ABSTRACT
Agencies believe that emergencies always require speedy response from outside. They fed that they must rush to disaster scenes to be helpful. The pressures to act quickly are real. The international community becomes aware of a disaster because people are suffering and, because of the suffering, they feel they must respond urgently and quickly. Capacities-building requires consultation and involvement; this does not take vast amounts of time, but it does necessitate an approach which assumes that local people, not outsiders, are "in charge." When compulsion for speed means that an non-governmental organization (NGO) assumes all responsibility for the management and logistics of relief, this is apt to override existing local capacities. Complicating the issue is the fact that the scale of a project needs to be decided in relation to: the size of the emergency; the size and experience of the operating NGO; the time over which the intervention will occur; the size of the group affected by the disaster.
