As people around the world look to support earthquake relief efforts in Nepal, scholars from Stanford and the London School of Economics and Political Science offer new research that can help donors make better decisions about where and how to contribute their money.

“NGO reports tend to focus on quantity in delivery, such as numbers of homes and people served—but not on quality,” write Yong Suk Lee (Stanford) and J. Vernon Henderson (LSE).

In a forthcoming paper, the coauthors evaluate reconstruction efforts in Indonesia following the 2004 earthquake and tsunami, and find two trends: aid agencies that directly execute their services—point-to-point—perform the highest quality work. And, when agencies contract their services, higher quality work is performed when a global, not domestic, implementer completes the work.

Knowing this reality, and with improved disclosure of outcomes, the coauthors hope that donors would be able to make more informed choices.

Fishing village survey 

Figure 1. A map details the survival rate of the population and flood damage within northern Indonesia in 2004. Darker shaded areas show a higher survival rate, lighter shaded areas show a lower survival rate. Striped areas denote flooding, largely on the northeastern border. Boundaries marked with thicker lines are ‘kabupaten,’ or county divisions, and lightly colored lines are ‘kecamatan,’ or sub-county units larger than a village alone. (Courtesy of Yong Lee).

Through fieldwork and three rounds of surveys – in 2005, 2007 and 2009 – Henderson and Lee investigated aid work in Aceh, an area of coastal villages in northern Indonesia (Figure 1).

Humanitarian efforts there focused on “hard aid” such as construction of houses and fishing boats. Total aid delivered amounted to $7.7 billion and was implemented by international and domestic aid agencies—some directly and some as contractors—as well as the Indonesian government.

First, Henderson and Lee conducted a pilot survey, and then with a cohort of surveyors from the University of Indonesia, held interviews with village leaders and fishing families. Participants were asked to rate their housing accommodation, and if applicable, how their fishing activity compared to before the disaster.

“Mostly, we sat with villagers to see how willing they were to talk about aspects of aid,” Lee said. “Since it was several years after the tsunami hit, people were pretty open throughout the process.”

Data from those surveys was combined with information from the Recovery Aceh-Nias relief project database maintained by the government and the U.N., as well as demographic information provided by participants.

Delivering aid: Global v. local

Empirical analysis revealed that aid agencies such as the Red Cross and Catholic Relief Services reflected higher quality aid delivery (at a mean quality near 3.00), while agencies such as Save the Children and Concern Worldwide reflected lower quality (at a mean quality between 1.0-1.5).

“What’s surprising is that reputation didn’t really line up with what was expected,” Lee said, citing a few renowned agencies that didn’t receive high marks.

Lee said this could be explained by the fact that aid agencies that specialize in disaster recovery are better equipped, while a learning curve might exist for agencies with wider missions.

Global aid agencies are more likely to have logistical experience given their reach across multiple disaster situations. And while all NGOs face reputational costs for their results, global aid agencies are greater exposed to criticism because, by size, they’re more visible.

Yet, while global aid agencies and implementers may have the raw skills, local implementers have the cultural know-how.

“Local implementers might not have the most experience – like how to construct a house or manufacture a fishing boat – but they will likely know what’s actually desired,” Lee said. “So, there are obvious tradeoffs at play.”

For example, villagers reported bad ventilation in houses. This was because some aid agencies used small windows and concrete instead of wood material more traditionally used in Indonesia. Some boats were impossible to use because of improper design; they sank upon first use or fell apart after a few months.

Image

Collection of photos from fieldwork in Aceh, Indonesia, provided courtesy of Yong Lee. Upper left: A house built in an aid project village shows windows retrofitted after initial construction. Upper right: Boats constructed by aid agencies for fishing activity are refashioned to serve as water taxis for people and cars. Lower: Fishing boats sit unused on the side of the road many of them impossible to use, according to villagers surveyed.

Logistics and oversight

Aid delivery depends in many ways on the location and scale of the disaster. But, a few main aspects can determine if an aid agency doing its own work or operating as an implementer meets or exceeds expectations.

Henderson and Lee suggest that agencies that were highly supervisory had greater positive outcomes from their workers. In the case of Aceh, better monitoring and insistence on quality by leadership is a likely corollary between construction of better quality homes and boats.

“Rather than just give money, NGOs need to really oversee the projects. Organization and management are essential facets,” Lee said. “And that requires a lot of additional effort on their part.”

Oversight is especially relevant in disaster situations because of the often-overwhelming need for reconstruction. A flood of less-skilled workers enters the market to fill this gap, and on average the quality of work degrades.

“It’s much more difficult to impose quality control at this point,” Lee said. “So the implication that comes out of it is how does the implementer effectively utilize less-skilled workers.”

Getting to know the implementers and evaluating their work in-progress would help ensure quality on behalf of the aid agency. And, better dissemination of information about aid outcomes would help assure donors that their monies are being applied in the best possible way.

Future study

Most “hard aid” delivered to Aceh’s villages had finished by 2010, but “soft aid” such as democracy promotion and women’s empowerment stayed longer.

Henderson and Lee conducted one final survey in 2011. The data has been offered as open source material for researchers along with the larger data set.

Noting this, Lee said, “We’re thrilled that people are looking into the data further. It’s exactly what we wanted.”

Research projects applying the data include the impact of the tsunami on Aceh’s local economies and health effects on the population, among other areas.

Gi-Wook Shin, director of Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, presented the policy report Tailored Engagement at the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies in late March. The event in Seoul coincided with the public release of the report in Korean.

Shin delivered a keynote lecture on the study which offers steps that South Korea can take to establish sustainable dialogue with North Korea. The report is an outcome of a longstanding research project seeking to understand the future domestic and global implications of North Korea’s situation.

Shin’s lecture was followed by remarks from Korea Program Associate Director David Straub and a panel discussion among four other experts. The panelists shared their observations on the current political climate in and around the Korean Peninsula.

Video from the event is available below:

Gi-Wook Shin’s lecture (in Korean)

David Straub’s remarks (in English)

Panel discussion (in Korean)

More than 320 people attended the event including students, policymakers and academics. The event marked the second occasion in Seoul where the Stanford team presented the report. In late 2014, they briefed the Special Committee on Inter-Korean Relations, Exchange and Cooperation of the South Korean National Assembly. An article about the briefing can be accessed here.

Shin is a professor of sociology, director of Shorenstein APARC, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Straub is the associate director of the Korea Program at Shorenstein APARC.

The attack on Mark Lippert, the American ambassador to South Korea, made headlines worldwide on Thursday. Since his arrival in Seoul last October, Lippert received high marks from the Korean people and the media for his accessibility to the public there. Lippert, a Stanford graduate, is a very close friend of President Obama, who has called him “brother,” and attended his ambassadorial swearing-in ceremony.

The Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center asked David Straub to discuss the incident and its significance. The associate director of the Korea Program at Stanford, Straub served as a career diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Seoul from 1999 to 2002 and is the author of the forthcoming book about that period called Anti-Americanism in Democratizating South Korea.

What actually happened?

A South Korean extreme left-wing activist, Kim Ki-jong, slashed Ambassador Lippert with a kitchen knife Thursday morning at a public event in Seoul. Koreans at the event immediately wrestled the assailant to the floor, but not before he had inflicted several wounds on the ambassador: a long, deep gash on his cheek and cuts to his wrist and fingers. The ambassador was taken straightway to hospital, where surgeons repaired the damage in a three-hour operation. The prognosis is that he will regain the full use of his fingers in about six months, and that the scar on his face will be barely noticeable in one or two years. His doctors plan to remove the eighty stitches on his cheek on Monday, and, if all is well, release him from the hospital then. But it was a close call. Had the face wound extended only one inch farther down, it would have severed his carotid artery.

How is Ambassador Lippert doing?

He told his doctors on Friday that the facial wound was not bothering him particularly, but he did have some pain in his wrist and fingers. Doctors say he has some nerve damage there but the pain should ease soon. Ambassador Lippert’s response has been laudable. Consistent with the outstanding way he has comported himself in Korea since his arrival, he promptly tweeted on Thursday that he was “Doing well & in great spirits!” I am also aware that he was even responding to email wishes from some Stanford friends on Thursday.

Was Kim acting alone? How was it possible for him to perpetrate this attack?

Kim was the only person who attacked Ambassador Lippert, and he has stated that he acted alone.  Kim was a member of the organization that hosted Ambassador Lippert, but had not been invited to the function. The incident is still being investigated but Korean press reports say that the U.S. embassy declined South Korean police protection some time ago. Korea is considered a relatively safe country for American diplomats. This will all be sorted out in coming days and weeks, and U.S. and South Korean authorities will determine if other security arrangements are needed for Ambassador Lippert. In any event, it does not appear that this was an egregious security or intelligence failure on anyone’s part. Ambassadors are public figures and it’s not possible to provide them with perfect protection.

What was the assailant’s motivation?

Kim said that he wanted to emphasize that the United States is responsible for preventing improved inter-Korean relations because it does such things as participate in the ongoing combined military exercises with South Korean forces. North Korea cites the annual exercises as a pretext for not talking with the South, claiming each year that they are a prelude to an invasion. But Kim is a sad sack figure even within South Korea’s anti-American far left, which is a very small but vocal minority. Kim has been arrested many times in the past for outrageous and violent behavior, such as throwing pieces of concrete at the Japanese ambassador in 2010. He heads his own little NGO, but the Korean left has mostly avoided him because of his bizarre behavior. He even set himself on fire in 2007 near the Blue House to protest an alleged attack on an associate. Although I have never met him, it is my impression that Kim is clearly mentally and emotionally unstable.

How have the Korean government and people responded?

From the people who wrestled the assailant to the ground, to the surgeons and the thousands of people who are wishing Ambassador Lippert well, South Koreans have responded with an outpouring of support. Ambassador Lippert has already conveyed his deep gratitude for that on Twitter. President Park, who is currently on an official visit to the Middle East, telephoned Ambassador Lippert on Thursday; so did Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se. President Obama also called the ambassador to wish him a speedy recovery. Unfortunately, North Korea’s reaction has been very different: its official media applauded the attack as “deserved punishment” for “a warmongering United States.”

There are press reports that South Koreans are worried that this attack could hurt U.S.-Korean relations.

There is indeed considerable concern being expressed in South Korea at the moment that the incident could hurt bilateral relations, but there is no reason at all to believe that will be the case. Top U.S. officials have already stated that the incident will only strengthen U.S.-Korean relations. I recall the reaction in Seoul to the mass shooting by Seung-hui Cho at Virginia Tech in 2007. Cho had grown up in the United States but remained a Korean citizen. Many South Koreans were very fearful that the U.S. government would punish South Koreans, such as by not issuing visas, and that Americans would attack South Koreans on the streets in the United States. Of course, nothing like that happened. Americans understood the tragedy for what it was: not a “Korean” but a fellow human being with severe mental illness and access to guns.

You say that Kim appears to have a mental disability. But there are press reports that he lectured for the South Korean unification ministry’s education institute as well as at a major university in Seoul. How could such a person get those positions?

I am curious and concerned about those reports. For me, the bigger question about that is not Kim’s particular policy views but how someone with such obvious behavioral and apparently mental issues could receive such positions. But he held those jobs several years ago, so perhaps his behavior has become worse in the meantime.

I understand that Kim has already been charged with attempted murder and that Korean authorities are considering whether to charge him under the National Security Law owing to frequent travel to North Korea and possible other links with the North Korean government.

Unless Korean authorities find evidence that Kim was working for North Korea, which I doubt was the case (but which should of course be investigated due to his numerous trips to the country), it would be unfortunate for U.S.-South Korean relations to charge him under the controversial National Security Law. The U.S. government has criticized that law for decades for the McCarthyite way South Korean governments have sometimes implemented it to suppress alleged “pro-North Korean” thinking. Some South Korean leaders are calling the incident “pro-North Korean terrorism” and the work of “pro-North Korean forces.” That seems to me to be unwisely elevating the violent behavior of one deranged person and ascribing to it a significance it does not deserve.

Ambassador Lippert’s Twitter handle is @mwlippert.