From southern Sudan to Haiti, Steve Matthews has seen a lot of disaster zones in the past dozen years. As a member of World Vision's global rapid-response team, the London, Ont., resident is often one of the first foreigners on the ground in a crisis. No two are alike, he says, but almost all have one thing in common: "In a disaster zone," he says, "there's a lot of commerce about to take place, a lot of money to be made."
Whether it's specifically for reconstruction, to meet up with local branch offices, or a long-planned meeting with a client, business travel in disaster zones raises business, personal and ethical issues. How much can you expect from your local team? What can you expect from your communications systems? Where does sensitivity to people's plight cross the line into condescension and aggravation? What should you pack?
Getting the right answers could mean the difference between strengthening your business ties and damaging them; or between taking advantage of an opportunity and taking advantage of people.
Joe Ruetz is mining giant Teck Resources' general manager for South American exploration. He was in Santiago, Chile, on Feb. 27 – when one of the 10 strongest earthquakes in history hit.
"The safety of our people was our immediate concern, but it was very difficult to communicate," Ruetz says from Teck's Vancouver headquarters. "The phone systems were on shortly after the quake, then went down quite quickly after that. … There were some people in from Canada, and for some reason, their phones were working."
Most of the country's Internet providers were down, and the security system in his office was knocked out and wouldn't let him in.
Ruetz and his team patched together a network of Canadian and satellite phones and, over the next day they were able to reach most of their people across the country.
But not those in the hardest-hit region of the country. "We do have a lot of people with family in the south," Ruetz says.
Teck gave affected employees leave, and set to work preparing a route map and hiring local minivan and small bus services so they could check on their families.
It takes creativity to get out of a disaster zone, as well. With the airport out of commission for most of the week, incoming employees had to postpone trips. When Ruetz had to leave a few days after the quake, he took an eight-hour drive into Argentina, and hopped a local flight to Buenos Aires.
While Santiago and most of Chile were fully back in business within a week, Haiti – where major Canadian companies such as SNC-Lavalin have operations –represents the other end of the disaster zone spectrum.
Marilyn McHarg, general director of Doctors Without Borders Canada, who had been to El Salvador and Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of disasters, sent teams into Haiti after the January quake that claimed more than 200,000 lives.
"We sent them with small pup tents and enough supplies that they could manage without much of an infrastructure around them," she says. "It's like camping."
No one travelling into the site of such an event, even days and weeks afterwards, should take anything for granted, she says. You should arrive as self-sufficient as possible, packing water, flashlights, batteries and, depending on the climate, mosquito nets.
Satellite phones, McHarg adds, are an absolute necessity. The broadband global area network Internet service her organization uses costs an average of $1.52 a minute (their Thuraya phone costs $50 to activate, and $40 a month, with per-minute costs ranging from 89 cents to $1.99).
But McHarg says the most important considerations can be mental and emotional.
"It can be quite frightening," she says. "It's a matter of people appreciating that they're going into traumatic situations; they'll see things, they'll hear stories."
Her organization has gone so far as to have psycho-social units to debrief people coming back. While their experiences are often more extreme than a traveller planning to transact business, she says the basic concerns are the same, and a trip to a counsellor might be a good idea. "People need to look after themselves," she says.
They also need to look after the people on the ground.
Ilan Kelman, a research fellow at Oslo's Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, recently co-authored a study of disaster tourism with Ryerson University professor Rachel Dodds. Recognizing that any natural disaster tends to deeply unsettle those who have experienced it (even those who haven't suffered any personal loss), and that the emergency phase can last months, Kelman has some very specific advice.
"Be somewhat calmer than normal," he says. "A lot of times, particularly coming from a North American culture, businesspeople go in with huge handshakes and loud guffaws, a sort of 'Eat, drink and be merry' approach."
He also says people should be sensitive about taking pictures of damage or suffering. "Gawking or rubber-necking is the absolute worst. To be walking along and see a collapsed building and say, 'Wait a minute, I want to take a photo,' is very bad."
In more serious conditions, he says, as in Haiti or post-quake Pakistan, business travellers should be aware of the resources they're using. "Try to emulate the locals in the amount you use," he says.
That said, Kelman warns against alienating survivors with overwhelming commiseration.
"Being unable to talk about anything but the disaster" is a problem, he says, "when people will welcome distraction and investment in their future."
Special to The Globe and Mail
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