better understanding of disaster diplomacy and what that means. What has been sort of the evolution of this? I mean, obviously we all recognize that disasters will happen regardless of conflict or location or or whatever the case is there. When did this become more of a topic about trying to leverage, I guess, for lack of a better word, the disaster aspect or disaster risk reduction programs or whatever the the cases and try and build in or integrate, you know, conflict stabilization or peace in conflict resolution.
00:03:44:23 - 00:03:47:05
Kyle King
When did these start to merge together?
00:03:47:07 - 00:04:10:10
Ilan Kelman
Like al topics, there's actually a long history which really covers humanity. So we know that diplomacy has been going on for, what, the past 10,000 years since humanity, modern humanity emerged from last place, siege. And unfortunately, disasters have always happened in terms of modern science. There were a couple of very interesting key papers, really at the local level from the 1970s.
00:04:10:12 - 00:04:37:05
Ilan Kelman
There was also a lot of wider scope than in the decades that followed, particularly aspects like energy diplomacy. So were various energy crises which were absolutely disasters, and also people trying to use vaccinations and dealing with disease outbreaks in order to bring together particularly underneath states that was more at the national level. We thought that this topic did have merit after the 1999 earthquakes in Greece and Turkey.
00:04:37:07 - 00:04:59:08
Ilan Kelman
So 17th August 1999, an earthquake outside ripped through northwestern Turkey. Almost 17,000 people were killed, if not more. And Greece and Turkey were very much at loggerheads, even though they were NATO's allies. They had almost come to violent conflict a few times and they simply were not really in sort of diplomatic approaches trying to bring peace to the area.
00:04:59:10 - 00:05:19:24
Ilan Kelman
But Greece suddenly offered assistance to Turkey, and Turkey said, of course we want it. Then three weeks later, 7th of September, 1999, Athens was rocked by an earthquake. Over 100 people were killed. And it was actually Turkey's premier rescue team which phoned the Greek ambassador in Ankara and said, you know, there's been a huge earthquake. We will do anything to help.
00:05:20:04 - 00:05:44:11
Ilan Kelman
And Greece said to Turkey, of course we will take it. Suddenly, Greece and Turkey were friends. The foreign ministers were dancing together, traditional music. Greece was supporting Turkey's entry into the European Union. There was a groundswell of support from ordinary Greeks and Turks, saying, We're all in the same region. We need to help each other. And this led us to start thinking about disaster diplomacy.
00:05:44:13 - 00:06:12:22
Ilan Kelman
So we had a colleague, James Kurlansky, do a very thorough and fascinating analysis showing that actually the earthquakes did not lead to the peace. There were a lot of undercurrents between Greece and Turkey beforehand where the elites were trying to say, we cannot have conflict in this area. There was a civil war in 1999. There was a fight that they were NATO's allies and they did want to lead the region, both in terms of the Balkans and in terms of the European Union.
00:06:12:24 - 00:06:38:17
Ilan Kelman
So the elites had a rapprochement process going on. The earthquakes blew it out into the open and brought on a lot of the media, a lot of the ordinary people and a lot of other sectors. But this also made it a target. So some people said, why are we coming together with our enemy? And in fact, the apportionment process almost fell apart by people attacking the individuals and tightening the process.
00:06:38:17 - 00:07:16:21
Ilan Kelman
But because it was longstanding and we later traced it back several years earlier because it was long standing, it did survive. And yeah, Greece and Turkey had their differences. Obviously, Turkey is not exactly led by a particularly nice person, which does lead to issues regarding diplomacy. But in the end, Greece and Turkey have dealt with disasters, disaster prevention, disaster response, training, disaster management, and have really tried to be allies, including through the situation where Russia and Russian backed forces have invaded Ukraine and occupied territory for several years.
00:07:16:23 - 00:07:43:14
Ilan Kelman
So what we see is obviously diplomacy, cooperation, collaboration, cooperation between Greece and Turkey. But did it come from the earthquakes? No, although the 1999 earthquakes influenced that, just as the 2002 three earthquake hitting Turkey and Syria influence that. But in the end, neither derailed nor supported. It was simply one thought among many. And this is obviously the pattern that we've discovered over the past 23 years.
00:07:43:14 - 00:07:51:02
Ilan Kelman
Now, looking across all sorts of examples. But back to our origins of those 1999 earthquakes.
00:07:51:04 - 00:08:17:09
Kyle King
Oh, very interesting. Thanks for that explanation. And when you're going through sort of those events, the first thing I was thinking about is establishing that type of communication and trust. That is obviously going to be foundational to disaster diplomacy. So what are some of the challenges that can come up with trying to work with these through these diplomatic channels to use disaster response and humanitarian aid and other aspects as a mechanism for diplomacy?
00:08:17:10 - 00:08:46:18
Ilan Kelman
You've obviously hit the crux. Trust, often led by individuals, individuals working within their institutional or organizational contexts, and that includes being leaders, being political leaders, whether it's at the local level or national level or international level. One very good example is actually 26th January 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, which killed over 25,000 people. And India and Pakistan have fought a few wars since partition in 1947.
00:08:46:18 - 00:09:07:16
Ilan Kelman
And again, they've not really been the best of friends, to put it mildly. And yet, after that earthquake, India and Pakistan were suddenly talking about cooperation and collaboration. Why? Because the de facto leader of Pakistan at the time was Musharraf, and he later became the official leader. He picked up the phone to the prime minister of India and said, this is devastating.
00:09:07:16 - 00:09:33:17
Ilan Kelman
How can I help? That generated trust, that trend generated when it also led to a summit in July 2001 between Musharraf and Vajpayee, which then ended in acrimony, fell apart. And later that year, we were fearing a nuclear war between those two countries because of the lack of trust, because of lack of history that fell apart and not even that earthquake disaster in India could bring them together.
00:09:33:19 - 00:09:51:24
Ilan Kelman
Why did Musharraf pick up the phone? And we don't know. I would have loved to interview and interviewed him to ask him. Unfortunately, he's passed away now. Some people theorize that it was an advisor. Some people theorize it was internal politics. Musharraf definitely trying to take control of the country. Some people say, well, you know, it's a nice guy theory of history.
00:09:52:05 - 00:10:11:17
Ilan Kelman
Some people are evil, some people are nice, and they just want to do good things. Looking at Musharraf's character and the history of his politics, I'm not convinced the nice guy theory applies to him. This is really it. How do we generate trust? How do we create nice women, Nice men, nice people? How do we ensure that people want do good things?
00:10:11:19 - 00:10:36:04
Ilan Kelman
Because so many disaster diplomacy opportunities collapse due to lack of interest in having trust in thought. 26th December 2003 The World Heritage City of Bam in southern Iran was shattered by an earthquake. Again, over 25,000 people were killed, similar to the death toll and could drop. And the world leapt into action and said, we have to help. We need to bring in aid.
00:10:36:06 - 00:10:57:11
Ilan Kelman
And Iran said, of course, we're opening our doors, will take aid from the US, will take aid from anyone except Israel. Yes, Iran does not recognize Israel and not even people under the rubble would lead them to request one of the best search and rescue teams in the region. We're just a couple of hours flights away who could be on site pulling people out and saving lives.
00:10:57:17 - 00:11:22:11
Ilan Kelman
So that inertia of historical dislike, that lack of trust, that lack of interest and trust derails all these personal processes. Simply going back to the conclusion, not even saving lives. It's not even stopping a disaster from happening. Avoiding a disaster, not even responding to disaster can overcome hate. So this is the crux. How do we overcome it?
00:11:22:17 - 00:11:48:08
Kyle King
And that's a very challenging topic because as you mentioned, a lot of this is very historical. It's very long term. It's generational conflict that has developed and sort of lasted through, you know, decades. And it's very difficult to overcome. And near examples, I think, are thought on in terms of even in some cases, even the worst humanitarian sort of issues cannot overcome sort of the institutional and long term generational sort of disagreements between nations.
00:11:48:10 - 00:12:15:14
Kyle King
A lot of these problems or a lot of these examples you're talking about are essentially bilateral riots and between nation states. How much I'm curious when you're explaining that, has the dynamic changed in some way, some form or fashion by the use of international cooperation mechanisms? So you got obviously UN okay, you got European Union civil protection mechanisms, you've got NATO's your Atlantic Disaster response coordination centers.
00:12:15:16 - 00:12:32:07
Kyle King
And so how has this changed? So obviously, we've established there's a bilateral state to state sort of way to have leverage disasters or humanity responds to aid and diplomacy. But what about these international levels? How has that dynamic shifted or changed with the use of these international mechanisms.
00:12:32:10 - 00:12:57:02
Ilan Kelman
Is an ongoing investigation. But so far, our conclusion is, as international dynamics don't change anything. This comes from history 1783 to 1784. The volcano lucky in Iceland erupted. It probably killed over 50,000 people across Europe due to the volcanic ash changing the weather. Denmark, which was a colonial power of Iceland at the time, tried to offer humanitarian aid.
00:12:57:04 - 00:13:25:02
Ilan Kelman
And there's a lot of work still to be done to understand it. But it had some successes, but it could have been a lot better. And a lot of that is simply the international dynamics of not overly caring about a colony, the time and the distance required to get there, lack of information and having more domestic concerns. Unfortunately, even the UN or the European Union or the African Union or ASEAN, other international organizations don't necessarily change that.
00:13:25:08 - 00:13:56:13
Ilan Kelman
Where the inertia of dislike, the inertia, disinterest, the inertia of not worrying about people dying continues. What we are discovering, though, is something more positive. And this is the individual dynamic, which again is historical. It's not only modern that informal approaches can be far more powerful than formal approaches or mechanisms. Just like the Greek and Turkish foreign ministers in 1999 had a personal connection, which helped drive their countries forward.
00:13:56:13 - 00:14:35:04
Ilan Kelman
In terms of a club of small and cooperation, individuals at any level can influence the poorest person and type someone else and like them or hate them, can generate trust and generate animosity. The largest leader from arts, entertainment, sports and of course, science and push forward processes. And hopefully it's for cooperation or not, conflict. Despite the difficulties between India and Pakistan, some people say that the two countries were brought together in the last generation, most when one of Pakistan's top cricket stars married one of India's top tennis stars.
00:14:35:06 - 00:15:03:08
Ilan Kelman
These are different types of diplomacy which can then spill over, come forward into hoping for international and local cooperation regarding disasters, which includes local cooperation, which is cross-border science, diplomacy, What scientists can do. Cuba and the US are an excellent example. When Fidel Castro was the totalitarian dictator of Cuba, he actually implemented amazing health and disaster prevention programs with very exciting results.
00:15:03:12 - 00:15:29:19
Ilan Kelman
But he was not friendly with the US, and he often used the disaster in Cuba to reinforce the lack of connection with the US, which help shore up his power. Meanwhile, in the US, Florida has a strong group of Cuban Americans who didn't want anything whatsoever to do with supporting Castro's regime in any way. They had a lot of influence in Washington, D.C. for the national government.
00:15:29:21 - 00:15:59:11
Ilan Kelman
And so any attempts by the White House to make connections with Castro and possibly bring down his government and introduce democracy through giving aid and supporting Cuban initiatives that were scuppered in return for trying to create barriers. Yet at the individual level, many American scientists and many Cuban scientists were collaborating for hurricane monitoring, hurricane surveillance, hurricane preparedness, as well as some Nino and La Nina, to exchange information, to exchange ideas and to help both their countries.
00:15:59:12 - 00:16:23:01
Ilan Kelman
So that was individual, informal interactions which undoubtedly saved lives in both the US and Cuba. These informal approaches are possible ways forward with informality, again being head of state or head of government, or just an ordinary citizen who wants to do something to save lives. So let's have the human factor part for emergency managers, particularly for crisis responders.
00:16:23:01 - 00:16:37:19
Ilan Kelman
Let's just be human beings, deal with each other as human beings, hoping that will ripple outwards and support each other in terms of doing what all of us hopefully want to do, which is save lives across borders, irrespective of politics.
00:16:37:21 - 00:16:56:14
Kyle King
Yeah, that's interesting. I'm actually glad that you expanded a little bit beyond just natural disasters because first of all, the when you were talking, I think about sort of the sayings that we use in emergency management, which is that all disasters are local, so everything has a local impact and is driven locally. That's the first response mechanism and all the recovery happens locally.
00:16:56:14 - 00:17:33:02
Kyle King
And so all disasters are local. And it's interesting news, that example of just cross-border cooperation, because just even that communities that live on borders between all that's just between states and the United States or between countries in Europe, you know, there's often a lot of cross-border cooperation regardless. And so a lot of application of local diplomacy efforts. But when you are talking about moving beyond, say, quote unquote, traditional disasters of, let's say, earthquakes, fires, floods, things like that, and we're starting to get more, you know, into this evolution of climate security and sort of the changing climate and things that cause, you know, migration and other aspects.
00:17:33:02 - 00:18:00:06
Kyle King
So when we're talking about and we're forecasting into the future a bit more, but as we see a changing climate, a changing environment and the impact on food security, water security and other aspects, what sort of impact do you think that's going to have on disaster diplomacy efforts, which let's just say for purposes of discussion, have been focused more on the response and the relief side or even in some cases you're talking about science and technical or even academic cooperation.
00:18:00:10 - 00:18:05:02
Kyle King
But how does it adapt or evolve in the face of new challenges?
00:18:05:04 - 00:18:37:17
Ilan Kelman
This goes to the fundamental. So you've raised a wonderful one. All disasters are local. The other one is no disasters. Natural environment does not build structures that clots and earthquakes. We have all the technical knowledge we need, but still we see structures, clubs in earthquakes. So to try and bring this idea to decision makers who can say we do want planning regulations and building codes to stop structures collapsing and earthquakes or tornadoes, we try and avoid the phrase natural disaster and just call them disasters, hoping that world courts policy.
00:18:37:19 - 00:19:02:07
Ilan Kelman
What does this mean for climate change? Well, by definition, climate change is affecting the weather. We know we are changing the climate rapidly and substantially. We're seeing that in the weather. But in most cases, weather does not cause disasters because disasters are not natural as such. In most cases, not all. Climate change does not cause disasters. Climate change does not cause conflict.
00:19:02:07 - 00:19:43:06
Ilan Kelman
Climate change does not cause migration. And we've tried extensively to identify force migrants from climate change and we've really struggled. We've tried extensively to identify an international or local conflict which arises from only climate change. And we've really struggled. Is what we find is it's about people, people with power making decisions. And throughout human history, whether it's from weather or earthquakes or diamonds or coal or gold, we find examples of resource extraction and environmental hazards leading or exacerbating conflict and leading to or exacerbating peace.
00:19:43:08 - 00:20:12:04
Ilan Kelman
We also find examples of the absence of resources, resource scarcity, and the absence of environmental change leading to or exacerbating conflict and leading to or exacerbating peace. So when we have this huge divergence of results, it's not about the environment, it's not about the earthquake or the flood or the diamonds. It's about people using those situations to achieve their desired outcomes of peace and conflict.
00:20:12:06 - 00:20:48:18
Ilan Kelman
So yes, we are changing the weather. That is climate change. No doubt whatsoever that is going to lead to water scarcity in many places. And we are seeing that now. People with power make the decision, are we going to fight over, reduce water or are we going to collaborate over this water? Are we going to implement water conservation measures to avoid a worse drought, or are we just going to build a dam on our territory and cause problems for the country downstream across the border, which, for example, India has done with respect to Bangladesh?
00:20:48:20 - 00:21:13:13
Ilan Kelman
And there's a lot of issues surrounding the Nile about water resources. So with the transboundary river like the Ganges, like the Nile, countries could sit down and say, whatever happens, we are causing major problems for the climate. We are doing climate change, we are causing it. We have to deal with the melting glaciers in the Middle East. We have to deal with the radically altered weather patterns around the Nile.
00:21:13:13 - 00:21:44:19
Ilan Kelman
Can we work together or are we just going to draw lines that our national borders and say, you can fight us, we're going to do what we want? And these are political decisions, nothing to do with how the weather is changing or the fact that we're changing that weather. So this is where we need individuals with the power and the choices to take the opportunity to want to seek peace rather than, unfortunately, all the domestic and resource issues and political issues of grabbing power and retaining power, which then often leads to wider scale conflict.
00:21:44:21 - 00:22:09:24
Kyle King
May a very interesting take on that. That's that's quite fascinating. And when we break it down in that way, that it's not necessarily well, let me just say it is the human actions and this human intervention in a lot of it that causes many of these problems. Right. And so there are specific decisions that are being made to mitigate the effects of climate change, like we mentioned, with water scarcity and then building dams and then political and investment decisions required to build a dam, and then the effects of that.
00:22:09:24 - 00:22:33:01
Ilan Kelman
And that's exactly it, because we also do have to stop human caused climate change. We have to stop this pollution that is going to require local and international cooperation. And we're not doing very well. The international climate change negotiations, which are meant to an agreement for this, they've been going on for over a generation. We still don't have an effective agreement and it's a complete failure in disaster diplomacy.
00:22:33:01 - 00:22:54:15
Ilan Kelman
Yet another one are climate change diplomacy. Conversely, we do know one disaster that we're seeing now, which is directly linked to human caused climate change, and that's heat waves. So the heat and humidity that we are seeing around the world today and of course over past years directly linked to human caused climate change. We have not seen anything like this in human history of the past 10,000 years.
00:22:54:15 - 00:23:22:03
Ilan Kelman
And when this knocks out food and water, when people die, simply being outside in the fields or as construction workers or delivery workers, they basically have no choice. They are forced migrants or they die in place. And this is the one example which is huge, devastating and terrifying. Of course, migration of disasters which are caused by human caused climate change directly link And we are going to see a lot more of that.
00:23:22:05 - 00:23:35:23
Kyle King
And so with that type of forced migration, what are some of the expectations in coming out? You know, if we are pulling out our crystal ball and sort of, you know, forecasting and looking into the future, what do we think about that forced migration or climate and induced migration that's occurring?
00:23:35:23 - 00:24:05:00
Ilan Kelman
Their expectations are up to us, crystal balls up to us. Do we want to help people? Do we want to say that awfully? We are locked into certain areas being cross uninhabitable, so let's help the people now? Or are we just going to wait for them to flee without any choice and then deal with all the hate and the politics and the horrible human impacts that we're seeing now with regards to migrants, not all of whom are forced, but some of them are, or are we going to plan ahead?
00:24:05:00 - 00:24:28:06
Ilan Kelman
What we need to do now and what I hope the expectation would be with leaders, number one, stopping human caused climate change to at least reduce some of the terrible heat impacts. Number two, identify the specific locations that will be very difficult to live in without high death rates. Number three, support the people to move to places which are as close to them currently as possible.
00:24:28:08 - 00:24:50:04
Ilan Kelman
I mean, moving intercontinental way, why should that happen? That will include some cross border, that will include some internal displacement, irrespective, let's support them to do on their own terms, in their own ways rather than waiting until it's too late. But my crystal ball says that we are increasing our hate in society. We are increasing our dislike of other people in society.
00:24:50:06 - 00:25:12:15
Ilan Kelman
A lot of people are understandably concerned that people don't have livelihood opportunities where they are, and they're just trying to earn more money by migrating across borders. And I would prefer to help people stay in place. Conversely, there are a lot of forced migrants who obviously need our help and do not deserve the hate which is directed at them.
00:25:12:17 - 00:25:35:02
Ilan Kelman
On the other hand, if we stop conflict, if we deal with the governments who are oppressing their own people rather than supporting them, which has been our history, then people won't feel compelled to migrate. So what do we need? Well, we need more inanity. What do we need? We need more leader with the power and resources. Looking beyond their borders to help everyone, which then helps ourselves.
00:25:35:04 - 00:25:58:09
Ilan Kelman
What are my expectations? We are becoming more polarized. We are becoming more fearful of others. We are also becoming more overwhelmed with people moving for different reasons in different ways. And of course, our governments cannot always deal with that properly. That's fully understandably. We can even go back to Cuba in the US, when Cubans were very understandably trying to get out of their dictatorship.
00:25:58:11 - 00:26:23:04
Ilan Kelman
But if the US picked up Cubans in the ocean, they return them to Cuba. The idea was to save Cuban lives. It's far, far too many people were dying on the sea and this is happening in the Mediterranean and people trying to get to the Canary Islands at the moment. So let's really focus on saving lives. But ultimately, what we the trend at the moment, what we are seeing is unfortunately less diplomacy and therefore more disaster.
00:26:23:08 - 00:26:42:12
Kyle King
Yeah, definitely. I would agree with that. I think that there is a large movement to, for lack of a better term, sort of nationalize and then have a national perspective about things these days. But there's a lot of value in investment and trying to create stability in other countries so that you can reduce the potential for mass migration and everything else that goes along with that.
00:26:42:12 - 00:27:10:22
Kyle King
You can simply just can't shut down everything and nationalize and focus on your own country because you will still have external factors and impact upon your own country. Whereas if you take a more holistic view of like what you're talking about and if you want to create stability in those other countries and help foster economic development and cooperation, to be able to provide, you know, development in these countries to decrease overall migration, then that's money well spent in terms of trying to relieve that pressure that's going to be applied externally anyway on your own country.
00:27:10:22 - 00:27:27:03
Kyle King
And then to cause this additional conflict and the fear mongering and everything else that goes along with that. And so I think that's all very valid strategy, and we've seen that a lot in sort of the security sector as well. It's like, how do we increase security? Well, let's increase the security of our neighboring states around us. Right?
00:27:27:03 - 00:27:48:07
Kyle King
If the more stable they are, the more stable we are. And so there's a sound philosophy that goes behind that. And I fear that certain extent that's getting lost in the discussions behind sustainability and development and migration and everything else, as opposed to where we're leading in a more sort of a political slant towards nationalism. And I think that's going to be something that we're going to have to deal with in the very near future.
00:27:48:09 - 00:27:54:07
Ilan Kelman
No one wants to be forced migrant, No one wants to draw English Channel. Let's help them with what they want.
00:27:54:12 - 00:28:12:10
Kyle King
Yeah, And one of the challenges that we see is, and especially in our field, in the field that we work in, is with that investment. It takes time. Right. So we should have been doing this ten years ago or longer. So if we haven't done it then then we should start today. But then the real issue is how do we also measure these things?
00:28:12:10 - 00:28:20:16
Kyle King
You know, measurement of progress, measurement of disaster diplomacy, and how do we measure success in these types of efforts?
00:28:20:18 - 00:28:47:08
Ilan Kelman
We don't know. We're working on it. The quantification of disaster diplomacy is something that we've tried. We have completely failed to come up with any quantitative model that is explanatory or predictive. It really comes down to the qualitative statements, the overall conclusions that disaster diplomacy generally does not work. Many people have done quite intensive statistical analysis. The data are not there to make those analysis fully valid.
00:28:47:08 - 00:29:07:13
Ilan Kelman
It's often the basic academic question, Well, how do we define a disaster? How do we delineate a disaster? When did it start and time? When did it stop in time? When did it start in space? When to stop in space? Same with diplomacy. How do we even define diplomacy? The diplomacy start with the accession to power of the last leader.
00:29:07:14 - 00:29:34:13
Ilan Kelman
The appointment of the diplomat, the definition of the country. And when we do change those definitions of both disaster and diplomacy, the outcomes of quantitative analysis change radically. In fact, it's exactly as you said. We need to be doing this for years if we want to stop the influx of force migrants to retract countries not because we dislike migrants, but because we want to help people in place and build up other countries.
00:29:34:15 - 00:29:55:06
Ilan Kelman
One of the best times to have started was the day after World War Two ended. Similarly for that. So the second best time to start is today. And that's a qualitative statement. That's a qualitative analysis. We can try and calculate how many people die in a disaster, how many people are injured, how many people are forced to move into disaster.
00:29:55:08 - 00:30:21:05
Ilan Kelman
We can calculate how many meetings diplomats have had, how many bilateral and multilateral agreements countries signed. Is it even worthwhile trying to correlate those values because they may not be correlated? Well, they may not actually match the statistical analyzes which are being done, and then people will quite rightly dispute those ideas of how we're defining disaster. So, yeah, we're continuing to work with numbers.
00:30:21:05 - 00:30:39:07
Ilan Kelman
Others are doing a lot of very exciting work using different databases. So far, there is nothing quantitative. There are no metrics that I can actually offer per say. This is how we can show numbers for disaster diplomacy succeeding or failing. So far, the only robust statements that I can make are qualitative.
00:30:39:09 - 00:30:59:17
Kyle King
Yeah, thanks for that. It's very interesting and something that echoes a lot of what we've seen with our work as well. And we often have, or at least I personally have an expression of there's a lot of personality driven operations. And so it's up to people at the end of the day and whether or not they are willing, as we discussed, whether or not they're willing to make decisions that will help build peace and stability in the region.
00:30:59:22 - 00:31:11:07
Kyle King
So with this whole broad discussion in terms of disaster diplomacy and all the different aspects and helping your neighboring countries and states, are there any ethical concerns associated with disaster diplomacy?
00:31:11:09 - 00:31:42:15
Ilan Kelman
Yes. What is the humanitarian imperative? Why are we trying to link pulling people out of the rubble with long term peace? Many emergency responders, many humanitarian agencies take line that they are and must be neutral and partizan and objective. They provide help irrespective of individual. No one can dispute how laudable that is. No one can dispute how about much protects the rescue workers and emergency responders, as well as ensures that we are saving as many lives as possible?
00:31:42:16 - 00:32:12:07
Ilan Kelman
The converse is more academic. No individual is neutral. No process involving people can be objective. Nothing involving politics is ever partizan. Everything regarding disasters is fundamentally political. Again, there are no natural disasters. So the ethical concern is, well, what to do about us? We know that taking the ideas of neutrality and partizanship and objectivity has had incredible successes, really positive, really exciting.
00:32:12:07 - 00:32:30:13
Ilan Kelman
And this has been demonstrated over decades. On the other hand, we don't really want to be dishonest or misrepresent by saying we are neutral and partizan and objective. Everything is political and we see there long term political processes. So the ethical question is really what do we do about it? And the answer for the moment is it's contextual.
00:32:30:15 - 00:32:53:21
Ilan Kelman
Sometimes we do have to always consider the long term. We always have to bring politics into it. We must link politicians with rescue workers on the ground. Other times, that's just going to kill the rescue workers and could even undermine good politicians. So let's separate it, pretend to separate, or at least temporarily, just say we're going to separate a normal reengage with those longer term processes.
00:32:53:23 - 00:33:25:18
Ilan Kelman
Is that ethical? Well, for me, as long as we do reach long term goals of avoiding disasters and avoiding conflict, I'm how people thought and at the same time that we will write erudite academic discourses and present with big words and long sentences saying, well, no one is neutral and everything is political. I'm very comfortable with. At the same time, in an operational, practical context, saying our job here is to divorce it from politics, get people out of the rubble and build structures that do not become rubble.
00:33:25:20 - 00:33:49:24
Kyle King
And there's very much academic view and very much a practical view in terms of being able to achieve any effect on the ground. And so in measuring those two, yes, we can debate the terminology and the aspects of it, but when you are actually on the ground, the teams and you're delivering humanitarian aid and humanitarian aid, that's when it becomes important to actually achieve, in effect, coming back to measuring even and certain numbers, I mean, there's a political measurement we could take.
00:33:49:24 - 00:34:12:23
Kyle King
We could take a, you know, try and assess a national level change of perspective or reform long term with strategic programs. But at the same time, there is something that we can measure in the amount of teams that they delivered, the people rescued from rubble. There's quantitative aspects that we can capture if we're just willing to to sort of look at the action, the political debate behind it all.
00:34:12:24 - 00:34:22:24
Ilan Kelman
And I really like that balance because those metrics to exist, let's try them. Let's run some correlations and see what happens, what the outcomes are provided, admit the limitations.
00:34:23:01 - 00:34:47:13
Kyle King
And so how do we start to convert that? So how do we start to convert, let's say, the actions on the ground? We're quantifying these efforts. We're promoting cooperation slowly but surely, and we're able to, you know, maybe evolve from a actual earthquake response, humanitarian operation. There have been some good news stories coming out of that. And then how do we evolve from that into promoting longer term peace?
00:34:47:14 - 00:35:11:01
Kyle King
Has there been any sort of study? I guess, in terms of what it would take from, say, at initial olive branch and humanitarian relief into something more long term as far as maybe bilateral cooperation in or moving from a response to exercises, mutual cooperation, training, is there any sort of measurement or metrics that have been designed to enable progress.
00:35:11:03 - 00:35:38:03
Ilan Kelman
At the primary level? It's people wanting peace, people who have the power to achieve cooperation, wanting it, and that happens. Erosive to the disaster related activities. They will use disaster related activities as one excuse among many to achieve. That Perfect example is a 26th December 2004 huge earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, leading to the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed perhaps a quarter of a million people across a dozen countries.
00:35:38:03 - 00:36:02:22
Ilan Kelman
Both Aceh and Sri Lanka had longstanding conflicts, which had been particularly violent over the past 30 years. In Aceh, there was a peace deal which continues in Sri Lanka. The acute and the humanitarian relief were used as an excuse by many sides in that conflict to increase the conflict. And five years later, the Sri Lankan military stopped that conflict through violence, through military means.
00:36:02:24 - 00:36:25:08
Ilan Kelman
The difference was on many sides in Aceh, those with the power were already seeking peace. They already in secret negotiations. The earthquake and tsunami disaster accelerated that and gave them one excuse among many to seek peace. Whereas in Sri Lanka, many of the leaders within that conflict were actually not seeking peace, and the war really helped them consolidate their power.
00:36:25:08 - 00:36:59:17
Ilan Kelman
So they use the disaster as one excuse among many to continue that. What we don't know and where we do have a lot of anecdotal evidence, but not proven is what happens when people who don't have power at the moment have informal links and then gain power. So could a rescuer on the ground in a place where there are two countries are not the best of friends, make connections, make friends, help families, and then as those people go through time and gain more power, could that connection then lead them to wanting peace and initiating peace?
00:36:59:19 - 00:37:23:15
Ilan Kelman
This is an informal aspect. This is a personal aspect. So how do I approach? I want to talk to people. I want to learn from them. What does change people's lives from hate to love? What does change people who have power from saying, I'm going to turn my people around, from not wanting others and not liking others into putting our resources to helping everyone and therefore helping ourselves.
00:37:23:17 - 00:37:42:22
Ilan Kelman
And we're investigating that. So what I need to do now is learn from people and anyone listening, contact me. You can find me on social media, you can find my email address. Let me know your experiences. Am I talking absolute garbage or do I have something there which does need to be refined and enhanced through your own individual experience?
00:37:42:24 - 00:38:09:03
Ilan Kelman
We're also going back through history trying to learn about these long term processes with some colleagues. We developed the thousand year history of Kashmir, starting more recently with the 2005 earthquake that killed over 75,000 people and had a lot of impact on India. Pakistan-china relations didn't cause anything, but they didn't pocket and we went back a thousand years looking at Kashmir history and the connections.
00:38:09:05 - 00:38:33:13
Ilan Kelman
Similarly, on the 13th of April 1360, there was a major storm in Brittany and people said, Well, maybe that brought together as a warring parties. In 1889, the German, American and British fleets were in Apia, Samoa, just spoiling for a conflict. It's clear they. Wanted to do something. A cyclone went through, knock out parts of the fleets and a peace deal was reached.
00:38:33:15 - 00:38:52:00
Ilan Kelman
Did that cyclone cause a peace for the secret negotiations going on? Would they've reached peace anyway? We don't know. What did that mean for the subsequent colonial approaches to Sun were followed by independence and the way Samoa deals with cyclones today. Well, we need to talk to people. We need to look at the archives, we need to learn.
00:38:52:05 - 00:39:16:06
Ilan Kelman
This is far from over. We are far from definitive in her answers. Please, anyone join us, contribute. Let us know where we're making mistakes so we can answer more clearly exactly those questions and then advise people. What do we do now for avoiding disasters, disaster risk reduction? How can we be ready for when the next disaster suddenly appears?
00:39:16:08 - 00:39:33:18
Kyle King
Yeah, I think that's a great perspective and I think it is just getting started and I can sort of close out with my own sort of anecdotal evidence, which is what we've personally seen in some of the work that we do, is we need to look for those incremental opportunities to increase stability, even if that's just coming from a disaster response, volunteer response aspect.
00:39:33:18 - 00:39:56:08
Kyle King
There's always that ability to open that conversation during that mentoring operation, whatever the case is, and then find out other ways to establish cooperation. And so it's very much a launching point to try and create peace and stability through something that is nonpolitical. You know, in terms of just the practical reality of a humanitarian effort or a Margiris ponds operation.
00:39:56:10 - 00:40:15:14
Kyle King
So this is where we need to find those opportunities to build an incremental trust and engagement and try and change that generational outlook that leads us towards conflict. And so we've seen that in some of the work that we do, both people who are operating internationally need to look specifically for those opportunities when they're conducting operations. You know, we've done this together.
00:40:15:14 - 00:40:33:02
Kyle King
What could we possibly cooperate on and what's the next step and hopefully change incrementally over time, some perspectives. But I think there is a lot of work still to be done in this field. I think there's a lot of information that you could probably make use up from the people that are listening to the podcast and also in our newsletter and coming from our community.
00:40:33:02 - 00:40:37:15
Kyle King
So what's the best way to get in contact with you? If somebody wants to reach out.
00:40:37:17 - 00:40:59:02
Ilan Kelman
Any way that suits them, contact me through social media, which I thought you did. Kyle That's how we were in contact. Or again, sort of all technology. So 2005, email me. Not a problem. Or my phone number. My work phone number is also online. You can always try me there and. I will pick up voicemail. If I don't answer, let me know where I'm making mistakes.
00:40:59:02 - 00:41:17:17
Ilan Kelman
Let me know how to improve. And you just did. Kyle. I just love your approach. Incremental to generational. What not so wonderful and powerful summary. And it's both scientific and operational. So let's do more together. Let's do it better and try and help people immediately, but definitely over the long term.
00:41:17:19 - 00:41:34:19
Kyle King
All right. Well, thanks for that. I think that was a great summary and closing statement. So we'll just leave it here. And if anybody wants to get in touch with Island and please look at the show notes, the links to your social media will be inside the shots as well and then reach out and share your experiences. I think that will be really worthwhile so.
00:41:34:19 - 00:41:39:12
Kyle King
Thanks again for joining us today and having this discussion and best of luck in the future.
00:41:39:15 - 00:41:44:15
Ilan Kelman
Thanks for everything you're doing and thanks for the opportunity to be here. I look forward to learning from all the listeners listeners.
