Research On Voluntary Failure In The Disaster Management

Volunteers and non-governmental organizations (abbreviated as NGOs) play animportant role in disaster emergency management. In particular they are flexible andcan meet diverse needs of the people in disaster areas, thus they are able to make upfor defects of the government in emergency management. After a powerful magnitude7earthquake struck off Ya’an in Sichuan on April20,2013, many volunteers anddifferent types of non-governmental organizations immediately participated indisaster relief. They provided lots of services such as raising funds, releasinginformation, field rescue and volunteer training to help the people in disaster area.However during the disaster relief, they also showed many deficiencies which wecalled “voluntary failure”. In terms of volunteer, their service is unorganized,unsustainable and utilitarian. In terms of non-governmental organization,communication and coordination are lacking in resource distribution among NGOsand their management has many defects. The reasons which cause “voluntary failure”are various. In terms of NGO and volunteer, the main reasons include thecontradiction between the nature of “economic man” and “charitable man”, thenegative externalities of "social capital", the dilemma of collective action, the conflictof pluralistic values among NGOs and the shortage of internal management in NGOs.In terms of government, the main reasons as follow. Firstly, governments keep amindset of “omnipotent government” and take doubtful and repellent attitude toNGOs. Secondly, control-oriented management model of government has not yetimproved much. In terms of the public, the public don’t know much and recognizeabout NGOs. Besides, the public don’t have enough volunteerism.To solve the phenomenon of “voluntary failure” in emergency management,NGOs need to improve the mechanism of recruiting and inspiring volunteers,strengthen construction of internal ability such as making a set of norms aboutemergency management and strengthening the coordination between thenon-governmental organizations. It is suggested that different types of NGOs, such as operational and advocacy organizations play their respective strengths and expertisein disaster relief to meet the needs of people in disaster, for example, the operationalNGOs go to the disaster scene to rescue while the advocacy NGOs providerear support through advocating donations issuing information. The governmentsshould change the traditional concept of “omnipotent government” and recognize theimportance of volunteers and non-governmental organizations in disaster relief. Inaddition, the governments should provide institutional support for the developmentof NGOs and invite non-governmental organization representatives to participate inthe coordination of disaster relief. The media should strengthen the reports aboutvolunteers and NGOs involved in disaster emergency management and the publicshould strengthen the cultivation of volunteerism so as to improve the efficiencyand effectiveness of volunteers and NGOs in emergency management.