SENAT
Report n° 117 (2007-2008) by M. Roland COURTEAU, Senator (for the parliament office for the evaluation of scientific and technological choices) - Appendix to the minutes of the 7 December 2007 session
Disponible au format Acrobat (21 Moctets)
3. A strong mobilization following the Sumatra tsunami
Following the tsunami that devastated the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004, France took several measures to protect its coasts from a possible tsunami.
a) The creation of a Post-Tsunami Interministerial Delegation
The Sumatra tsunami resulted in a significant mobilization in France, at both the private and NGO level (€312 million were collected in donations) and the public institutional level (ministries and local governments).
An interministerial body was created in mid-January 2005 for the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase: DIPT (Post-Tsunami Interministerial Delegation), which became CPT ("Post-Tsunami Coordination Commission") in July 2005. Dependent upon the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DIPT ensured the coordination of interministerial initiatives, the coordination with the local governments and NGOs, and the allocation of public funds to the various reconstruction projects.
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The role of DIPT (Post-Tsunami Interministerial Delegation) Created on 19 January 2005 to coordinate France's actions, this institution followed other institutional endeavours, such as the Fauroux Mission for the Balkans. With its offices located in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Interministerial Delegation was an interministerial body directed linked to the Prime Minister's office. The plan put into action to create DIPT enjoyed significant political clout and was truly effective. It was carried out by a team made up of both diplomats and representatives of the concerned ministeries, organized around a structure strongly supported by the DGCID (Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development). The interministerial consultation procedures were very quickly established in order to ensure a high quality of advice and the transparency of the processes. The system of regular interministerial meetings organized by the Junior Minister for Foreign Affairs rapidly spread information on the creation of DIPT and the "one-stop" system. Three important concepts governed the strategic functioning of DIPT: - The budgets are allocated on a yearly basis (the "one shot" concept). - The budgets must be rapidly allocated to have a visible, marked effect for the concerned populations while the ponderous bilateral and multilateral mechanisms are still being mobilized. - The allocated budgets must act as levers, by providing access to additional funding (European, American). Project selection has greatly benefitted, in terms of both speed and quality, from the setting up of this rather innovative interministerial process. A set of criteria was established in an interministerial manner following the first interministerial missions: - The geographical criteria which emphasized Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but not exclusively (programmes were also funded in India and the Maldives). - The thematic criteria: the initial intervention themes (children and education, health, water and decontamination, risk prevention and crisis management) were also reconsidered with an emphasis placed on those aspects relative to boosting the affected economies. Six types of player were mobilized: - French NGOs with which coordination meetings were held every three weeks on average, as well as before and after each on-the-ground mission. - French research or health institutions. - National or local public structures in the concerned countries. - Local NGOs (via calls for proposals for micro-projects in Indonesia and Sri Lanka). - The United Nations; in particular, the UN's emergency-relief agencies. - The International Committee of the Red Cross in the case of an extreme emergency. Each institution wishing to make a project proposal was able to do so via five "channels": the Humanitarian Aid Commission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development, the concerned ministries, the on-site embassies and DIPT. The projects were systematically sent on to DIPT before being redistributed for evaluation by the competent persons (8 days being allowed for evaluation). This "direct-flow" system allowed for a rapid, efficient allocation of resources. Out of a total of 200 project proposals, nearly one hundred were selected by DIPT. Three to four weeks were allowed for the projects' analysis and revision. The NGOs interviewed seem to have then waited between one and four months - a relatively short amount of time - before receiving their funds. As regards programme monitoring, DIPT relied principally on the embassies' Cooperation and Cultural Action Services (SCACs) in the concerned countries. This monitoring took several forms: - Daily follow-up via the SCACs, which had to deal with difficult working conditions with regard to available personnel and logistics. - Regular exchanges with the Fondation de France and international institutions such as the United Nations, which carry out their own follow-ups. - On-site missions carried out by DIPT in order to better understand the problems, the on-site realities, etc. DIPT was dissolved in July and replaced by CPT, an ad-hoc commission which was itself dissolved in 2005. The monitoring of post-tsunami projects has therefore fallen to the SCACs and the international community. Source: Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development |
In addition, DIPT allowed for the French contribution to the warning system currently under construction in the Indian Ocean to be defined and financed. Following the two meetings held by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission to define the Indian Ocean warning system in Paris in March 2005 and in Mauritius in April 2005, the system's structure was finalized in the form of a coordinated network of national centres, with France committing to build such a centre in La Réunion.
At the behest of DIPT, this project's partners 47 ( * ) met on several occasions to define the actions to be carried out and the amount of necessary funding. The initial project was ambitious, in that it called for setting up a national, multi-risk (tsunami, cyclone, abnormal-wave) warning centre capable of managing both local and far-off tsunami warnings.
Within this context, €1.59 million were allocated to finance the following priorities:
- Equipping the Météo France centre in La Réunion, to render it operational for teletsunami warnings (€20,000). Météo France is the only French body in this region to be on-duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; for this reason, it was chosen as the Focal Point. It receives the messages issued by PTWC and JMA and, if need be, alerts the Etat Major de Zone et de Protection Civile de l'Océan Indien ("Zone Civil-Protection Headquarters for the Indian Ocean"), as well as the sub-prefect on duty. In the initial project, the Météo France centre was meant to generate its own tsunami warnings via the installation of one TREMORS system and working in close cooperation with IPGP, which would have analyzed the seismic data and provided its scientific expertise.
- Bringing up to standard the seismological stations of the GEOSCOPE network and transmitting the data in real-time to Djibouti, Canberra, Hyberabad, La Réunion, Kerguelen, Dumont d'Urville and Île Amsterdam, as well as installing a new station in Madagascar (€511,000).
- Bringing up to standard the French tide gauges in La Réunion and Kerguelen, as well as installing two new tide gauges in Mayotte and Madagascar (€91,000).
- The carrying out by CEA/DASE of a tsunami-risk study for the coastal regions of Madagascar and Sri Lanka, as well as certain small island states located in the region (€50,000).
- Re-editing the "Tsunami, the Great Waves" brochure, initially produced for the Pacific, adapting it to the needs of the Indian Ocean (€20,000).
- Météo France's equipping Madagascar, Kenya and Tanzania with meteorological systems 48 ( * ) (€157,000), setting up a weather station in Madagascar (€40,000), and carrying out a survey in Yemen, Somalia and Djibouti to evaluate the needs of these countries with regard to updating their telecommunication means linked to the Global Telecommunication System (GTS) (€40,000).
The latter measures are part of a multi-risk approach. Their immediate goal is to improve the performance of these countries' weather services by providing them with communication and weather-forecasting systems. However, insofar as these weather-forecasting systems are linked to the global network of the World Meteorological Organization, responsible for issuing tsunami warnings, the weather services equipped with said systems will be capable of receiving these warnings in real time.
Likewise, the weather station installed in Toamasina, the capital of Madagascar's eastern province regularly touched by tropical cyclones, is also meant to serve as a tsunami warning centre. This centre is therefore equipped with a Retim-Transmet-Synergie system, a meteorological observation station and a tide gauge.
In addition, €420,000 were directly allocated to CEA/DASE for digitizing the data from the Indonesian analogue stations, installing 3 TREMORS systems adapted to the Indonesian stations, training the personnel of the regional warning centres, updating a seismic station to broadband, and testing the performance of the Indonesian network via simulations.
€24,000 were also allocated to LDG/Pamatai for training Thai personnel about the warning systems.
Finally, €50,000 were allocated to the French committee of the IOC for the financing of missions carried out by French experts in the Indian Ocean, training missions for local technicians in La Réunion or metropolitan France, and helping local scientists participate in scientific programmes.
* 47 Météo France, IPGP, EOST, SHOM, the Direction Départementale de l'Equipement de Mayotte ("Departmental Facilities Office for Mayotte"), CNRS/INSU/LEGOS, CEA/DASE, the Institut Paul Emile Victor, the Administration des Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises ("French Southern and Antarctic Lands Department"), the National Committee of the IOC.
* 48 Concretely: the Transmet message switch, the Retim system for meteorological data transmission by satellite, and the Synergie weather-forecasting system.