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L E S S O N S L E A R N E D

L R E T O

EMERGENCY INTERVENTION FROM LORETOBY FLOODS IN 2012

EMERGENCY INTERVENTION FROM LORETOBY FLOODS IN 2012

L E S S O N S L E A R N E DL O R E T O

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Este documento ha sido elaborado con el Instituto Nacional de Defensa Civil (INDECI), el Gobierno Regional de Loreto, el apoyo �nanciero de Cruz Roja Peruana,Plan Internacional, UNICEF, OCHA y el apoyo técnico de COOPI, Cruz Roja Peruana, UNICEF, OCHA, FAO y Plan Internacional, en el marco de la respuesta a laemergencia por inundaciones en la Región Loreto en 2012.

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Presentation

The lived experience during the Regional Emergency caused by the floods and the unusual rise of the Amazonian rivers, which surpassed the levels registered in the previous years, allows us to prepare a situation analysis of the joint activities developed with local and national institutions and the valuable support of cooperation institutions, like UNICEF.

During all the process of supportive activities, the Regional Operations Centre for Emergencies (COER-LORETO), created by Regional Executive Resolution Nº202-2012-GRL-P, dated April 02, 2012, has played a major role in attention to victims of the floods from the Amazonian rivers in 2012.

It was this Regional Centre who brought together and channelled all the efforts for the installation of shelters in the city and their respective basic services such as health, drinking water and electric supply. It also coordinated with PRONAA daily the early delivery of food and provisions to all districts considered within the emergency.

Humanitarian aid was obtained from the National Institute of Civil Defence (INDECI), chaired by Alfredo E. Murgueytio Espinoza, General of Division (R) and from cooperation organizations like: the United Firemen Sans Frontiers/BUSF, Spanish Red Cross, German Red Cross, CESVI, COOPI, UNICEF, OIM, OPS, Plan International, FAO and SHERTER BOX, among others. Most certainly, the intervention and response of UNICEF to this emergency was relevant, as it joint efforts to give special attention to the most vulnerable victims of this tragedy, children.

We have absorbed the lessons learned from the emergency and gathered some valuable information for the future, which are captured in this book, named precisely, “Lessons Learned”.

Iván E. Vásquez ValeraPresident, Loreto Region

Presentation

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Executive Sumary

Because of the floods produced by the overflowing rivers in the Peruvian Amazon, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers

declared a State of Emergency in 43 districts of the Loreto region. Due to more than 220 thousand victims and enormous damage throughout Loreto’s territory, national, regional and district public institutions—in collaboration with international aid organizations—provided support to the affected population, by organizing and implementing a comprehensive response to the emergency in the priority sectors of Food, Collective Centers, Housing, Livelihoods, Health and Water, as well as Sanitation, Nutrition and Food Safety, Protection and Emotional Recovery, Education and Social Communication.

This document aims to describe the good practices, the lessons learned and the limitations faced in the coordination and implementation of the humanitarian response actions and rehabilitation procedures that were carried out to deal with the emergency. This was possible thanks to the gathering and analysis of secondary sources of information; to the interviews to officers, authorities and specialists of 38 local, national and international, public and private institutions; to the involvement in the Provincial Workshop “Lessons Learned” in Yurimaguas; and to the results achieved in the thematic panels of housing and collective centres in the Regional Emergency Operations Center (REOC) of Loreto.

It also shows that the coordination processes implemented for the humanitarian intervention were strengthened by the inclusion of components of Disaster Risk Management in the governmental plans of some District Municipalities, by the installation of the Regional Emergency Operations Center, by the leadership of the Regional Government of Loreto, by the technical assistance provided by national institutions and by the ability to raise funds of organizations of the National Humanitarian Network.

At the operational level, the inclusion of institutional strengthening components was positive. And, for future emergencies, the organization of two workshops of lessons learned (one regional and one provincial) was extremely useful. Other good practices in response to this emergency were the transformation of the thematic panels of Collective centres and Housing in Loreto in permanent spaces for discussion; the transfer of funds to support response actions by the National Government to the regional Health and Agricultural sectors; the validation of only one plan of action shared in Water and Sanitation; the setup of Protection and Socio-emotional Recovery spaces, dedicated to minors in collective centres and affected areas; the inter-institutional development of a contingency plan and an emergency curriculum in Education; and the validation of a communication campaign common to the entire intervention.

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UNICEF / E.Ursula

Executive Sumary

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PRESENTATION 5

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6

TABLE OF CONTENTS 9

LIST OF ACRONYMS 11

INTRODUCTION 12

OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY 14

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 16

RESULTS OBTAINED IN THE INTERVENTION: GOOD PRACTICES AND LESSONS LEARNED20

THE CONTEXT 20

THE EMERGENCY IN NUMBERS 24

COORDINATION 28

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS 28

REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS 30

NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 32

NATIONAL HUMANITARIAN NETWORK 34

OPERATIONS 36

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 36

COLLECTIVE CENTRES 38

HOUSING 40

LIVELIHOODS 42

HEALTH 44

WATER AND SANITATION 48

NUTRITION AND FOOD SAFETY 52

PROTECTION AND EMOTIONAL RECOVERY 54

EDUCATION 58

SOCIAL COMMUNICATION 62

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 66

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

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List of Acronyms

List of Acronyms

ADD Acute Diarrheal Disease

AFPAdministradora Privada de Fondos de Pensiones (Pension Fund Administrator)

ARI Acute Respiratory Infection

C&A Children and Adolescents

CEM LoretoCentro de Emergencia Mujer de Loreto (Women's Emergency Center of Loreto)

CENEPREDCentro Nacional de Estimación, Prevención y Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres (National Center for Disaster Risk Esti-mation, Prevention, and Reduction)

CERF Central Emergency Response Fund

CESVI Cooperazione e Sviluppo (Cooperation and Development)

COOPI Cooperazione Internazionale (International Cooperation)

CRP Cruz Roja Peruana (Peruvian Red Cross)

DANA Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis

DEIADirección de Estadística e Información Agraria (Directorate of Statistics and Agricultural Information)

DEMUNADefensoría Municipal de Niños y Adolescentes (Municipal Ombudsman for Children and Adolescents)

DESADirección Ejecutiva de Salud Ambiental (Executive Directora-te of Environmental Health)

DESNADefensoría Escolar de Niños y Adolescentes (School Office of the Ombudsman for Children and Adolescents)

DIECADirección de Educación Comunitaria y Ambiental (Directorate of Community and Environmental Education)

DIRESA Dirección Regional de Salud (Regional Directorate of Health)

DM District Municipality

DRADirección Regional de Agricultura (Regional Directorate of Agriculture)

DRELDirección Regional de Educación de Loreto (Regional Directo-rate of Education of Loreto).

DRIDirección Regional de INDECI (Regional Directorate of IN-DECI)

DRM Disaster Risk Managment

DRTCDirección Regional de Transportes y Comunicaciones (Regio-nal Directorate of Transport and Communications)

ECHOEuropean Commission’s Directorate-General for Humanita-rian Aid and Civil Protection

EEII Educational Institutions

EOC Emergency Operations Center

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

FORMA-BIAP

Programa de Formación de Maestros Bilingües de la Ama-zonía Peruana (Bilingual Teacher Training for the Peruvian Amazon)

GORELGobierno Regional de Loreto (Regional Government of Lo-reto)

GRDSGerencia Regional de Desarrollo Social (Regional Social Development Board)

ha Hectare

IFRC International Federation of Red Cross

IGP Instituto Geofísico del Perú (Geophysical Institute of Peru)

INABIFPrograma Integral Nacional para el Bienestar Familiar (Na-tional Institute for Infancy and Family)

INDECIInstituto Nacional de Defensa Civil (National Civil Defense Institute)

INEIInstituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (National Statistics Institute)

IOM International Organization for Migration

kg Kilogram

km Kilometer

masl Meters above sea level

MGP Marina de Guerra del Perú (Peruvian Navy)

MIMPMinisterio de la Mujer y Poblaciones Vulnerables (Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Population)

MINEDU Ministerio de Educación (Ministry of Education)

MPAAMunicipalidad Provincial de Alto Amazonas (Provincial Mu-nicipality of Alto Amazonas)

MPM Municipalidad Provincial de Maynas (Provincial Municipality of Maynas)

MVCSMinisterio de Vivienda, Construcción y Saneamiento (Minis-try of Housing, Construction and Sanitation)

NGO Non-governmental organization

NHN National Humanitarian Network

OCHAUnited Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

OINFEOficina de Infraestructura Educativa (Educational Infrastruc-ture Office)

OREC Oficina de Registro Civil (Civil Registry Office)

PAHO/WHOPan American Health Organization/World Health Organiza-tion

PCMPresidencia del Consejo de Ministros (Presidency of the Council of Ministers)

PELAPrograma Especial de Logros del Aprendizaje (Strategic Learning Achievements Program)

PNP Policía Nacional del Perú (Peruvian National Police)

PRONAAPrograma Nacional de Asistencia Alimentaria (National Food Assistance Program)

RENIECRegistro Nacional de Identificación y Estado Civil (National Registry of Identification and Civil Status)

REOC Regional Emergency Operations Center

SENAPrograma de Soporte Socio Emocional para Niños y Adoles-centes (Socio-emotional Support Program for Children and Adolescents)

SENAMHIServicio Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología (National Meteorology and Hydrology Service)

SINAGERDSistema Nacional de Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (Natio-nal System for Disaster Risk Management)

SINPADSistema Nacional de Información para la Respuesta y la Rehabilitación (National Information System Response and Rehabilitation)

SITREP Situation Report

UGELUnidad de Gestión Educativa Local (Unit of Local Education Managment)

UN United Nations

UNFPA United Nations Population Fund

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

USD United States dollar


UNICEF / E.Ursula

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At the end of 2011, there were heavy rainfalls in Peru that caused a progressive increase of the water level in rivers

of the Amazon region. On April 20th 2012, in Iquitos, the Amazon River exceeded the overflow level in 1.97 meters and reached a new all-time record of 118.97 MASL. In total, 23% of the population of the Loreto region was affected and 14% was in need. Given this situation, the President of the Republic and the National Head of INDECI went to the region to know about the scope of the tragedy and the PCM declared a State of Emergency in 43 districts of 7 provinces. After setting the REOC up, international aid organizations, local authorities, national institutions and civil society organizations started to collaborate in order to implement a series of actions and to face the emergency situation.

The objective of this research is to describe the implementation of the humanitarian response actions and rehabilitation procedure due to floods emergency. Additionally, it is shown how the abilities were strengthened in the communities and local, sectorial and regional authorities. To do this, primary and secondary sources of information were gathered and analyzed;

interviews to representatives from local, regional, national and international institutions were done; and meetings of two sectorial EOC and a provincial workshop of institutional strengthening and lessons learned were held.

With the objectives and the methodology set, a chronology of main events is established, followed by a brief description of the context of Loreto and of the damages caused by the floods. Then, the good practices and the limitations in the management and coordination processes are described. Thus, the strengths and the weaknesses of the intervention are evaluated, both at operational level and on the humanitarian response actions and rehabilitation procedure implemented in each priority sector: Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis, Collective centres, Housing, Livelihoods, Health, Water and Sanitation, Nutrition and Food Safety, Protection and Emotional Recovery, Education and Social Communication. Finally, it is suggested a series of recommendations in case of future flood emergencies situations.

Introduction

Introduction


The objective of this research is to organize and synthesi-ze the implementation of the humanitarian response ac-

tions and rehabilitation procedure carried out due to the flood emergency in the Loreto region in 2012.

In the following pages, the good practices and the limitations are briefly described on the following aspects of the interven-tion:

- The management processes of the national, regional and local coordination spaces as well as the contributions from the National Humanitarian Network and Loreto;

- The humanitarian response actions and rehabilitation in the priority sectors of Collective centres, Housing, Liveli-hoods, Health, Water and Sanitation, Nutrition and Food Safety, Protection and Emotional Recovery, Education and Social Communication.

On the basis of the above, this work is considered as a qualita-tive research of descriptive scope, which analyzed primary and secondary sources of information. Thus, we gathered different types of documents elaborated by the institutions involved in the response and rehabilitation processes to the emergency. Moreover, we interviewed 56 officers of 38 key institutions (local, regional and national), cooperation agencies and diffe-rent NGOs by means of semi-standardized surveys. Finally, we went to two meetings of the sectorial EOC of Housing and Collective centres in the REOC, and to a Provincial Workshop of Institutional Strengthening and Lessons Learned in Alto Amazonas.

At the same time, due to the size of the Loreto’s territory and to the difficult access to some areas, the gathering of primary information was limited to the provinces of Maynas and Alto Amazonas, especially because most of the interventions were gathered there and there are located the headquarters of the

Objectives and Methodology

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regional institutions. Besides, despite being away from Iquitos, the capital of the region, there was the intervention of two coo-perating agencies. Regarding the information from secondary sources, it is necessary to indicate that the lack of reports in most institutions was an important limitation for the analysis of the interventions performed.

The report of the workshop “Lessons Learned towards Loreto Development” held with the aim of analyzing the actions taken by the actors in the Reactive Risk Management to face the flood

emergency in 2012 in Loreto was available, allowing authori-ties to refocus efforts to improve care for the population. The perception of the population affected by the floods in Loreto was also collected in order to get to know their understanding of how the felt affected by the flood, how they faced it and how they observed the disaster response of the institutions.

Objectives and Methodology


2011

NOVEMBER16 Heavy rainfalls caused flooding of

housing and damages to crops and animals in some areas of the district of Andoas, province of Datem del Marañón.

17 The Regional Directorate of Health (DIRESA) issued a Yellow Alert due to “Risk of Disease because of heavy rains in Loreto”.

21 Heavy rainfalls caused flooding of housing in San Lorenzo, district of Barranca, province of Datem del Marañón.

Chronology of Events

2012

JANUARY1 GOREL coordinated with PRONAA of

Tarapoto regarding food aid for the affected families.

2 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Amazon and Itaya rivers, which damaged the housing units in the districts of Belen, Punchana and San Juan Bautista, province of Maynas.

3 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Huallaga and Marañón rivers, which damaged housing units and crops in the districts of Yurimaguas, Santa Cruz and Tte. César López, province of Alto Amazonas.

5 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Tigre and Corrientes rivers, which damaged housing units, EEII, health care centers and crops in the communities of the district of Tigre, province of Loreto.

6 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Amazon, Morona and Nanay rivers. This damaged people’s ho-mes located in the lower areas of the district of Iquitos, province of Maynas.

7 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Ucayali River, which damaged housing units, EEII and crops in the communities of the district of Sa-quena, province of Requena.

8 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Tapiche River, which dama-ged housing units, EEII and crops in the communities of the district of Alto Tapiche, province of Requena.

10 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Marañón River. This damaged housing units and crops in the com-munities of the districts of Urarinas and Parinari, province of Loreto.

Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Nacho River, which damaged housing units, rural roads and crops in the communities of the district of Mazán, province of Maynas.

12 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Corrientes River. This da-maged housing units and crops in the communities of the districts of Trompeteros, province of Loreto.

13 GOREL coordinated with PRONAA of Tarapoto regarding food aid for the affected families in the areas under their jurisdiction.

15 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Marañón River, which dama-ged housing units in the district of Nauta, province of Loreto.

Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Nanay River, which damaged housing units, community centers and animals in the communities of the district of Alto Nanay, province of Maynas.

19 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Ucayali River, which damaged housing units and EEII in the dis-tricts of Padre Márquez, Contamana, Inahuaya, Pampa Hermosa, Vargas Guerra, Sarayacu and Ucayali, pro-vince of Ucayali.

20 Heavy rainfalls damaged housing units in San Lorenzo, district of Barranca, province of Datem del Marañón.

25 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Ucayali River. This damaged housing units, EEII, health care centers, rural roads, animals and crops in the districts of Capelo and Puinahua, province of Requena.

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FEBRUARY10 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow

of the Amazon River, which dama-ged housing units, EEII, animals and crops in the district of San Pablo, province of Mariscal Ramón Castilla.

11 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Amazon River, which dama-ged housing units, EEII, and crops in the district of Ramón Castilla, pro-vince of Mariscal Ramón Castilla.

15 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Amazon and Ucayali rivers. This damaged housing units, EEII, health care centers, and crops in the district of Fernando Lores, province of Maynas; and in the district of Jenaro Herrera, province of Requena.

20 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Amazon and Yavari rivers, which damaged housing units, EEII, and crops in the district of Yavari, province of Mariscal Ramón Castilla.

22 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Ucayali and Tapiche rivers. This damaged housing units, EEII, health care centers, rural roads and crops in the district of Requena, province of Requena.

23 The first UN Situation Report (SI-TREP Nº 1) was issued.

MARCH2 GOREL began with the purchase of

materials, such as wood and nails to build pedestrian bridges, and of food for the affected families.

5 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Ucayali River. This damaged housing units, EEII and crops in 28 communities of the district of Emilio San Martín, province of Requena.

7 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Amazon River. This damaged housing units, EEII, health care centers and crops in the district of Indiana, province of Maynas.

8 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Amazon and Ucayali rivers, which damaged housing units, EEII, health care centers and crops in the district of Las Amazonas, province of Maynas; and of Maquía, province of Requena.

12 The Amazon River exceeded the level of 117.00 masl and SENAMHI issued a Hydrological Red Alert.

13 Through the agreement Nº 001-2012-SE-GRL, the Regional Council of Loreto declared a State of Emergency in the seven provinces of the region for a period of ninety days.

20 GOREL, in coordination with the Civil Defense Institute of the Belen District Municipality, provided hu-manitarian support to 100 families installed in collective centres.

21 GOREL, in coordination with the Civil Defense Institute of the MPM and the Punchana District Municipality, provided humanitarian support to families installed in collective centres.

The second UN Situation Report (SITREP Nº 2) was issued.

25 GOREL delivered wood and nails to build pedestrian bridges to the MPM and to the District Municipalities of San Juan Bautista and Punchana.

27 MPM

29 Through the Supreme Decree Nº 037-2012-PCM, a State of Emergen-cy was declared in 24 districts of the 7 provinces of the Loreto region.

31 INDECI provided humanitarian support to the warehouse of the DRI-Loreto from the DRI-San Mar-tín.

APRIL1 A group of INDECI professionals

went to Iquitos in order to advise the regional and local authorities regarding technical information and collective centres.

The program “A doctor in your nei-ghborhood” gave medical and hu-manitarian assistance to the victims in the affected areas.

2 The Regional Emergency Operations Center (REOC-Loreto) was created through the Regional Resolution Nº 202-2012-GRL-P.

Through official communication Nº 206-2012-GRL-P, GOREL requested the extension of the State of Emer-gency in 13 districts of the Loreto region.

The DRI-Loreto was restocked from the DRI of San Martín and Amazo-nas.

DREL sent to GOREL the list of EEII that will give shelter to the affected families.

3 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow of the Napo River and of its tribu-taries. This damaged housing units, EEII, animals and crops in the dis-trict of Napo, province of Maynas.

DIRESA issued an Epidemiological Alert: “Risk of Outbreaks/Epidemics due to Floods in the Loreto Region”.

As a preventive measure, Electro Oriente interrupted the electricity in the areas affected by floods.

GOREL coordinated—with the autho-rities of the affected districts—the permanent relocation of families to a 14-hectare plot, located on the Nauta-Iquitos road, km 12.

4 SENAMHI-Loreto reported that the Amazon River exceeded its all-time record of 118.58 masl by registering 118.64 masl. The authorities and the population were asked to take action.

DRA-Loreto reported about the loss of crops from December 2011 to March 2012. Given this situation, they requested a budget of S/. 1’115,650 to recover the crops.

4-6 The Peruvian Red Cross evaluated the damages and analyzed the needs in the region.



APRIL5 Heavy rainfalls caused the overflow

of the Cachyacu River. This damaged housing units, animals and crops in a community of Balsapuerto, provin-ce of Alto Amazonas.

About 60 affected families invaded private plots, located on the Iqui-tos-Nauta road, km 2.5. This caused confrontation with the PNP.

6 Through the Supreme Decree Nº 040-2012-PCM, a State of Emergen-cy was declared in other 12 districts of 5 provinces of the Loreto region.

The President of the Republic and the Minister of Health went to Lore-to to overfly the affected areas and to provide humanitarian support.

The collective centres in Iquitos were provided with portable toilets by MINSA.

7 The Peruvian Navy provided three planes to take the MINSA brigades to the areas affected by the flood.

8 A group of REOC officers went to Iquitos to advise the regional and lo-cal authorities on the management of the REOC.

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UNICEF and PAHO evaluated the damages and needs.

9 The GRDS of the GOREL distributed humanitarian support, collected in the Peruvian Telethon to the districts of Punchana, Belen and Iquitos.

GOREL received portable toilets and cleaning materials sent by the Cen-tral Government.

10 The DREL authorized the suspen-sion of school classes during 30 days through the decree Nº RDR-000535-2012.

The third UN Situation Report (SI-TREP Nº 3) was issued.

11 REOC installed free emergency lines.

The EOC for Education was activa-ted.

15 A group of MINSA professionals arrived to reinforce the tasks of attending to the victims.

As a humanitarian support, Rotary Club sent tents from the US.

The fourth UN Situation Report (SITREP Nº 4) was issued.

16 DREL took a committee to the flooded areas in order to verify the development of regular school classes.

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The joint mission was held between ECHO, COOPI, SAVE THE CHILDREN, FAO, UNICEF, the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC), and the American, German and Spanish Red Cross.

17 The IFRC mobilized DREF funds to the implementation of humanitarian support in the region.

19 Humanitarian support was provided to the warehouse of the DRI-Loreto from the DRI-Callao.

20 The Amazon River reached its hi-ghest level at 118.97 masl and, thus, exceeded its all-time record.

The Peruvian Army delivered hou-sing modules to GOREL to help the affected families.

24 PRONAA-Pucallpa helped the affected families of the districts of Padre Márquez, Contamana, Pampa Hermosa, Inahuaya, Vargas Guerra and Sarayacu.

26 PETROPERU helped with the elec-trification and painting of the EEII 602196 to be used as a collective centre by the affected families.

28 MINEDU reported that the training to the members of the Disaster Risk Management Committee of the UGEL began.

29 REOC reported 47 confirmed cases of leptospirosis that were treated in the Regional Hospital of Loreto. Three people passed away.

30 The company CWE Peru granted food aid to the GOREL for the inju-red and affected families.

MAY2 OCHA approved the financing of

nine projects with CERF funds to be implemented in the Loreto region, under the direct responsibility of UNICEF, FAO, PAHO/WHO and IOM.

3 The NGO “The Shelterbox Trust” and the Banco de la Nación (Peru’s state bank) granted humanitarian support to the affected families.

4 DREL terminated the period of suspension of school classes in the region.

5 INDECI reported the movement of humanitarian support to restore the warehouse of the GOREL from the warehouses of the DRI Amazonas, San Martín and Loreto.

The organization Plan Internatio-nal—in coordination with MINSA, MGP and the Punchana District Municipality—inaugurated the So-cio-emotional Support Program for Children and Adolescents (SENA) in four collective centres in the district of Punchana.

7 The Chilean NGO Médicos Todo Terreno provided medical care by taking seven professionals to the community of Padre Cocha, district of Punchana.

The president of the GOREL provi-ded the acquisition of plots near to the Iquitos-Nauta road in order to build 10 thousand housing units for the benefit of the affected families.

7-9 MINEDU, through the Directorate of Community and Environmental Education (DIECA) carried out a Regional Workshop of Directors and Specialists of the UGEL in order to formulate a methodological model to be applied at the beginning of school classes. Consequently, a curricular plan was approved by educational levels.

8 Through official communications Nº 371 and 372, GOREL requested an extension of the State of Emergency Nº 037-2012-PCM (issued on March 29th 2012) and Nº 040-2012-PCM (issued on April 6th 2012).

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Chronology of EventsSpecialists from the Directorate-Ge-neral of Environmental Health arri-ved to Iquitos in order to strengthen the logistics in the collective centres.

9 The NGO Operación Bendición Inter-nacional Perú donates 396 thousand de-worming tablets to the DIRESA program, “Chau Cuica”, against parasitosis.

10 The sectorial EOC of Protection was established, led by the Regional Social Development Board of the GOREL.

The company AMASUFLAC donated emergency kits to the GOREL.

17 AFP Integra-Iquitos delivered school kits to the district of Urarinas, pro-vince of Loreto.

21 The National Humanitarian Network held a meeting in Lima.

22 To reactivate the farmland, the DRA, INIA and PEDICIP established a pur-chase and distribution committee of seeds (rice, corn and bean).

The European Commission, with ECHO funds, financed COOPI, CESVI, and the German and Spanish Red Cross in order to develop four huma-nitarian assistance projects.

24 Before the Executive, GOREL ma-naged S/. 405,925 to develop the program Trabaja Peru that would generate temporary employment to clean and maintain the affected areas in 10 points of the districts of Belen, Iquitos, Punchana and San Juan and in three districts of the Loreto province.

DIRESA gave directions for the preventive treatment against lep-tospirosis.

25 OXFAM and PREDES went to the districts of Urarinas, Parinari and Nauta to evaluate the situation and manage support.

28 Through the Supreme Decree Nº 057-2012-PCM, the State of Emer-gency was extended to 60 days in the districts provided in the Supre-me Decree Nº 037-2012-PCM on March 29th.

29 SENAMHI-Loreto reported that the Amazon River registered 117.12 masl so far. The Red Alert continued.

DREL reported that 100% of EEII are ready for the beginning of classes.

31 SENAMHI-Loreto reported that the Amazon River registered 116.94 masl so far. An Orange Alert was issued.

JUNE2 A cleanup day was performed on

the Iquitos boulevard and 30 tones of garbage, mud and others were collected. This activity was also per-formed in the provinces of Requena and Ucayali.

6 Through the Supreme Decree Nº 062-2012-PCM, the State of Emer-gency was extended in the twelve districts provided in the Supreme Decree Nº 040-2012-PCM on April 6th.

8 Through the Supreme Decree Nº 064-2012-PCM, the State of Emer-gency was extended in other seven districts of four provinces of the region.

13-14

IOM carried out a Training Works-hop about Camp Management and Human Trafficking.

14 The National Humanitarian Network met at INDECI headquarters.

18 The assessment mission of Shelter Cluster was initiated to identify the families that did not go to the collective centres and the conditions of the damaged dwellings due to the floods.

JULY31 The Police, with the Plan Internatio-

nal support, carried out a Training Workshop, until August 3rd, for 70 Peruvian National Police members, regarding C&A Protection with parti-cular emphasis on collective centres.

AUGUST7 The Midterm Review Workshop

was carried out in Iquitos in order to develop a shared analysis on the progress of the projects financed with UN funds. That workshop was carried out thanks to the GOREL and to the participation of GRDS, DIRESA, DESA, DREL, DRA, the Press, the Regional Directorate of Housing and INDECI. At the same time, GOREL received support from the UN agencies: IOM, FAO, UNICEF, PAHO, UNFPA and OCHA.

SEPTEMBER27-28

The workshop “Lessons Learned” was carried out in Iquitos with the participation of different institu-tions.

OCTUBER12 The workshop “Lessons Learned”

was carried out in Yurimaguas with the participation of different natio-nal and international institutions organized by COOPI and Caritas.



THE CONTEXT Loreto occupies an area of 368,851.95 km2 and has a popu-lation of 1’006,953 according to official statistics (www.inei.

gob.pe). Of this total, 34.4% lives in rural areas1. Its capital is the city of Iquitos which has a total population of 422,055. That is why it is one of the most populated cities in Peru. In addition, Iquitos—which is a peninsula located between the Amazon, Itaya and Nanay rivers—is characterized by a disproportionate and disrespectful urban growth of the current regulatory plans. Because of these factors, a high percentage of its population is vulnerable to the floods that, each year, are repeated during winter.

According to INEI, in 2004, 66.9% of Loreto’s population lived in a state of poverty. By 2010, this number decreased to 49.1%. However, the amount of poor population was above-average in the Selva region, which 12.8% of the population is considered to live in a state of poverty.

Now, if we consider its territorial size, which is bigger than Ecuador; and its dispersed population, 2.7 inhabitants/km2, Loreto—along with Madre de Dios—is the region with the lowest population density in Peru. Added to this, there is a

1. Population data was based on the 2007 demographic census as at June 30, 2012.

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Results obtained in the intervention: Good practices and Lessons learned

lack of roads connecting the different localities since only exist the Iquitos-Nauta and the Yurimaguas-Tarapoto roads. That is the reason why the vast river network of the region is the only means of communication. Consequently, there are a lot of lo-gistical difficulties in this region, particularly the high transport costs and the amount of time to transport goods and people.

Regarding the sanitary conditions, Loreto has a health care network which covers almost all of its territory. Nevertheless, many factors contribute to the poor sanitary conditions of the population, which is more vulnerable during times of flood. Among them: shantytowns in areas at risk from flooding, poor hygienic conditions in peri-urban and rural areas, chronic pro-blems regarding drinking water distribution and sanitation, logistical difficulties previously mentioned (lack of roads) and epidemic diseases such as malaria and dengue. Within this fra-mework, Loreto shows infant and child mortality rates—38% and 51% live births, respectively—that are well above the na-tional average: 16% and 21%, respectively. Additionally, accor-ding to information gathered by INEI, in 2010 and 2011, one of every three children under five years old (34.2%) had chronic malnutrition.

In relation to the Education, there are huge chronic deficits in Loreto, as evidenced by the results of the student census in 2011.

In particular, Loreto is placed last among the other regions if we consider the level of accomplishment of second-grade students regarding math and reading comprehension. Specifically, at the end of the school year, the students from Loreto achieved only 6.1% in reading comprehension and 1.4% in math.

Regarding the agricultural sector, it is worth mentioning that, due to soils of higher fertility, the crops of most of the people who live in rural areas are normally located at low and medium shoals which make them easily floodable. Considering that the food safety of rural inhabitants depends on these crops, the high level of vulnerability to which they are exposed is quite clear.

Results obtained in the intervention

Toma aérea de la inundaciónFuente: Dirección Regional de Vivienda


THE EMERGENCY IN NUMBERS

Since November 16th 2011, heavy rainfalls caused the rise of the Amazon, Huallaga, Ucayali and Marañón rivers and

of its tributaries. According to the data given by the REOC, on April 20th, the Amazon River reached a new all-time record of 118.97 masl, measured in Iquitos, when the overflow level was exceeded in 1.97 meters.

Due to Loreto’s hydrographic and geographical characteristics, not all the provinces were flooded at the same time. That is why the emergency occurred at different moments in diffe-rent areas of the region. According to the data registered in the National Information System Response and Rehabilitation (SINPAD), the first damages—caused by the rising waters—were in November 2011, in the rural areas of the province of Datem del Marañón. Then, in January 2012, the provinces of Alto Amazonas, Loreto, Maynas, Requena and Ucayali were flooded. Finally, in February, the province of Ramón Castilla was affected. Despite this time difference in the beginning of the floods, there is an element common to all the affected areas that is important to mention: the flood duration that, accor-ding to the gathered testimonies, was much longer than other years.

The material damage caused by the floods was huge in the en-tire region. Looking at the official data reported by the REOC, during the workshop Lessons Learned—carried out on Sep-tember 27th and 28th, 2012—the overflowing rivers caused a total of 229,412 victims, which is equivalent to 23% of the total population; and 138,161 were affected, that is approximately 14% of the total population. Official figures report that five children died by drowning. And always based on information provided by the COER, 72,642 households, 1,724 educational institutions, 54 health centers, 170 community centers and 150.765 linear meters of rural road were affected by adverse events

229,412

138,161

Victims

Affected

23%population

14%populations

25/Regarding the agricultural sector, the Directorate of Statistics and Agricultural Information (DEIA) reported—in its plan of work published in April and in its report submitted in May—that the flood loss damaged 27,821 hectares of crops and affec-ted 29,000 growers. In total, there was a loss of 50.3% of rice, corn, banana, yucca, peanut and papaya crops, whose estimated value exceeds S/.40 million2 .

The subsequent effects caused by the floods were the severe ero-sion in the communities located at rural areas, as happened in the district of Teniente César López Rojas in Alto Amazonas; the collapse of the sanitation, water and drain services in all the affected areas; and the increase of Acute Respiratory Infec-tions (ARIs), Acute Diarrheal Diseases (ADDs), and outbreaks of leptospirosis and malaria.

In total, 3,417 families (equivalent to 16,016 people) were ins-talled in 132 collective centres, 114 in Iquitos and 18 in the su-burbs. 50 of them were placed in EEII, which meant the loss of school time—240 hours in preschool, 240 in elementary school and 192 in high school—and the increase of the exposure of children and adolescents to situations in which their rights are threatened.

Additionally, according to the numbers given by the Regional Directorate of Education of Loreto (DREL), around 40% of the EEII in the region were damaged—1724 of 4339 EEII. This means that 92,077 students began their classes not timely, this is about 28% of the total school population. The educative ins-titutions used as collective centres resulted in the loss of class hours, 240 in the pre-Elementary school, 240 in Elementary school, and 192 in Secondary school.

Facing this situation, through the agreement Nº 001-2012-SE-GRL, on March 13th 2012, the Regional Council of Loreto de-clared a State of Emergency in the seven provinces of the region for a period of 90 days. Local, regional, national and interna-tional institutions, as well as public and private, went to imple-ment the response actions to the emergency and the rehabili-tation procedures, under the coordination of the REOC which was installed in the establishments of the Regional Government since April 2nd 2012

2. DEIA. (2012). Report about Floods– Loreto Region. Iquitos: DEIA.

DEIA. (2012). Damages caused by Floods in the Agricultural Sector– Plan of Work. Iquitos: DEIA.

Material Damage

Agricultural Sector

50%

lost areas sown

72,642 households

1,724 educational institutions

54 health centers

170 community centers

151 Km affected roads

27,821 cultivation acres

29,000 producers affected

40 million in losses

The emergency in numbers

Family injured in Alto Amazonas Province

Source: COOPI

Educational Institution used as temporary shelter

Source: OIM


COORDINATION

This section analyzes the good practices performed, the les-sons learned and the weaknesses revealed in the management

and coordination processes in response to the emergency—carried out by the National Humanitarian Network—and in

local, regional and national governments.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Eventually, some Local Governments in Loreto have included components of Disaster Risk Management to the Local Govern-ment’s own action. This has contributed not only to consolidate the abilities of the Civil Defense offices, but the actions taken due to the floods in 2012 have demonstrated a bigger leader-ship ability in the coordination and management of essential activities in case of emergency. Some of these essential activities are the damage and needs assessment, the creation of District Committees of Civil Defense and the fund-raising to meet the basic needs.

Among the good practices performed, it is worth mentioning the implementation of an Early Warning System in the Shi-shinuahua River, province of Alto Amazonas, at the initiative of the authorities of the Santa Cruz District in collaboration with Caritas. Additionally, the District Municipality approved that implementation as part of its 2013 budget, thanks to a contin-gency fund for emergencies which includes activities such as reforestation and cleaning of river bed.

29/On the other hand, in 2011, the district of Punchana carried out a flood-risk study and awareness campaigns to the population, placed boundary markers in the flood areas within its juris-diction and registered the population that lived in flood areas. Thanks to these efforts, the district could face the emergency in 2012 with an approved contingency plan for floods.

It has to be emphasized that the Belen Municipality has added an innovative prioritization system of support in case of an ad-verse event: the lot-by-lot registration of all the population that lives in its territory. Finally, San Juan Bautista has worked for the activation of stable coordination means together with key institutions such as National Defense, INDECI and REOC.

According to the Technical Secretaries who were interviewed, the need for an organized municipal structure and a budget so as to facilitate the work of the National Civil Defense Institute was one lesson learned essential to the municipalities affected by the flood. In this regard, an exemplary case was what happe-ned in the province of Maynas. The negative effects caused by political problems in the Municipality were exacerbated by a complex institutional structure, which places the National Civil Defense Institute as a unit within the Public Safety Sub-directo-rate. At the same time, this depends on the Municipal Services Directorate. Consequently, the above factors delayed the insti-tution responsiveness which, according to the interviewees, did not demonstrate the expected leadership and decision-making levels.

It is important to add that the gathered testimonies proved that, to facilitate the municipalities’ response during an adverse event, it is essential to ensure stability in the technical positions at the Civil Defense Institute, since the high turnover impedes the proper reinforcement of the institutional abilities. That is why another lesson learned was that the officers in charge of Risk Management meet a series of requirements upon assu-ming office, besides that their stability in the position does not depend on the change of authority.

According to the Article 14 of the SINAGERD law, during over-flow and damages to the population, the Local Governments represent the first level of response, since they have the duty of activating their Disaster Risk Management Work Groups and Platforms of Civil Defense, monitoring the situation evolution, conducting the damage and needs assessment, and reporting the information to higher levels of government in order to acti-vate the corresponding aid mechanisms. Despite the highligh-ted strengths, a series of limitations impeded the proper deve-lopment of these functions.

Among some of these limitations, it is important to highlight that the District Municipalities did not have a budget to face this emergency or the implements necessary—boats, human resources and oil—in order to conduct the damage assessment throughout the territory of their jurisdiction. Here, it is ne-cessary to remember two mentioned factors: the high level of dispersion of the shantytowns throughout the region and the difficult access to certain areas of the territory, provided that it is possible to get there only by waterway and this means a seve-ral-day trip and a high transport cost.

In second place, some municipalities of the rural areas did not have a Civil Defense brigade, contingency plans or protocols of action during flood emergencies, even if this kind of phe-nomenon is recurrent in the region. This was due to the lack of training to the specialists assigned to the Civil Defense offices or to the activity planning on Disaster Risk Management which was not a priority in the agenda of several rural authorities. For instance, the districts of Jeberos and Balsapuerto, located at the province of Alto Amazonas, were affected by the rising waters but did not report damages or needs in any moment of the flood.

In third place, the lack of effective mechanisms of monitoring and surveillance by the governmental levels was a subsequent weakness. In that regard, there was not and there is not any kind of audit or effective sanction—even if it is established in the articles of the Law—to those officers and authorities that have not fulfilled their obligations during floods.

Finally, the entry into force of the new SINAGERD law had sub-sequent difficulties to the Local Governments. In many cases, they had to adapt their structures and responsibilities to the new regulations without prior training. Consequently, several officers from the municipalities did not know the current me-chanisms to manage an emergency. It is necessary to mention that these weaknesses still remain. For instance, despite that the SINAGERD law stipulates that each Municipality must have a budget for 2013 to purchase and storage humanitarian support materials for emergencies, several districts have not yet fulfill this task up to date.

In order to improve these weaknesses for future emergencies caused by floods, the interviewees suggested that it is neces-sary to carry out training sessions to the officers of the district and provincial municipalities located in the most remote areas in the region. They also suggested that mayors, managers and officers should be involved in the activities of emergency pre-vention and management, since their participation is essential to consolidate the institutional interest regarding the risk ma-nagement and to prioritize the implementation of policies with an approach in the Disaster Risk Management (DRM).

Coordination - Local Governments


REGIONAL GOVERNMENT

As a result of the technical advice given by INDECI to the GO-REL, on April 2nd, the Regional Emergency Operations Cen-ter (REOC) was established through the Regional Resolution Nº 202-2012-GRL-P. Since its establishment and during the emergency, the REOC was the official place for meetings and coordination. Every day, at 7:30 a.m., all actors involved—pu-blic and private—went there to know and to share the latest scopes on the flood evolution. Every meeting began with SE-NAMHI’s report on the meteorological and hydrological situa-tion, followed by the presentation of different actors regarding the crises in the emergency management.

Rapidly, the REOC became the main formal space of exchange of information among the institutions involved in the response processes to the floods. As result of this effort, the leadership taken by the GOREL represented, for most of the interviewed institutions, one of the most relevant good practices during the whole intervention. The daily frequency of the meetings was one of the Emergency Center’s strengths, as well as the conti-nuous presence of the Regional President, given that his parti-cipation not only was giving weight to the meetings, but it also was improving the decision-making process by the regional authorities. For instance, faced with the requirement to sys-tematize and to count on a regional management program all the information relating to material damage and personal in-jury due to the floods, a good practice—as result of the REOC work—was the creation of the Regional System for Disasters.

Currently, the COER is the permanent body within the Re-gional Government’s institutional architecture for the region and meets the objective of coordinating the contributions of different stakeholders regarding the themes of Disaster Risk Management. In addition, priority was to increase the effecti-veness of the action of the COER, the adoption of appropriate reporting mechanisms on changes of the flow, increasing and decreasing trends, of the rivers in the region.

Now, despite constituting a dramatic shift in the emergency management, the creation of the REOC came late in relation to the time that a convenient management of the floods would have required. Especially if we consider that its creation had already been envisaged and approved in 2008, in the flood-res-ponse regional plan “Yacumama”. As mentioned before, the rise of the rivers in some remote provinces was being persis-tent at the end of 2011 and the number of damages increased exponentially since November3 , according to SINPAD (see Table 1).

It is worth mentioning that the structural weaknesses in the coordination mechanisms between the local and regional go-vernments, together with political affinity issues among the au-thorities in charge, caused the lack of key figures—mayors, ma-

3. The Table 1 reports only the damages described in the SINPAD under the category “damages caused by floods”.

nagers an planners—in the REOC working meetings. This had a negative impact on its functionality and reduced its approach and efficiency in some of its actions. Additionally, the typical logistic and access problems of Loreto’s territory impeded the participation of officers from remote provinces and districts which limited the coordination to the urban and peri-urban context of the capital city.

Consequently, another lesson learned was the need to establish effective coordination means, between REOC and district and provincial authorities throughout the region, giving preceden-ce to the engagement of district and provincial mayors of di-fferent political parties. In this respect, it is a priority to invest in technologies that allow real-time communication with the authorities from the most remote localities.

Regarding the regional sectors, not everyone reacted promptly during floods. For that reason, the most relevant learning was to verify that sectors with a greater responsiveness were those that had contingency plans, emergency protocols and internal structures adapted in case of emergency.

DIRESA was the first one to respond to the emergency, due to its huge health care networks, its ability to gather and process the information rapidly and the close coordination with SE-NAMHI. Thus, on November 17th 2011, just a day after the first report of flood damages in SINPAD, DIRESA issued a yellow alert due to risk of disease because of heavy rains in Loreto.

Among the strengths demonstrated by the regional sector, there must be highlighted the presence of a National Defense office, in the framework of the Prevention and Control Center; the existence of a contingency plan in case of floods and cold waves; and the rapid activation of the sectorial EOC. In addi-tion, as a result of the prioritization and of the timely planning of DRM activities by DIRESA, the sector’s management abili-ty stands out, which managed to mobilize S/.3’160,000 from MINSA as additional resources to surveillance and epidemio-logical follow-up, through the Urgency Decree Nº 013-2012.

Similarly, the Regional Directorate of Agriculture (DRA) could have a decentralized structure and a strong territorial presence. And, like DIRESA, it was able to manage additional resources with the Central Government and, thus, it achieved a supple-mentary transfer of S/.1’024,080, in order to purchase certified seeds of three crops essential to the regional food: rice, corn and bean. Regarding the limitations faced by the DRA, the agencies and agricultural institutions, that were in the provin-ces and districts of the region, felt obliged to carry out the da-mage and needs assessment on a sampling basis, provided that they did not have enough economic and material resources to cover the entire territory of their jurisdiction.

On the other hand, the close coordination between the Re-gional Directorate of Education of Loreto (DREL) and the DIECA of the Ministry of Education—in order to encourage the beginning of classes and the elaboration of an emergen-cy curriculum—was a strength for the education sector. And yet, the coordination in this sector was a significant difficulty

31/

to the DREL, since its reactivity was affected by the lack of a contingency plan and communication mechanisms between the regional headquarters and the eight Units of Local Educa-tional Management (UGEL). Particularly, the most important learning to this sector were the need to start an internal coordi-nation system capable of guaranteeing a suitable flow of infor-mation between DREL and UGEL, and the creation of effective mechanisms of supervision and inspection of teachers, who most of them took advantage of the emergency situation to not go to classes in the rural areas.

Finally, it should be emphasized that a weakness common to all regional state sectors was not having the necessary human resources during the emergency.

Table 1. Damage development per month and per province

Individuals Housing

Victims Affected Deceased Destroyed Damaged

NOVEMBER 1,923 66 - 0 249

Datem del Marañón 1,923 66 0 0 249

JANUARY 136,541 134,366 5 25 44,830

Alto Amazonas 8,737 0 0 0 2,078

Datem del Marañón 0 74 0 0 14

Loreto 45,453 4,725 1 0 10,272

M. Ramón Castilla 8,388 0 0 0 1,530

Maynas 32,659 125439 4 25 20,977

Requena 13,208 4128 0 0 4,076

Ucayali 28,096 0 0 0 5,883

FEBRUARY 47,790 3451 3 1 10,097


M. Ramón Castilla 25,295 3344 3 0 5,945

Maynas 9,672 0 0 0 2,280

Requena 10,105 0 0 0 1,257

MARCH 35,659 180 - 6 7,676


Maynas 18,658 180 0 6 4,030

Requena 15,137 0 0 0 3252

APRIL 6,816 - - - 1,437

Maynas 6,816 0 0 0 1,437

Fuente: SINPAD

Coordination - Regional Government


NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

The dimension reached by the floods exceeded the responsive-ness, both regional and locally and this alerted the Central Go-vernment. Consequently, on April 6th, the President of the Re-public, Ollanta Humala Tasso; the Minister of Health, Alberto Tejada Noriega; and the National Head of INDECI, Alfredo Murgueytio Espinoza; went to Iquitos. Once there, they over-flew, with the President of the Region, Iván Vásquez Valera, to evaluate the situation of the Amazon region and to develop the first negotiations with the local and regional institutions.

Additionally, from March, the National Head of INDECI, aler-ted by the alarming data that was reported by SINPAD, went on several occasions to the areas affected by the floods and decided to offer support to the local authorities, after confir-ming the seriousness of the situation during overflights and field visits. Besides taking huge amounts of humanitarian su-pport from different Regional Directorates of INDECI (DRI) to Loreto, INDECI provided technical support to the Regional Government. This allowed that:

I. On March 29th, through the Supreme Decree Nº 037-2012-PCM, the PCM declared a State of Emergency for a period of 60 days in 24 districts of the seven provinces.

II. On April 6th, through the Supreme Decree Nº 040-2012-PCM, a State of Emergency was declared in other twelve districts for a period of 60 days.

III. On May 28th, through the Supreme Decree Nº 057-2012-PCM, the State of Emergency was extended to 60 days in the districts provided in the Supreme Decree on March 29th.

IV. On June 6th, through the Supreme Decree Nº 062-2012-PCM, the State of Emergency was extended to 60 days in the twelve districts provided in the Supreme Decree on April 6th.

V. On June 8th, through the Supreme Decree Nº 064-2012-PCM, the State of Emergency was extended in the seven subsequent districts.

During the entire emergency, the proactivity from several Mi-nistries was a strength, since they made arrangements with the regional sectors to strengthen the response actions and reha-bilitation in case of floods. For instance, MINSA planned, in coordination with DIRESA, the provision of goods, portable toilets and reservoirs to store water; sent specialists from the Directorate-General of Environmental Health (DIGESA) in order to improve the sectorial abilities about logistical aspects in collective centres; and managed the arrival of a group of professionals such as nurses and doctors. The MINEDU ca-rried out an assessment mission in Iquitos and, through the DIECA, established channels of direct coordination with the DREL to promote the fulfillment of the right to the education. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Economy and Finances (MEF) au-thorized additional transfers of funds to DRA and DIRESA.

As for the food aid coordination, a good practice was the mana-gement system used by the National Food Assistance Program (PRONAA), which supported the affected population from three different offices: Iquitos, for the provinces of Maynas, Loreto, Ramón Castilla, Requena; Pucallpa, for the province of Ucayali; and Tarapoto, for the provinces of Datem del Mara-ñón and Alto Amazonas. In addition, due to its structure, the PRONAA coordinated the food delivery directly with the dis-trict municipalities which, in turn, informed the REOC. This mechanism led to a prompt food assistance to victims. Howe-ver, it is necessary to mention that, during the emergency, any of the three PRONAA warehouses did not have food stocks in case of emergency. For that reason, the rations provided were below those set by law and by the international standards of food assistance. Additionally, the districts had to assume the costs, and the transport and distribution logistics of the food delivered by the PRONAA.

33/Coordination - National Government


NATIONAL HUMANITARIAN

NETWORK

Nationally, the Humanitarian Network represents an impor-tant gateway between the national authorities and the inter-national aid organizations in order to reduce the impact of disasters and emergencies in the vulnerable populations. Par-ticularly, through the coordination of the main humanitarian actors in the territory, each year, the National Humanitarian Network (NHN) monitors the evolution of the humanitarian situation for the rainy season in Peru, centralizing the infor-mation provided by several institutions and coordinating the implementation of humanitarian support.

In case of emergency in Loreto, the NHN represented an effi-cient coordination space regarding fund-raising. Besides the humanitarian support managed by INDECI and different public institutions, on April 17th, the IFRC mobilized DREF funds for the implementation of humanitarian actions throu-gh the Peruvian Red Cross (CRP). On May 2nd, thanks to the financing by CERF, the United Nations approved nine projects to be carried out under the responsibility of UNICEF, FAO, PAHO/WHO and IOM. On May 22nd, through the Direc-torate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), the European Commission, financed COOPI, CES-VI, and the German and Spanish Red Cross in order to deve-lop four humanitarian support projects. Finally, other organi-zations such as Plan International y Caritas Peru, mobilized institutional funds.

Another strength performed by the NHN was the decision of the Global Task Force on Building Codes (Shelter Cluster), with the support of the IFRC, to carry out a mission in Peru to inform about the humanitarian situation and the housing condition of most affected families who preferred not to go to collective centres.

With the aim to facilitate joint analyses, to ensure high stan-dards in the emergency management processes and to guaran-tee the interventions’ complementarity, a good practice of the NHN intervention was the role delegation of humanitarian international aid in Loreto to UNICEF by the UN Resident Coordinator. This promoted cooperative efforts to support the Regional Government of Loreto. Also, during the entire emer-gency and to improve the coordination between specialists and officers of the cooperating agencies, and the regional and local authorities, UNICEF supported the REOC meetings and ma-naged a coordination space of international aid workers, called Humanitarian Network of Loreto. Additionally, in coordina-tion with the regional entities and agencies responsible for the thematic coordination in the country, six areas for discussion (Health, Water and Sanitation, Housing, Collective Centres, Communication and Protection) were established. These areas for discussion were called sectorial EOC or ‘thematic panels’4

4. The expressions ‘thematic panels’ and ‘sectorial EOC’ are used as synonyms throughout the document.

and were led by the GOREL with the support of international coordinators. With the exception of the areas of Health, and Water and Sanitation that were working in DIRESA’s facilities, the members of each sectorial EOC were meeting regularly in the REOC’s physical space to discuss the most urgent issues within their area of interest, to reach shared decisions and to take timely actions.

The main achievement of this humanitarian coordination structure in Loreto consisted on the complementarity between the tasks of the REOC (place where they shared news regar-ding the evolving situation) and the sectorial EOC (spaces of thematic analysis and of elaboration of actions). The coordina-tion role to support the GOREL performed by UNICEF, under direct delegation of the United Nations Resident Coordinator, was recognized in a very positive way by the involved institu-tions.

Currently, some sectorial EOC established during the emer-gency are still functioning. For instance, the housing sector is now the main space for inter-institutional dialogue in the re-gion for the urban planning. And it is important to mention that the ones who attend their weekly meetings are the repre-sentatives of INDECI, National Defense, Regional Infrastruc-ture Board, Directorate of Housing, Architects Association of Loreto, Electro Oriente, Sedaloreto, and Technical Secretaries from the Civil Defense institutes in Maynas, San Juan Bautista, Belen and Punchana. Similarly, the sectorial EOC of collective centres currently represents the regional space for the planning and preparation of future facilities for collective centres in case of emergency. In addition, this thematic panel not only works to identify appropriate and safe places to set collective centres up, but it also coordinates the assignment of institutional res-ponsibilities regarding the housing issue.

Though the sectorial EOC represented spaces of direct coor-dination between the institutions involved in the emergency management, several members expressed doubts about the efficiency level reached by this mechanism. According to some people, in several occasions, the debate was unproductive, since it was difficult to reach important decisions and a clear assignment of responsibilities. Nevertheless, this may be asso-ciated with weaknesses in the group management and group decision-making. Additionally, the lack of key actors, such as the district mayors, impeded the decision-making and execu-tion processes.

Similarly, other interviewees regretted the lack of adjustment mechanisms of the sectorial EOC to the local context. They even stated that, in the long term, this aspect ended up weake-ning the efficiency of this management channel. For instance, the lack of coordination among the sectorial EOC undermined the ability to plan interventions of major scope. Furthermore, according to the interviewees, when there was coordination, it was for a particular interest and through informal manage-ment channels.

Regarding the cooperating agencies, it is necessary to men-tion that a good practice was the activation of coordination mechanisms among all government levels since it is the only way to avoid duplication in the interventions; ensure a suitable knowledge of activities by authorities and officers; and stren-gthen the local institutional capacities. For instance, COOPI

35/and the German Red Cross developed direct formalities with district, provincial and regional governments, and determined the intervention places—Alto Amazonas and Mariscal Ramón Castilla, respectively—taking as a base the prioritizations gi-ven by the Regional Secretary for National Defense and the REOC. On the other hand, UNICEF included in the coordi-nation meetings the Municipal Ombudsman for Children and Adolescents (DEMUNA) from different districts. While Plan International coordinated with the Punchana District Muni-cipality through its DEMUNA, and with DIRESA through the Mental Health sector.

Despite that daily critical news from Loreto had the SITREP support—elaborated by the UN Resident Coordinator’s Offi-ce—which reported that the aid provided to the region by na-tional institutions was not enough to cover the humanitarian gaps; and even tough, in February 2012, given the rainfall in-crease, NHN meetings became constant and the rain monito-ring became a priority issue to NHN members, they did not achieve the necessary consensus to organize and implement an inter-agency and intersectoral mission to evaluate damages and local needs of the areas worst hit by floods in the Amazon region.

Given this situation, several organizations decided to act in-dependently. From 4 to 6 April, the Red Cross carried out the first damage assessment which revealed the seriousness of the situation. From 9 to 12 April, UNICEF and WHO representa-tives traveled to Iquitos to monitor the evolving situation and, at witnessing the situation, suggested that the UN agencies applied to CERF funds. From 16 to 20 April, a group of coo-perating agencies—among these COOPI; UNICEP; FAO; Save the Children; German, Peruvian and Spanish Red Cross—ca-rried out a subsequent mission together with representatives from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Hu-manitarian Aid and Civil Protection. Finally, during that same month, the IOM carried out its own mission.

Despite the results obtained by the NHN, it is worth mentio-ning that there was a lack of coordination amongst INDE-CI and the agencies, especially due to the lack of established protocols in case of floods. In the specific emergency case in Loreto, the lack of agreement on the minimal criteria for in-ter-agency assessments, and the lack of a clear methodology for its implementation caused a fragmentation in the collective action. This caused a decrease of the incidence and advocacy process of the NHN regarding the intervention.

Coordination - National Humanitarian Network


OPERATIONS

This section describes the lessons learned, the good practices and the limitations of the activities carried out

in response to the emergency in the priority sectors of Collective Centres, Housing, Livelihoods, Health, Water

and Sanitation, Nutrition and Food Safety, Protection and Emotional Recovery, Education and Social Communication.

Before turning to the analysis of each sector, it is important to mention some general considerations regarding the

operations of the intervention system.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

In general terms, the presence of institutional strengthening components in all sectors was one of the strengths of the ac-tions taken. In this regard, the organization of the Regional Workshop “Lessons Learned” was of particular relevance. This workshop—that was organized by the GOREL with the techni-cal advice of INDECI, UNICEF and Plan International—took place on September 27th and 28th, with the participation of 132 representatives from different institutions such as GOREL, Municipalities, INDECI, the Police, the Armed Forces and aid organizations. During the workshop, apart from presentations, there were work groups. During the first day, the members worked to establish the good practices and limitations of the intervention in every sector. These members were organized in nine thematic panels: Health, Food and Nutrition, Housing, Water and Sanitation, Education, Agriculture, Transportation, Communications and Social Communication, Collective Cen-tres, Protection and REOC. While during the second day the members of every thematic panel identified action proposals for the future.

37/A similar event was organized by COOPI, Caritas Peru, the Provincial Municipality of Alto Amazonas and the IGP in Yu-rimaguas. This event, held on October 12, was attended by 50 people from several institutions—Civil Defense, Public Safety, Municipalities, Sub-region of Alto Amazonas, health care cen-ters, universities, INABIF, companies and media—who partici-pated with presentations and work groups.

Among good practices, it is necessary to mention the initiative of some organizations by prioritizing the intervention in most remote areas of the region. Thus, COOPI implemented respon-se actions and rehabilitation in four districts of the province of Alto Amazonas which will continue until 2013, just as the German Red Cross in the province of Mariscal Ramón Castilla and the Spanish Red Cross in the province of Loreto. For its part, Caritas Peru took advantage of its institutional presence in Yurimaguas in order to add—to its regular program in Alto Amazonas—a component in response to the emergency.

Given the logistical difficulties experienced by purchase and transport volunteers of humanitarian support goods from Lima, the collaboration provided by the Peruvian Navy to the SENA program, run by Plan International, was one practice to take into account in case of future flood emergencies. The Pe-ruvian Navy not only provided its facilities for storage, but its contribution in the logistics through air transportation of ma-terials from Lima was of paramount importance. Similarly, the decision to acquire necessary implements in Panama, which, besides reducing costs, accelerated the delivery, was one of the greatest intervention strengths carried out by PAHO.

According to the gathered testimonies, the concentration of hu-manitarian actions in the urban and peri-urban areas in Iquitos and, especially, in the collective centres established to provide protection to the displaced population was the main limitation of the emergency response in Loreto. This is due to the fact that, according to the numbers provided by the REOC, the 3,417 families that took refuge in 132 collective centres establish in Iquitos and suburbs represented less than 7% of the total of the affected families.

Although several local and national public institutions provi-ded humanitarian support to the victims in the entire region, it is necessary to indicate that, in several occasions, it did not get to fulfill the needs of the people living in provinces and rural areas. For instance, the province of Loreto that reported, accor-ding to data provided by the REOC, a total of 10,801 injured and 969 affected families received—as humanitarian support by GOREL and INDECI—9,707 units such as drums, mosqui-to nets, mattresses, buckets, bedspreads, shovels, knives, ladles, skimmers, ropes and prybars. In other words, families did not receive any unit. Additionally, the food aid given to the vic-tims in Loreto by the PRONAA made a total of 91,171.55 kg, between rice, oil, coarse manioc flour and canned food. This quantity divided by the number of affected families hardly re-sulted in 8.4 kg per family during entire period of flooding.

Regarding the described situation, it must be mentioned that, according to the officers’ testimonies, the amount assigned for ten INDECI warehouses in the region significantly reduced: from S/.1’400,000 a year on average between 2008 and 2011 to

S/.700 thousand in 2012.

A subsequent weakness consisted on the lack of an institution responsible for analyzing the humanitarian gaps that were ta-king place during the emergency and for redirecting the actions of the actors involved according the needs. The biggest conse-quence was that there were not registrations of victims who re-fused to go to colletive centres and decided to remain in their flooded homes. That is why this situation constitutes a lesson learned. In future emergencies, in coordination with the Local Governments, the REOC must take responsibility to monitor the humanitarian gaps and to coordinate the registration of people who is not living in collective centres.

Given the adverse events, it is essential to carry out a rapid and effective assessment process, since any aid provided by govern-ment institutions or cooperating agencies depends on an appro-priate report of damages and needs. Nevertheless, in the specific emergency case in Loreto, there was a considerable delay in the assessment accomplishment. In particular, the validation of the gathered information and its registration in SINPAD stretched the activation time of the aid mechanisms, which exacerbated the humanitarian gaps. Within this framework, it is possible to identify two possible reasons that can explain what had happe-ned. On the one hand, the logistical difficulties and the shortage of financial, material and human resources obstructed the pro-cess of information gathering, specially in the most remote and rural areas. On the other hand, the fact that almost all district and provincial municipalities did not updated census of its sett-lers complicated the elaboration of correct numbers.

As the interviews to Local Government officers demonstra-ted, the need to have updated census was an important lesson learned by the local institutions. In that regard, good practices represented all the initiatives undertaken by different munici-palities in order to update the demographic and population sta-tistics. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the effort under-taken by the GOREL in coordination with the districts to carry out the complete census of those living in flood areas in Iquitos, Belen, Punchana and San Juan Bautista.

Operations - General considerations


COLLECTIVE CENTRES

Given the need to leave the flooded homes, a total of 3,417 fa-milies—3,088 in Iquitos and 329 in the suburbs—were received in 132 collective centres (114 in Iquitos and 18 in the suburbs). It is important to clarify that some of the collective centres were groups of tents—given by INDECI—located in fields, while the others were at collective centers.

In the report developed by UNICEF, during the damage as-sessment mission carried out with PAHO in April, is indicated that the overcrowding in the established collective centres up to date together with the lack of educational actions, differed from achieving the minimum conditions of hygiene, privacy and safety. This lack of security exposed children and adolescents to risks of mistreatment, sexual abuse and human trafficking. According to the situation report Nº 2 by the Red Cross, in 45 collective centres established until April 5th, each family had approximately 8 m2 of space and was separated from the others by plastics of 1.70 m high.

Given this situation, the local institutions in collaboration with international aid organizations took a series of actions on hu-manitarian support and rehabilitation in order to provide ade-quate living conditions to the sheltered ones and to strengthen the management capacities of the same local institutions.

According to the Local and Regional Government officers who were interviewed, the lesson learned of major scope to the local institutions was the need to include in their agenda a working methodology that, prioritizing the disaster risk management,

results in the following actions: indentify the most adequate areas for the establishment of collective centres; make a map-ping of the available collective centers; produce a bigger institu-tional ability to the coordination and management of collective centres; and elaborate protocols of inter-institutional action to the management and proper operation of the collective centres.

To achieve these objectives, the IOM promoted the creation of a collective centre thematic panel in the REOC, which is a useful practice to future flood cases, given the fact that it served as a coordination space of actions and rehabilitation carried out in the collective centres during the emergency. In this respect, one of its main strengths was the efficiency level achieved in the coordination established between sectors and organizations involved with the objectives to identify the needs of the popu-lation living in collective centres, to solve the problems on an organized basis and to avoid duplications. Thus, thanks to this thematic panel, the IOM achieved the mapping of collective centres, the registration of all lodged families, and the organi-zation of an efficient monitoring mechanism of the living con-ditions and needs of the sheltered ones.

Even if the emergency was over, the thematic panel of collecti-ve centre is still working to analyze, elaborate and implement specific measures regarding to the topic. However, despite the efforts made by the thematic panel members up to now, it is essential that, in this post-emergency phase, the humanitarian actors present in the territory continue supporting the tasks of local institutions by doing strengthening and training activities. In particular, it is essential to the public institutions that partici-pated in the thematic panel to receive specific advice about bu-dget since any of them do not have funds to build and maintain collective centres.

39/In order to improve local institutional capacities, it was essen-tial to train 45 local officers. This training was carried out by IOM and UNFPA, regarding collective centres management and human trafficking—a worrying subject in the region. Simi-larly, the accomplishment of workshops to the civil society to prevent gender-based and domestic violence and sexual abuse, as well as the technical assistance for the rehabilitation of da-maged homes were warmly welcomed. In addition, all actions turned out to be useful in order to involve the population in collective centres in the organization of daily activities such as routines and training workshops about different topics such as DRM, hygiene, health, security, correct use of water and C&A rights. Among other positive aspects, the IOM encouraged me-asures to enable alternative spaces in order to empty occupied classrooms, and to repair collective centres to improve its ha-bitability.

Regarding the weaknesses of the local institutions about collec-tive centres management, the interviewees mentioned the lack of specialists in collective centres management among the pu-blic sector specialists, the lack of knowledge about the topic and the lack of resources for its construction. These elements added to the lack of contingency plans to set collective centres up, led to the unlawful occupation of 50 educational institutions and the establishment of collective centres that did not respect the international standards.

A subsequent limitation was that collective centres structures could not be adapted to the climatic conditions in the area. In particular, the tents provided by INDECI were not suitable to the Selva region, since they were overheated by the intensive sun and filtered rain water during heavy storms. Another ad-justment difficulty was the sanitary facilities since, as most of

the interviewees indicated, the portable toilets did not answer adequately to the hygienic requirements of the sheltered ones. These problems were one of the lessons learned by the thema-tic panel of collective centres, since for future emergencies it is essential to have an inter-institutional work that allows identif-ying local housing models and temporary toilets adapted to the requirements and typical living conditions in the area.

Finally, another weakness of the thematic panels was the lack of awareness campaigns to the Iquitos population in order to resist the diffusion of negative stereotypes on the sheltered ones and to generate an understanding culture towards the particu-lar requirements of the victims.

Operations - Collective Centres


HOUSING

According to the numbers provided by the REOC, 109,699 dwellings were damaged by the floods, 8,195 became uninhabitable and 31 collapsed. The number of damages in this sector revealed the lack of DRM policies in the institutions in rural areas and the permissibility of certain authorities that, despite the existence of regulatory plans, authorized the land titling and urban adaptation of areas declared in high flood risk. Specifically, in the case of Iquitos, there was a lack of urban rehabilitation programs (private or public). In addition, the lack of municipal control and audit allowed a great rural migration to the river banks which caused a disproportionate urban growth in the capital city.

A consequence of the lack of an establishment plan for collective centres and of the urgency of leaving the flooded homes, on April 5th, about 60 affected families invaded private plots, located on the Iquitos-Nauta road, km 2.5. In addition, this caused confrontations with the police.

Given this situation, a good intervention practice was the establishment of the thematic panel of housing that rapidly became the main place of inter-institutional dialog about the issue. Currently, this panel has also become an important space of analysis, suggestions and advocacy with the purpose of placing the issue of urban development in the center of the regional political agenda. And, to ensure the sustainability of decisions taken at the thematic panel, an important lesson learned has been the need to strengthen the current inter-institutional strategy adopted through measures to involve in the thematic panel tasks the mayors of district municipalities and the prosecutor’s office.

According to the opinions expressed by the interviewed officers, the proactivity demonstrated by the GOREL was one strength of the intervention in the housing sector. In particular, before the emergency occurred, the Regional Government had already identified—on the Iquitos-Nauta road, km 12.5—two plots where people living in areas of high risk of flooding would be relocated: Peña Negra I and Peña Negra II, of 16.5 and 50 hectares respectively. Currently, the GOREL is enabling these areas and, on them, the Regional Directorate of Housing has carried out a project of urban recovery and has foreseen the construction of 400 basic housing modules. Similarly, the District Municipality of Punchana is working to relocate families at risk in safe areas in Padre Cocha, which had been identified before.

Currently, despite the actions performed, the lack of confidence of the population towards the authorities and the customs of people who live in flood areas and refuse to be relocated are putting at risk the feasibility of the relocation process. As the housing thematic panel members confirmed, to guarantee that the relocation process, raised by the GOREL, is completely fulfilled and in order to prevent that plots left by relocated occupants are re-occupied by others, it is necessary to implement a series of actions, such as:

- Involve the population living in shantytowns, located in flood areas not mitigated, in the decision-making process.

- Ensure basic public services (electricity, water and drainage) in the land cleared for the move.

- Elaborate a global and sustainable plan that foresees the evacuation of settlers by priority blocks.

- Provide economic incentives to the families that decide to be resettled.

- Create an efficient and subsidized service of public transportation between the rehabilitated areas and the downtown.

41/- Ensure municipal control and inspection by the

authorities in charge in order to avoid the reoccupation of the unoccupied areas by new occupants.

With the aim to accelerate this process, it is essential that the cooperating agencies continue offering technical assistance to the local institutions and especially to the thematic panel of housing. In this regard, a good practice of the cooperating agencies intervention was the commitment assumed by CESVI by implementing the necessary actions to relocate 50 families.

Despite the efforts made to relocate the people living in flood areas, it should be noted that it is necessary to relocate a total of 20,000 families, according to the evaluation carried out by PAHO/WHO. This number widely exceeds 2,000 plots identified up to date by the GOREL and the Municipality of

Punchana. This demonstrates that local institutions must give priority in their agenda the individualization, rehabilitation and urbanization of subsequent areas for housing.

During the intervention, a series of practices were carried out that must be taken into account in case of future floods. Among them, it is important to mention the following:

- The rehabilitation of 1000 dwellings with of harvesting system of rain water in the safer areas of the province of Alto Amazonas, performed by COOPI in rural areas of four provincial districts and in shantytowns in Yurimaguas.

- The housing relocation of two small villages—Atahualpa and Huatapi—in higher areas, thanks to Caritas and to the Santa Cruz District Municipality.

- This study was carried out by the Global Work Group on Shelters (Shelter Cluster) regarding the situation of dwellings in the affected populations.

- The identification of materials required for the rehabilitation of homes and the supply of these materials—from local sources—to the sheltered ones, implemented by the IOM.

- The setting-up of dry ecological latrines in elevated areas, carried out by CESVI.

Finally, it is important to indicate that—despite all actions carried out during the emergency and even though, according to the interviewees, it has been demonstrated that the flood areas not mitigated must be kept free of construction and housing units—the housing situation in Iquitos is still the same as before the emergency. In this respect, the families displaced by the flood have returned to live in houses located in flood areas, since it is not above the maximum overflow level and do not have the necessary measures of protection and contingency. The Technical Secretary of Civil Defense in Belen states that about 80% of the housing units built in the territory of his jurisdiction is in flood areas.

Operations - Housing


LIVELIHOODS

As mentioned before, the loss in the agricultural sector was huge and had a total of 27,821 hectares of crops. This represents an estimated amount of more than S/.40 million, according to the numbers submitted by DEIA in its May Report regar-ding Floods. Additionally, the floods caused a series of colla-teral effects of great importance such as: significant losses in the livestock sector; decrease of the agricultural land due to the erosion; shortage of local products in the markets and the con-sequent increase of prices; decapitalization of producers; and forced migration towards the biggest population centers.

Given this situation, the Regional Directorate of Agriculture reacted quickly and, thanks to a structure for the entire regio-nal territory, could gather promptly the necessary information to quantify the damage suffered by producers and to quantify the sector needs. In particular, the DRA could have a series of strengths that facilitated its action. Among these: a previous contingency plan for emergencies, which assigned specific ro-les to agencies and agricultural institutions; an internal com-munication system, to which every agricultural agency submi-tted updated information daily about its jurisdiction area, both in damage assessment phase and monitoring of implemented actions; an statistics office, which consolidated the relevant in-formation; and a high management ability that allowed to mo-bilize extra funds—S/.1’024,080—provided by the MINAG to purchase certified seeds. These funds, added to 127.8 tons of seeds acquired by the GOREL, allowed the distribution of a to-tal of 400.05 tons of certified seeds of rice, corn and cowpeas.

In general, among the rehabilitation actions implemented by cooperating agencies—FAO, COOPI and CESVI—it was very useful the delivery of certified seeds (rice, bean and corn), qua-lity tools and laying hens; the distribution of vegetable seeds to improve the rural population’s nutrition; the implementation of training workshops to improve producers’ knowledge; and the cooperation with agricultural agencies in the territory to organize activities and lectures. In addition, with the purpose to limit damage caused by the erosion of the areas, it is necessary to mention the construction of riverine barriers and pedestrian bridges by COOPI in the province of Alto Amazonas.

Despite the strengths mentioned, a series of limitations obs-tructed the task of specialists from agencies and agricultural institutions which led, in most cases, to carry out damage as-sessments by sampling. Among these are the logistical diffi-culties; the dispersion of affected communities; the lack of a budget to assist emergency situations; the lack of implements, such as boats and gasoline; the shortage of trained personnel to gather information; and the lack of a register of producers updated at regional level.

In addition, it is necessary to mention that not all districts have agricultural institutions and that, during the emergency, it did not reach a specific coordination space, such as a thematic panel or a sectorial EOC. For that reason, the coordination between organizations and institutions involved in response actions and rehabilitation were developed sporadically and according to the institutional requirements of each actor.

Finally, a limitation found by most of the organizations was the difficulty to obtain large amounts of certified seeds in the region due to the lack of local growers. From the above, two lessons learned to the sector were: the need to prioritize the local production of seeds—especially regarding local and nati-ve-grown vegetables—and the possibility to hold stocks in case of emergency. In order to encourage both processes, some in-terviewees demonstrated the need of establishing an inter-ins-titutional working meeting.

DISTRICT OF INDIANA Community of TimicurilloJulio Alvarado Vásquez

The year 2012 marked a milestone in the lives of many families in the Loreto region, when nature struck communities with heavy rains that led to uncontrollable growth of the region’s rivers. The population, accustomed to the growing of the river in the rainy season, that year saw the rivers grow on the usual levels, a situation that led to the loss of homes and crops.

Julio Alvarado Vasquez lives in Timicurillo community, district of Indiana (province of Maynas). His family consists of 11 children, he and his wife, but only four of his children live with him. The swollen river flooded their fields of crops, affecting his and his family daily food. Heavy flooding led to food shortages in the area. Julio said that he and his family had to walk through the district looking for food, cassava, banana and fariña (manioc flour). As food prices were higher than normal high, the daily diet of the family must inevitably decline, a situation that would jeopardize the food security and nutrition of this family.

This family was benefited by FAO, organization that in coordination with the Municipality of Indiana donated seeds of rice, corn and beans that would enable them to restore their productive capacity, improving food and household economy. Julio and his family received certified maize seeds, which have been planted and are now reaping.

“In the past, we planted another variety of corn. The corn seed delivered by FAO has more grains. As a family we are stronger and happier. Things we have received are working and we are very happy. If we suffer again of an emergency situation, this family is calm because we have saved seeds, we put seeds out to dry in the sun to avoid being attacked by the weevil. We have seeds for next years”.


SALUD

Both in the collective centres and in the affected areas, the emergency situation increased the ARIs and DDAs, apart from epidemic outbreaks of dengue, malaria and leptospirosis, which caused the rise of the health care demand. Additionally, accor-ding to the data given by the REOC, a total of 54 health care centers were damaged in the provinces of Requena, Ucayali, Maynas and Loreto. It is worth mentioning that the first dama-ges were registered in SINPAD since January.

Now, as previously mentioned, at the end of 2011, DIRESA was the first sector to be activated during the floods, taking the first actions during the rainy season, which demonstrated a great responsiveness. Thus, in October, DIRESA updated its “Plan of Risk Management on emergencies and disasters during rainy seasons and extreme events within the framework of climate change adaptation”. In November, DIRESA issued a Yellow Alert due to “Risk of Disease because of heavy rains in Loreto”. As of that moment, a permanent monitoring of the river levels was started. Among the strengths that improved the intervention of DIRESA, it is important to mention its operational structure in networks, the annual update of the contingency plan in case of floods and cold waves, the presence of a training program about DRM and management of EDAN cards, and the existen-ce of simulation plans. As a result of the sector’s management ability, after requesting funds of 7 million to MINSA, DIRESA received S/. 3’160,000 through an urgency decree in order to prevent contagious, bronchial, viral and endemic diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever and hepatitis which are caused by dammed-up rainwater and wastewater.

According to testimonies of the health-care workers that were interviewed, the decision of setting up the Health Emergency Operations Center was an essential good practice. In com-pliance with the contingency plan and with the participation of all areas of DIRESA, the sectorial EOC was provided with the specific functions of analysis, decision-making and situation report. Additionally, during the intervention, it benefited from the presence and contributions from different organizations—such as PAHO/WHO, UNICEF, Plan International, Firefighters Without Borders (FWB), Kallpa and CRP—that provided eco-nomic and technical assistance to develop different activities.

Among the implemented activities, it stands out a series of use-ful practices in case of future emergencies, as the following:

- The adjustment of the social program “A doctor in your neighborhood” to the emergency and its transformation in a permanent program, and contemplating the possibili-ty of extending the attention coverage to complement the offer of health services. As a result, the program was war-mly welcomed by the population, since they could receive medical care, vaccination campaigns, growth and develo-pment monitoring, informative meetings to prevent disea-ses and psychological counseling.

- The prioritization of the assistance in the collective cen-tres, whose organization and management was under the responsibility of DIRESA. This allowed a total of more than 15,000 specialized visits and it was identified an ele-

Testimony: Promotores de Vida

Mrs. Amalia Murallari Ipushima joined six of her friends in attending the meeting called by the Paujil Health Center, driven by the need and curiosity to find out what it meant to be a community agent. She lives in the community 13 de Febrero, an hour away from the city of Iquitos. All the residents here experienced difficult times during the flood of 2012. The majority of the population makes a living in the fields, and many of them lost all of their banana and yucca crops when disaster struck, reducing their possibilities of obtaining food. Their economy collapsed and the diseases resulting from the overflowing river, such as respiratory conditions and diarrhea, became a latent danger among this town of just one thousand inhabitants, many of them children. Furthermore, the precariousness of their living conditions—their only drinking water came from a well—increased their risk of contracting diseases such as dengue and malaria.

For this reason, the intervention in the zone focused on turning residents into decision-makers with regard to improvements in their quality of life. The technical support provided by UNICEF, with the resources of the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), consisted of training people in the identification of their needs, after which they were able to propose ideas to help improve their health and quality of life. As part of these actions, Mrs. Amalia Murallami and the women who accompanied her that day decided to join in this process. The Directorate of Health and the Kallpa Organization provided them with training to undertake activities for prevention and the promotion of healthy habits, and they went on to form part of the community surveillance committee, addressing health problems with the participation of all the town’s residents.

The first part of their training consisted of learning how to identify the at-risk population, how to promote healthy habits, and emphasizing the importance of their work among the population. Because the community is situated in a zone affected by malaria, the entire group of agents was trained in taking thick blood films to identify cases of this disease. Finally, they were instructed on how to perform home visits, as well as the objectives and strategies of these visits, all with the participation of local authorities.

The results could not have been better. Due to the lack of drinking water, the first thing the community promoters did was to establish a system for delivering and teaching people to use the hygiene kit to encourage hand-washing as a strategy for diminishing acute respiratory illnesses and diarrhea. Then, with the drums provided with the resources of the CERF project, they demonstrated how to prepare water that was safe to drink by chlorinating it and covering it with a lid. The agents also found that the accumulation of garbage was another factor that added to the risks faced by the population. In response, they created messages aimed at teaching families to dispose of their garbage properly, not throwing it in the river and instead putting it in bags that could later be sealed, and keeping their houses as clean as possible and waste-free.

The community agents also stressed that each mother and father should have up-to-date healthcare records for their children. During each home visit and every community meeting, they called upon parents to make sure their children had received all their vaccinations, participate in the growth and development sessions offered at local health centers, and seek out healthcare services as soon as possible if they noted symptoms of illness in their children. At the end of a hard day of work, Mrs. Amalia Murallami, tired but content, told us, “A promoter’s job is hard, but it’s all worth it when a family takes responsibility for the health of their children, nourishes them, promotes cleanliness, and monitors their growth. When I see how we’re achieving that goal, it makes my fatigue disappear,” she smiled as we walked through the streets of her town.


vated incidence of ARI, ADD and parasitosis.

- Strengthening of the assistance provided to rural com-munities in the provinces of Maynas, Loreto, Requena, Ramón Castilla and Ucayali. This allowed carrying out medical care activities, growth and development monito-ring, vaccination campaigns, de-worming, pregnancy care, educational meetings and spraying of infectious sources.

- The implementation of epidemiological monitoring ac-tivities, such as rat-extermination, disinsectization, ela-boration of clinical guides and fumigation in collective centres and housing units in the flood areas. Within this framework, it is necessary to emphasize the participation of the PNP and the prosecutor’s office as strength in this sector, provided that they made the work easier towards the reluctant population. As a result, in April 2012, the in-dex of Aedes aegypti infestation in Iquitos reached 2.4%, its lowest level ever.

- The accomplishment of health promotion actions and strengthening capacities: health-care workers, collective centre coordinators, health-care promoters in rural areas and school teachers were trained in DRM; and communi-cation materials were elaborated in coordination with the thematic panel of communication.

In this context, the support offered by the cooperating agencies contributed to strengthen DIRESA’s responsiveness in an orga-nized and coordinated way. Thus, besides providing technical assistance to the sectorial EOC, UNICEF, PAHO and CRP trai-ned health-care workers and community actors; contributed to the equipment and mobilization of medical brigades; deployed national and international specialists for monitoring, diagnosis and treatment of diseases; encouraged prevention and protec-tion measures in families; developed educational materials to support prevention campaigns; bought and distributed equip-ments and medical supplies; and ensured compliance with high standards to assist children and pregnant women affected by the flood.

Despite the results obtained, the limitations faced by DIRESA in case of emergency must be mentioned: shortage of heal-th-care workers and local promoters; lack of a management plan of the human resources in case of emergency; and chronic shortages of medicines and goods. Also, the weak level of coor-dination with local governments and the limited community involvement in prevention activities represented limitations to DIRESA’s action.

A pesar de los resultados alcanzados, deben mostrarse las li-mitaciones enfrentadas por la DIRESA ante la situación de emergencia: escasez de personal de salud y promotores locales; ausencia de un plan de manejo de los recursos humanos, en situaciones de emergencia; y desabastecimiento crónico de me-dicamentos e insumos. A esto, se le sumó el débil nivel de coor-dinación con los Gobiernos Locales y la limitada participación comunitaria en las actividades de prevención representaron li-mitaciones a la acción de DIRESA.

WATER AND SANITATION

With the objective to know the situation of basic sanitation in Iquitos, in June 2012, DESA and PAHO/WHO performed ins-pections by sampling in the localities of return of the people li-ving in collective centres. In the document prepared from these inspections, the sanitary conditions of the water networks are defined as “inadequate”, since it represents a high-risk factor of contamination. Regarding sanitation systems, it is pointed out that any of the villages, that were visited, do not have a drainage system and that, in most cases, there are only open pipes. The problem is that, by being aboveground, the sanitary disposal of excreta creates critical situations in rainy seasons when the overflowing pipes flood communities located in areas of level ground. Finally, regarding the disposal of solid waste, this eva-luation proves that there are no collection systems, so that waste is left in gorges and river banks.

The 2012 floods exacerbated these structural problems in Iqui-tos and had several consequences, such as the collapse of the drainage system in several urban areas in Iquitos and of a drin-king water plant in San Andrés, as well as flooding latrines and fifteen public outlets—communal water points—were affected in Punchana, Belen and San Juan. Also, in all peri-urban areas likely to flood, there was an increase of vectors of metaxenic diseases; and in the accumulation of aquatic vegetation, solid

49/

waste and sticks. In addition, a number of criticisms emerged in the temporary collective centres —especially regarding the distribution and storage of drinking water, and its correct use—and the spreading of appropriate hygienic practices.

Facing this situation, the leadership by DIRESA was a strength. Through the Executive Directorate of Environmental Health (DESA), DIRESA assumed the coordination of all the activities to be implemented. And for that it was established, with the te-chnical assistance from PAHO/WHO, a thematic panel of water and sanitation.

The thematic panel, that weekly assembled approximately twel-ve members—among these, Sedaloreto, the company that pro-vides water and sanitation services in Iquitos; PAHO/WHO; UNICEF; Red Cross; CESVI; and FWB—turned out to be a tool of paramount importance since it was possible to approach the main structural problems in Iquitos. Especially, according to the interviewees, the thematic panel facilitated the identifica-tion of criticism in the sector and accelerated the intervention of the involved actors. In addition, being the first of its kind to be established in Peru, the thematic panel represented an im-portant precedent to the emergency coordination mechanisms all over the country.

A good practice implemented by the thematic panel was the validation of only one contingency plan—elaborated by DIRE-SA—regarding the actions to be taken about water and sanita-

tion. In this respect, all the activities implemented by the diffe-rent organizations were associated to the efforts made by DESA and contributed to meet the objectives set out by the regional sector. Among the actions that should be taken into account in case of future floods, it is important to mention:

- The strengthening of DESA, through training works-hops and the provision of laboratory equipment, with the aim to improve the institutional capacity for the control and monitoring of the drinking water quality.

- The training of promoters about the correct methods to provide consuming water, and about the equipment management to control and monitor its quality.

- The distribution of equipments to produce safe water in rural and peri-urban areas, as well as the distribu-tion of machines and goods for the chlorine produc-tion in collective centres and rural areas in Maynas, Requena and Ucayali.

- The provision of basic supplies to ensure the drinking water consumption, such as purification tablets and water containers; and the personal hygiene, such as hygiene kits.

- The accomplishment of monitoring campaigns of the water quality in different localities, and of fumigation and rodent control campaigns in urban and peri-ur-ban areas in Iquitos.

- The organization of cleaning groups of streets and gar-bage collection in areas prioritized by DIRESA once the flood is over, and the recruitment of unemployed people to accomplish the above-mentioned activity in collaboration with the Ministry of Labor.

- The execution of awareness campaigns to the popula-tion about the importance of safe water and hygiene through the program “A doctor in your neighbor-hood”, as well as through communication campaigns in different media such as radio, posters and flyers.

- The implementation of 1,000 family systems of ra-in-water harvesting carried out by COOPI in the pro-vince of Alto Amazonas with the aim to improve the quality of the water available to households.

- The systematization of all implemented activities du-ring the intervention into a single document.

Operations - Water and Sanitation


NUTRITION AND FOOD SAFETY

According to a study by the World Food Program (WFP)5, the average index of children vulnerable to malnutrition in the Lo-reto region, which is based on data obtained until 2007, was 0.35318 in 2010. This shows that 35% of the population in men-tion would be at risk of malnutrition.

As the results of the nutritional tests conducted by UNICEF and Plan International on 464 children under 5 years old from the damaged zones of the districts of Punchana, Iquitos and Belen6 reveal, the floods contributed to aggravate the preca-rious nutritional situation of the population. Considering that the agricultural activity represents the main economic activity of the population, the situation was even more serious in rural zones because crop and small animal loss put at risk the food safety of entire communities, particularly the ones of the most vulnerable people.

Given the serious situation, the GOREL carried out food deli-veries. Although the amounts were scarce and the distribution was limited to the provinces of Maynas and Requena, it is worth mentioning as good practice the distribution of large amounts of salt, element essential to preserve the abundant fish brought by the river crescents.

The largest amount of food aid was given by PRONAA which, according to consolidated figures provided by REOC, distribu-ted a total of 407,670.2 kg of food during the whole state of emergency. Among the good practices implemented by PRO-NAA, it is worth mentioning the sampling monitoring carried out to control the effective reception of food by the beneficia-ries.

Regarding the intervention of the voluntary organizations, it is worth mentioning the support provided to DIRESA by UNI-CEF. Such aid aimed to organize a supplementation plan for children, to train specialists in health care centers and to stock health care centers with multimicronutrients, vitamin A, nutri-tional supplements and zinc tablets. A point in favor of this in-tervention was the use of the media to promote the appropriate nutrition of children under 5 years old and expectant mothers through programs and radio spots.

Despite the efforts, the acts implemented by public institutions and voluntary organizations did not adjust to the needs of the population. Besides, although the absence of humanitarian gaps analysis prevents us from knowing in detail the shortage of the intervention, in the interviews carried out and according to the information on food deliveries, it was informed that food safety was the area that registered the widest gaps.

5. PMA. (2010). “Vulnerability Map of Chronic Child Malnu-trition from the Perspective of Poverty 2010 - Loreto Region”. PMA-Peru.6. The evaluation reveals that 36.2% of children under 5 had chronic malnutrition and 1.3% suffered from acute malnutrition. Also, 56.5% of children under three years and 59.3% of pregnant women were anemic.

Given this situation, the need to establish fast mechanisms of nutritional surveillance to monitor the food situation of the most vulnerable population–children younger than 5 years old, elderly people and expectant mothers–who live in rural zones, was a relevant “lesson learned” for future cases of emergency situations. Additionally, the need to activate inter-institutional management channels to coordinate safeguard actions on the food safety of the victims and to carry out detailed analysis of the humanitarian gaps constitutes another type of learning.

The following chart (Chart 2) illustrates the food aid received by the victims in each province.

As it is exposed in chart 2, on average, each affected family re-ceived 8 kg of food, corresponding to 1.8 kg per person. It is worth mentioning that 1.5 kg was delivered per family in Da-tem del Marañón, which means 300 grams per person.

Now, considering the state of emergency lasted 120 days in 36 districts; and 60 in another 7; it is obvious that the amount of food received by the affected families was below the needs and the international standards. Moreover, the fact that the food aid delivered by PRONAA was subject, by law, to the State of Emergency Declaration by the PCM, contributed to aggrava-te the situation of vulnerability of the victims because the first declaration was recently given at the end of March when, in several provinces, the fields had been already flooded several weeks before.

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Testimony: A dose of life

Janina López is a 19-year-old mother with a young son named Norl, now one year and eight months old. They live in the community of Masusa, district of Punchana, in the city of Iquitos. In the middle of the dusty streets, surrounded by the great green jungle, tiny Norl plays happily by his mother’s side. Anyone seeing him now would never image what he and his mother went through not so long ago.

Janina tells us that when the flooding started in 2012, her little Norl began to experience diarrhoea, growing weaker and weaker. By then, the health centre in her zone was flooded, too, and cases of acute diarrhoeal diseases among children in the region increased due to the contamination surrounding them, with the situation constantly worsening as the river swelled and swelled. The toddler began to lose weight and show symptoms of fatigue and listlessness. Janina was preoccupied so she began to ask around about what she could do, and she found out that the Health Post was giving out zinc. “I’d never heard of that cure before,” she comments. And so she decided to take her son in to start his treatment.

When she arrived with Norl in her arms, the specialist, Teresa, told her they had to give him a dose immediately.

“Mrs Teresa told me that she had to start giving him the treatment so the diarrhoea would stop. I decided to do it, because my little boy didn’t want to eat or drink anything. He was so skinny.” The dose was not difficult to administrate. All she had to do was dissolve the pill in a glass of water and give it to her son for ten days. “Even if the diarrhoea stops, mothers need to give their children the complete treatment,” the doctor told her. Janina followed her instructions to the letter. There were no restrictions on giving Norl zinc, donated with the support of the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) nutrition project. It could be done at any time of day, before or after meals. The most important thing was just to give him his daily dose. It was essential to treat him for the full ten days.

Norl got better right away. “He felt like eating whatever I gave him, and he drank his serum. I think the zinc helped him, because I saw how he got better, he completely recovered. I’m so thankful to the people who decided to bring the zinc sulphate. I’m really very happy,” says Janina with enthusiasm, as she watches her child play animatedly by her side. “The important thing is that my little boy is well. He’s healthy. I’m so happy to see him like this. Playing, running around. The zinc was a miracle; it cured him. I think this way, little by little, good things will start happening for us.”

Chart 2. Provincial distribution of food aid delivered by PRONAA per affected family and person

Affected families Affected peopleFood amount

(kg)Food amount per family (kg)

Food amount per person (kg)

Maynas 15,072 67,948 112,492.94 7.5 1.6

Alto Amazonas 2,097 8,737 14,621.91 6.9 1.7

Ucayali 5,88 28,096 58,511.12 9.9 2.1

Requena 9,155 38,798 92,927.61 10.1 2.4

Loreto 10,801 45,664 91,171.53 8.4 2

Ramón Castilla 6,779 33,683 35,992.19 5.3 1.1

Datem del Marañón 1,245 6,486 1,952.9 1.5 0.3

Total 51,029 229,412 497,670.2 8 1.8

Source: REOC

Operations - Nutrition and Food Sefety


PROTECTION AND EMOTIONAL

RECOVERY

According to the data provided by INEI, 43.38% of 1’006,953 people who live in Loreto are under 18 years old, in other words, 436,766 individuals. The structural deficit that the region shows regarding the abilities to protect the rights of the C&A, the high index of individuals without documentation, the high rates of sexual exploitation and the latent problem of human trafficking place this area of the district population in a high risk situation where it can be subject to violation of its rights.

With this situation and with the objective of strengthening the coordination among public and private organizations in the prevention, detection, assistance and derivation of cases of violation of C&A rights, on May 10th, the thematic panel of protection was set up. Headed by the Regional Management of Social Development, this coordination space was built by the media; two youth collectives; and 17 public and private institutions such as CEM, districtal DEMUNAs, PNP, health care centers, district family law prosecution, the human trafficking office, IOM, UNICEF, Save The Children, Plan International, CHS, KALLPA,UNFPA, among others.

The involvement of different institutions in the work of the thematic panel of protection established an important point in favor, since the inter-institutional methodology adopted allowed managing different activities on behalf of the affected population and of the service operators of local protection. In alliance among GDS-GOREL, MIMP, UNICEF, Save the Children and CHS, workshops addressed to C&A were carried out to strengthen their knowledge about rights; workshops were given to parents about how to prevent violence against C&A; and training courses to community leaders and agents were carried out on prevention, assistance and recovery in violence. Additionally, a workshop with 40 operators of the protection system took place–operators who belonged to public institutions and civil society organizations–with the objective of an assistance route against violence to children and sexual abuse. Moreover, a thematic panel for collective centres was created with 35 GOREL public officers trained by GDS-GOREL and CEM, in detection and prevention of violence against C&A, child sexual abuse and exploitation. On the other hand, MIMP was in charge of training 28 defender operators and promoters of DEMUNAs, while the Public Ministry, in coordination with the Peruvian Ombudsman Office, carried out three training workshops for public safety municipal workers. All the above mentioned activities were intervened in the districts of Iquitos, Belen, Punchana, San Juan Bautista, Indiana, Urarinas, Parinari and Nauta.

The close coordination developed by the thematic panel members and Communications-EOC represented another practice to apply in future emergency situations thanks to the design and diffusion of different kinds of communication materials such as interviews, radio and television spots, banners, ads, brochures and folders, this strategy allowed increasing the coverage level in the population.

Regarding the identification topic, the need to strengthen the coordination mechanisms between RENIEC and OREC was visualized at the thematic panel. To achieve this, technical meetings between RENIEC Loreto and civil registrars of seven municipalities were encouraged, and these allowed organizing orientation courses for community authorities and leaders of the affected rural areas through OREC travelling squads. Campaigns in urban and metropolitan areas of Maynas to process birth certificates were carried out as well.

Considering that emergency situations cause on the affected people a series of feelings and emotions that can affect their self-esteem and their normal development, a subsequent practice implemented since the thematic panel of protection consisted in the execution of different activities of emotional recovery. Among these and from the integral care approach exposed in the program “A doctor in your neighborhood”, DIRESA carried out recreational events and orientation workshops addressed to C&A, parents and mothers from the affected places about physical and emotional integrity of C&A.

Other points in favor in the efforts made by UNICEF and DREL were the setting up and implementation of Protection and Socio-emotional Recovery spaces with recreational kits for children. This initiative developed in 40 school-collective centres, called “toddlers’ kollpas”, gave psychosocial support to approximately 1,670 C&A. Additionally, the coordination between local governments and CEDEC for the setting up of “toddlers’ kollpas” in 8 communities in Iquitos, Belen, San Juan, Punchana and Indiana constituted model actions for future emergency situations. About this, it is worth mentioning that in the intervention developed by CEDEC, the local authorities took care of the financing of the facilities of the kollpas. Meanwhile, CEDEC contributed with recreational materials and, through the training of young people from the same community, with game facilitators. It is worth mentioning that the methodology adopted in the kollpas was using recreational fun events to identify abuse or exploitation signs in C&A and to educate them in key topics of risk prevention and management.

Concerning the intervention of Plan International, another good practice implemented on emotional recovery consisted in the strengthening of the Child Protection System of the District Municipality of Punchana. This measure, headed by its DEMUNA, counted on the participation of families, collective centre leaders and PNP members, institution that assumed the commitment to improve the collective centres surveillance and control with emphasis on the detection of possible cases of violation of C&A rights.

Additionally, as part of prevention efforts, the training of 70 PNP members of Iquitos was carried out on C&A protection mechanisms with emphasis on collective centres. A subsequent point in favor was the setting up of “Maloquitas of Joy”–spaces built and culturally adapted to the area–in four school- collective centres of the district of Punchana. Among them, local psychologists carried out a socio-emotional recovery program addressed to 1,614 C&A. During the nine sessions developed with each C&A, the program aimed to provide techniques to overcome feelings of lack of safety, stress and fear; to promote the identification of diverse dangerous situations,

55/which they could be exposed to; and to find personal tools to protect themselves. Moreover, through an awareness process to parents and collective centre leaders, they were informed and trained on how to manage common areas in collective centres with the objective of ensuring the protection of C&A rights.

Among other activities carried out by the volunteers, it is worth mentioning:

- The setting up of six mobile protection units and the training of six local promoters on the detection of cases of violence against C&A.

- The carrying out of Soccer of Values Festivals; and

- The carrying out of psychosocial support sessions to children under three years old and expectant mothers, in prioritized areas of Belen, Punchana y San Juan Bautista.

The efforts made allowed the identification of existing gaps in the protection of C&A regionally, as well as the recognition of C&A as imperative actors in emergency cases. In this regard, the most relevant lesson learned for the thematic panel of protection members was the need to permanently strengthen the institutional abilities of key actors locally, regionally and nationally – the Ombudsman Office, Public Prosecution, DEMUNA, CEM, municipal patrol guards, PNP and community leaders – so these can appropriately respond to the need of protection and emotional recovery of C&A in future emergency cases.

About the limitations of the intervention, the interviews revealed that the main weaknesses of the local system of prevention and response to violation of C&A rights consisted in the lack of specialized training, the shortage of human, material and economical resources, the lack of an effective mechanism to cover the entire population and the scarce inter-institutional coordination in the region.

On the other hand, the decision to concentrate the attention of the protection efforts on collective centres temporarily set up in the city of Iquitos – where, according to the situational reports made by different organizations, the high overcrowding, the scarcity of living conditions and the suspension of school classes contributed to aggravate the situation of violation of C&A rights – turned out in the lack of coordinated actions on behalf of the C&A in the most remote districts and provinces and in the lack of raising of precise and accurate information about the condition of rights of C&A in such places. It is worth mentioning that although GOREL emitted a regional directive for the topic of protection to be prioritized in every sub region, the logistic impossibility to participate in the thematic panel meetings experimented by key actors of the most remote districts and provinces contributed to complicate the range of this objective.

Operations - Protection and Emotional Recovery


Testimony about the Maloca

(house) of Joy

Del Aguila Yahuarcani family: Antonia (39 years), Orlando (49 years), Iris (13 years), Josué (8 years), Tirsa and Raquel (6 year old twin sisters)

Antonia: “We are from Simon Bolivar human settlement. Every year it rains but we never thought it would swell that much. I bought some wood and built a false floor thinking that it would be enough, but it wasn’t”.

People from Civil Defense told us that they would give us wood, but then they didn’t; afterwards they told us they would be leading us to the shelter in Generalisimo school but then we couldn’t go there because it was already full. Instead they took us to the shelter in Clavero school. I grabbed what I could, some clothes and my two pans, wrapped them in a bed sheet and left. These, my two ducks, were from my sister… (she cries as she had died), I brought them later on”

“I live here since the end of April. Before, in this same room there were 5 families, about 13 or 15 people. Now we are just 3 families, 13 adults and 7 children, 2 of them adolescents.”

Iris: “I have learned to wash my hands, to draw and colour and also about the things that happened. I have learned to write about the bad things that happened and to leave them behind. This makes me feel better because I throw the bad things from the flood and I do not look back. I leave the past behind. The Maloca is a place where we all get united, as a family.”

Antonia: “I participated as a volunteer. I was in charge of taking children to the Maloca of Joy so they could participate according to their ages. It has been something very stimulating for children in this stressful situation. They said: “here comes the Maloca” and it meant something recreational, very nice”

Josue: “I had fun. There are a lot of toys. What I enjoyed most was drawing. I drew my mom and dad”

Raquel: “I liked to play and I learned to draw”

The Huambrillo and Huambrilla Kollpa, an opportunity for Sarita

Sarita Sifuentes Ahuanari is the oldest of three brothers but, in real life she is the smallest. She lives in Itaya, Belen close to the river that borders the Loreto Region and its capital, Iquitos.

Within the framework of the support given to the recovery from the floods in Loreto, in the Kollpas, places implemented to give emotional and psychological support, to prevent, detect and look after children facing violence conditions by means of playful activities and socialization, a promoter from Centro de Desarrollo y Educacion Comunitaria (CEDEC), NGO that supported this initiative with UNICEF, noticed that Sarita had more problems than the slight mental retardation with which she lived. She did not attend school, nor had a proper diagnose to her illness nor received any treatment or participated in any support or inclusion programme.

When the promoter reached Sarita’s home, her mother explained that she had never received any support and, as she did not have someone to leave her with, as she behaved like a small girl, she had to accompany her to the Belen market, where she worked. Belen market is like

a huge fair, full of people walking all around, taking and delivering groceries, going down to the dock, shouting and fighting for passengers all sweaty and smelly. All the dock boils with people, and, among them, Sarita.

Janet Angulo, CEDEC’s promoter, organized Sarita’s file and channeled it to the DEMUNA from the Municipality of Belen. They immediately make some coordination so that the girl could attend school, exercising her right to education, and was registered in the Municipal Office of Attention to Disabled Population (OMAPED).

Since then, and with the creation of the Huambrillo and Huambrilla communitarian Kollpa in Itaya, Sarita does not go to the market anymore; she has a safe place near her home and goes there with her brothers. She is learning how to make bracelets and earrings and does them with such dedication that they end up perfect. There, she had also learned to dance. Now, she doesn’t feel alone anymore as she is in the company of other kids that love and respect her.


EDUCATION

The floods impede the appropriate development of school activities, which contributed to aggravate the chronic weaknesses of the educational sector in the Loreto region. The first damages caused to the schools of the region–in the province of Datem del Marañón–began registering in SINPAD in November 2011. Since then, the number of EEII and affected students started increasing gradually reaching 1,724 and 92,077 respectively, according to data provided by DREL.

Moreover, facing the need to temporarily relocate the victims of the metropolitan areas of Iquitos and, facing the lack of a concerted plan to set up temporary refuges, GOREL–in coordination with DREL–authorized the use of 50 EEII as collective centers. This measure infringed the right to education of 37,632 students. At the same time, the transportation difficulties to get to school experimented by the relocated students represented a subsequent problem to the appropriate fulfillment of school hours.

Facing the problems above mentioned, the strategy implemented by DIECA of MINEDU turned out to be a useful practice since, after carrying out an evaluation mission to the city of Iquitos in collaboration with OINFE, decided to established direct coordination channels with DREL and to provide technical assistance to its authorities and officers. As a result, besides introducing a technical squad to assist in emergencies, sectorial EOC was established under DREL coordination, which supervised the involvement of different institutions such as MINEDU, DIECA, PELA, UGEL, the Peruvian Ombudsman Office, UNICEF, Plan International, FORMABIAB, Coordinating Committee of the Human Rights Commission of Apostolic Church Judges of Iquitos and civil society organizations.

Due to the intervention of DIECA and as a result of a multi-sectorial and inter-institutional coordination meeting, the need for an immediate intervention in the sector raised and it was decided to design a contingency plan and an emergency curriculum. To achieve this, a regional workshop headed by DIECA took place and counted on the participation of MINEDU, DREL, UGEL and Bilingual Education. Thanks to such workshop, a curricular plan with educational levels was approved and it was established to organize training events in the eight UGEL of the region. This activity allowed informing 1,787 teachers and officers of DREL, UGEL and EEII about the appropriate use of the emergency curriculum.

Once the collective centres were empty, DREL carried out a series of activities with the objective of promoting the return to school. Among these, it is worth mentioning the communication campaign launch called “Everyone together for the Education of Loreto”. This campaign aimed to make aware male and female teachers of the importance of punctually going to their EEII and of fulfilling the class hours; and a hot line was created to report the lack of teachers from any area of the region. Additionally, as part of the campaign called “Let’s go back to school” in collaboration with Plan International,

actions to make aware the EEII authorities and the affected population of the importance of recovering the classrooms and resuming classes took place.

According to the compiled testimonies during the interviews, the biggest point in favor of the Education sector consisted in the execution of a joint work and in the adoption of an inter-institutional management methodology to form a common front and to appropriately respond to the emergency situation.

There were different actors involved with the objective of providing a temporary educational environment to students, strengthening the DREL institutional abilities, promoting the restoration of educational services and guaranteeing the right to education of in school age C&A. Among the interventions carried out by the volunteers, the setting up of “Toddlers’ Kollpa”–promoted by UNICEF and developed in coordination with DREL–constituted a good practice as an educational proposal. With the objective of promoting the development of basic abilities in the imperative axis of nutrition, health, coexistence, recreation and environment, this strategy allowed involving the affected students through the implementation of pedagogy for crisis and a methodology that linked the regular curriculum to the development of non-traditional modules and to learning strategies based on games. With this objective

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in mind, 40 educational spaces in collective centres of Maynas and Nauta were created and more than 150 EEII teachers from UGEL Maynas and Nauta were trained on the use of these spaces. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that UNICEF and Plan International supported the sector through the distribution of school supplies kits.

Despite the efforts made, a series of structural weaknesses complicated the appropriate articulation of the response process by DREL. Among these, the insufficient communication existing between DREL and UGEL, the scarce quantitative and qualitative information about EEII located in the most remote areas, the high level of teacher absences, the lack of effective monitoring procedures and the lack of a sectorial contingency plan for possible emergencies acquire particular relevance considering future interventions for flooding. A subsequent limitation of the intervention consisted in the fact that a monitoring system for the fulfillment of the emergency curriculum in the most remote areas of the region was never implemented.

All the interviewed actors agreed on affirming that the most relevant lesson learned for the sector consisted in realizing that the inappropriate use of EEII as collective centres meant the violation of a fundamental right of C&A and that such measure

does not represent a viable option for future emergencies. Finally, another lesson learned consisted in the need to design effective monitoring and controlling mechanisms of the activities developed in the diverse districts of the region to be able to analyze the existing gaps. About this, a good practice recently implemented turned out to be the adoption by DREL of a pilot project from which networks of several EEII of the same area are monitored by a common supervisor.

Operations - Education


SOCIAL COMMUNICATION

At the beginning of 2012, the information that the media offered nationally about what was going on in the region of Loreto was not accurate. Although the unusual rise of the Amazon was being mentioned and that already in January they said that this river had overcome its normal levels, the attention was focused on the lower areas of Iquitos and the situation of the most remote places was not being mentioned. This caused that the magnitude of the emergency was not perceived outside the region.

When the emergency was unleashed in the city of Iquitos, the local media presented vague and unreal information, focusing almost exclusively on the impact that the floods were having in the capital city. At the beginning of April, after the first declaratory of State of Emergency and the setting up of REOC, the media started to spread more specific details about the floods, highlighting the vulnerabilities suffered by people, homes and crops as well as the weaknesses shown by the Health and Education sectors in the emergency. Finally, the visit of the President of the Republic and the National Head of INDECI–who flew over the affected areas at the beginning of the April–was what caught the attention of the media about the vulnerability situation that Iquitos was going through. However, once more, the condition of other districts and provinces of the region was not shown.

Given the demand to establish organized information mechanisms about the different actions implemented in response to the emergency, and to avoid that the imprecise news spread by the media create dangerous situations, a good

practice was the setting up of Communications-EOC inside REOC. Its creation aimed to coordinate, design and carry out communication campaigns that allowed reinforcing the attention on the different estate sectors, informing and creating awareness about key topics in the population. Sectorial EOC was headed by GOREL with the technical assistance of UNICEF and it was formed by GOREL social communicators, DIRESA, DREU, DRTC, MVCS, Journalists’ School of Loreto, National Association of Journalists–Iquitos Headquarters, the Loreto Sports Journalists’ Circle, and Plan International.

While the products of Communications-EOC were oriented to the achievement of objectives in the Health, Water and Sanitation, Protection and Education sectors, the creation of direct coordination channels with the thematic panels of such sectors meant a point in favor in the intervention. This joint effort became the validation of a common communication campaign called “Together we beat the flood, join the winning team”.

With the objective of presenting all the messages as the product of one single shared campaign and as the result of a joint, consensual work, another good practice of EOC consisted in the decision not to apply institutional logos or slogans to produced radio, television and graphic products. Instead, it was decided to adopt a slogan and a song originally made for the campaign so the population could identify the different key messages as pieces of the same strategy in response to the emergency situation.

It is also worth mentioning that, for the campaign, a series of imperative topics from which communication products were manufactured were identified. These were the prevention

63/of EDAs and IRAs; the appropriate ways to chlorinate water, washing their hands and disinfecting food; the benefit of cleaning the collective centres and throwing the trash out before the garbage truck comes; the importance of improving the nutrition of children under three years old; the need for expectant mothers to take food supplements and to go to their prenatal care check-up; the different ways of protecting C&A from child sexual abuse; and the importance of keeping an eye on the compliance of school hours.

Some of the implemented strategies to carry out public impact, to promote and to spread the identified key topics represented useful practices for future flood emergency situations. Among these, it is worth mentioning:

- The use of different radio spaces (daily programs of information, interviews, spaces for adolescents, among others).

- The training of health care centers staff and of PNP in communication for development.

- The making of television advertisements which included famous people (such as Marco Zunino and Monica Sanchez).

- The production and distribution of diverse graphic material such as banners, posters, brochures or stickers.

- The evaluation of the communication campaign impact through the use of 254 surveys.

- The creation of workshops in DRM and Agricultural Recovery developed by COOPI in the province of Alto Amazonas in communities, small villages and shantytowns of Yurimaguas.

Another need that was identified since Communications-EOC was to improve the quality of the information provided to the population. To achieve this, efforts were made to involve the media, considering them as strategic allies. It was decided then to train local journalists on the appropriate ways to inform about an emergency and to develop abilities for future emergency cases. Regarding this, they organized:

- Three workshops addressed to the journalists of the most important media of the city of Iquitos with the objective of improving the management of information related to C&A and of promoting the surveillance on the compliance of the class hours they have to make up.

- A contest addressed to journalists for the design of a feature with an approach on human development.

- A meeting to introduce the communication campaign “Let’s go back to school” to journalists and the delivery of materials about interest topics in an emergency.

Since the municipalities do not count on communicational strategies established in risk prevention and management, a

subsequent point in favor of the intervention was the decision to include Civil Defense Technical Secretaries of the closest districts in sectorial EOC meetings and call a training meeting with district majors and municipality key officers. However, similarly to what happened at other thematic panels, an important limitation was the absence of actors from the most remote areas of the region.

Moreover, with the desire to capitalize the learning from the events and to improve response and recovery in flood actions, a good practice was the promotion of the design and collectivization of a synthetic document of lessons learned about the emergency.

Finally, concerning the accountability process to the population, it is worth mentioning as good practices the inter-institutional organization of the Regional Workshop of Lessons Learned, as well as a series of actions implemented by the actors involved in the intervention. For instance, COOPI gave technical datasheets of the project to the authorities of different Local Governments, organized a launch meeting which local authorities, the media, grass-root associations and people in general were brought together to; and organized, with Caritas Yurimaguas, the Provincial Workshop Lessons Learned. Similarly, CESVI kept direct contact with neighborhood boards and the same beneficiaries, which facilitated the information flow to the population.

Despite these efforts, it is worth mentioning that a shared and clearly defined accountability towards the population strategy was not implemented. This constituted a weakness of the intervention since, as the study of perceptions carried out by UNICEF and FAO shows, the interviewed beneficiaries affirmed not to know from which organizations the received aid was coming 7.

7. Úrsula, E. & Chiang, M. (2012). Qualitative Study of Experi-ences in the framework of the Flood Emergency in Loreto Region 2012. Lima: UNICEF/FAO.

Operations - Social Communication


CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

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The floods that followed the heavy rain in Peru since November 2011 caused enormous damages in the seven provinces of the Amazon region of Loreto. Consequently, on March 13th 2012, the Regional President declared a State of Emergency; and, on April 2nd, after the first State of Emergency declaration on March 29th by the PCM, he decided to activate the REOC.

The objective of this document has been to describe the good practices, the lessons learned and the limitations of the coordination and implementation of the humanitarian response actions and rehabilitation procedures carried out by public institutions and volunteering organizations facing the emergency.

Regarding the coordination mechanisms, it has been demonstrated as good practices the inclusion of DRM components in the government plans of some District Municipalities, the leadership of the Regional Government of Loreto and its decision to activate REOC, the technical assistance provided by different institutions nationally, and the ability to move funds shown by NHN.

At the operational level, the usefulness of carrying out institutional strengthening activities, organizing lessons learned workshops, transforming thematic panels of housing and collective centres into permanent dialogue spaces, transferring extra funds from the National Government to regional Heath and Agricultural sectors, validating a plan of action shared in Water and Sanitation, setting up Protection and Socio-emotional Recovery spaces for minors in collective centres and affected places, designing, inter-institutionally, a contingency plan and an emergency curriculum in Education, and arranging a communication campaign common to the entire intervention has been demonstrated.

In general, as the document shows, it is possible to conclude that the intervention in response to the flood emergency in Loreto has represented an important learning opportunity for the institutions involved in humanitarian actions. Facing the possible event of another flood emergency, it is possible to offer a series of recommendations.

Conclusions and Recommendations


RE

COM

ME

ND

ATI

ON

S

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Ï Adopting a rights approach in the management of emergencies to be able to see the affected population in total,

including the most remote areas.

Ï Adopting a gender and interculturality in emergency management approach.

Ï Safeguarding the respect of the Sphere standards in the actions implemented by

humanitarian actors.

Ï Encouraging the humanitarian gaps analysis in every sector of the intervention to guide the actions according to the needs found.

Ï Prioritize the food safety topic for future emergencies.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

Ï Encouraging the inter-institutional approach which involves the Public Prosecution, PNP,

Governance, the Peruvian Ombudsman Office, DEMUNA, municipal patrol guards and private

companies in the implementation of DRM actions and which secures the coordination processes between Local Governments and

regional sectors.

Ï Pleading for the creation of coordination inter-institutional spaces in charge of designing

concerted plans in response to the main structural problems of the region: Water

and Sanitation, protection of C&A rights and Education.

Ï Implementing every existing administrative and legal measures to impede and correct the

population of areas declared at risk and to forbid the setting up of basic services in such

areas.

Ï Establishing minimum criteria to hire staff in charge of the Civil Defense Institute, sectors and

Local Governments and to promote its stability in the position to generate better abilities.

Ï Training the people in charge of the Civil Defense Institute permanently and key district,

provincial and regional officers about the SINAGERD law.

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Ï Planning concerted mechanisms to pick up reliable information about affected people and victims due to an emergency in the whole region.

Ï Carrying out a regional population census.

Ï Organizing an estimated risk study in shantytowns located in floodable areas of the city of Iquitos and designing a multi sectorial strategy for the relocation of the permanent resident population in non-mitigable floodable areas.

Ï Creating a physical or virtual platform which can be used for the exchange of information among actors during an emergency and which allow the spreading of good practices and lessons learned at the end of the humanitarian intervention.

Ï Designing a list of regional suppliers of humanitarian aid supplies to fasten the shopping processes in case of an emergency, pointing out the amounts that each supplier can provide and the delivery times.

Ï Considering the press as a strategic ally and training journalists about DRM.

Ï Monitoring the main media and offering technical information to avoid the spreading of gutter and stereotyped messages during an emergency.

Ï Carrying out perception analysis of the beneficiaries.

Ï Organizing simulation and drill activities.

Ï Systematizing the information gathered by the diverse actors involved in an emergency intervention.

Sectors

Ï Designing, updating and socializing contingency plans and protocols of action when facing emergencies.

Ï Planning the human resources management in emergency situations.

Ï Identifying and training community leaders as promotion agents of DRM activities.

Ï Creating fast surveillance mechanisms to monitor the food situation of the most vulnerable population–children under five years old, elderly people and expectant mothers–who live in rural areas.

Ï Prioritizing the mental health and emotional recovery of the affected population.

Ï Including, in the damage and needs evaluation, specific data about the psycho social state of C&A in an emergency situation.

Ï Inserting prevention and DRM topics in the school curriculum.

Ï Identifying appropriate local models of housing and temporary toilets according to the typical living conditions of the area.

Ï Designing strategies which encourage the production of certified non-perishable seeds in the region.

Ï Stocking certified non-perishable seeds in strategic places for assistance in emergencies.

Ï Training and making the population aware of the garbage disposal management.

Ï Systematizing the intervention of every sector in consolidated reports.

Recommendations


LOCAL GOVERNMENTS RECOMMENDATIONS

ÏÏ Assuming the leadership of prevention and DRM actions implemented in its territory of competence.

ÏÏ Adopting institutional structures able to fasten the work of the Civil Defense Institute.

ÏÏ Securing the key officers participation – majors, municipal managers and planners – in DRM pro-cesses.

ÏÏ Conforming Disaster Risk Management Work Groups and Civil Defense platforms and adjusting to what is established by the SINAGERD law.

ÏÏ Prioritizing the prevention and DRM approach in the Concerted Development Plans.

ÏÏ Promoting the creation of participatory budget projects in the topic linking them to the objectives established in the Municipal Modernization Plan.

ÏÏ Designing urban development plans and carrying out a mapping of the areas at risk inside the terri-tory of competence.

ÏÏ Keeping the register of inhabitants updated.

ÏÏ Encouraging the creation of integral awareness campaigns about prevention and DRM towards the population.

ÏÏ Involving the population, community leaders, grass-root organizations, and indigenous associa-tions established in floodable areas in the process-es of making decisions for DRM.

ÏÏ Organizing committees with the communities to implement and manage early warning systems.

ÏÏ Carrying out the mapping of the most appropriate places to set up collective centres and spaces avail-able.

ÏÏ Organizing a security and patrol system in the af-fected areas due to floods to prevent theft in unoc-cupied homes.

ÏÏ Organizar un sistema de seguridad y guardianía en las zonas afectadas por las inundaciones para pre-venir robos en las viviendas desocupadas.

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NATIONAL HUMANITARIAN NETWORK RECOMMENDATIONS

Ï Involving a bit more state sectors nationally in NHN.

Ï Coordinating more closely with Local Governments and with state sectors, in the damage and needs evaluation missions as well as in the response interventions.

Ï Addressing humanitarian interventions to every affected area to the extent possible without focusing activities only in some areas.

Ï Pleading for the implementation of a national coordination and supervision request that monitors the appropriate fulfillment of the DRM functions by the authorities in charge.

Ï Pleading for the carrying out of DRM training plans in prioritized regions to generate local abilities.

Ï Pleading for the creation, nationally, of a scientific work group – similar to the multi sectorial committee carried out by the ENFEN – in charge of observing, coordinating, recommending and advising the activities linked to the variability and the climate change in the Peruvian Amazon.

Ï Pleading for the density of weather stations to be incremented nationally according to the standards established by the OMM.

Ï Designing and approving protocols of action when facing rain and floods.

Ï Designing profiles which standardize the needs of the victims in case of different types of emergency.

Ï Predicting titles to hire human resources that can support the sectors staff.

Ï Designing a list of national suppliers of humanitarian aid goods to fasten the shopping processes in case of emergency, pointing out the amounts that each supplier can provide and the delivery times.

Ï Pleading for the activation of a humanitarian aid good transport joint mechanism that allows reducing costs and optimizing intervention times.

Ï Establishing appropriate accountability mechanisms towards the affected population and the beneficiaries of all the actions implemented during an emergency.

Ï Sharing, nationally, the documents about lessons learned in interventions carried out in other areas of the country (Ucayali).

Ï Taking advantage of the social networks (Facebook, Twitter) to increase the chance to be seen nationally, in addition to using them as means of awareness.

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