meager budget and lack of staff

Parallel to the fight against fires, reconstruction and aid to the victims, controversy has arisen regarding the updating of emergency plans by the municipalities. Some of them, in turn, pointed to the slowness with which the body in charge of approving them, the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred), acts. Today, in light of how this service has acted, there is broad consensus that this crisis opens an opportunity to improve the system.

Within the political world there is no particular criticism of Senapred. However, in the face of emergency management it is recognized that the forest fires opened a space to improve the system. Just as happened with the Shoa and Onemi after the 2010 earthquake.

Voices that know the management of emergencies by the State warn that with the Senapred budget – $23,148,341,000-, there is not much that can be demanded of this service and, to put it in perspective, they compare it with the budget of the Library of Congress, which is $16,803,030,000, not too far apart. In addition, they assure that $3,000 million goes from Senapred to the National Seismological Center.

Another aspect that stands out is that each regional directorate works with 18 officials, and among them there are about eight radio operators, plus administration staff. That is to say, it is estimated that there are about 6 or 7 Senapred officials usually on the ground per region.

Last Wednesday, collaborators of former President Sebastián Piñera arrived at the La Moneda Palace to meet with the Minister of Social Development and Family, Javiera Toro, and presented a proposal for reconstruction in the areas affected by the fires in the Fifth Region. Among them was the former National Deputy Director of Onemi, Cristóbal Mena, who knows closely the process of the birth of Senapred.

In that instance, Mena maintained that the current context is key to evaluating the current state of the services that aim to respond: “This is probably a turning point like 2010 was, in terms of disaster risk reduction.” . That year, he explains, they learned that public policies were lacking and the Senapred project was promoted, which only saw the light of day 10 years later, in 2021.

Mena points out that now, for example, the processing in Congress of a law that modernizes Conaf and creates the National Forest Service could be accelerated or, as was also done in the past, the SHOA was modernized and today, he assures ““We have first-class tsunami warning services.”

For the collaborator of former President Piñera, the question is: “What are we going to take from this experience to also modernize that monitoring system?” The former director of Onemi, Ricardo Toro, maintains that, regarding Senapred, “a change is not required, on the contrary, the implementation of this law must be promoted, which guarantees that SENAPRED and all the parties involved in the disaster risk management, have concrete progress and can meet the objectives and responsibilities assigned to them.”

First, it clarifies that Senapred “is made up of public and private entities that perform roles and tasks in all stages of disaster risk management, promoting more efficient and effective management in the prevention and mitigation of risks.” Along these lines, he believes that the implementation of the law that creates Senapred “must be comprehensive, it will allow us to have a solid and updated base to confront the multiple threats that affect us with all the necessary tools.”

Now, Toro recognizes that “it is essential that appropriate resources be assigned, reflecting the urgency and importance of the challenges that we must achieve,” but regarding criticism of the bureaucracy behind Senapred, he argues that “if there is A less bureaucratic Service in Chile is Senapred, because it must normally work 24/7 and against time.”

Now, regarding the service’s budget, Toro believes that “although it covers the main activities, it requires prioritizing because not all needs can be covered, which is especially challenging given the importance of Senapred’s mission and the need to materialize a Integral management”. Regarding this, there is a “vicious circle”, since the law that creates Senapred establishes more responsibilities and one of the demands to be financed, for example, is an increase in personnel.

The former director of Onemi clarifies that responsibility for emergency responses is deployed in the different CDisaster Risk Management committees, whether communal, regional or national. Senapred, for its part, advises at all these levels “and coordinates requests for support and alerts to the population.”

Toro highlights the advances in relation to the response that this institution has, such as the Early Warning Center, the SAE on cell phones and the reinforcement of preventive work in the territory, but “it does not inhibit the need for the system in general and SENAPRED in particular, be further strengthened in its existing capabilities, developed especially to face geological threats.”

Toro emphasizes that the countries that manage to prevent disasters are those that “invest the time and resources necessary to understand and reduce disaster risk. “What is indicated is even more aggravated for Chile, since it is classified as one of the most seismic and volcanic countries in the world, and also highly vulnerable to climate change.”

Rose Marie Garay is an academic at the Faculty of Forestry and Nature Conservation Sciences and Citrid, the disaster risk reduction program of the University of Chile. From his perspective, Senapred is going in the right direction, but “in the face of so many emergencies and their recurrence, it is difficult to expect that everything can be covered quickly and efficiently.”

The academic adds that, in addition, “it is important to know and imitate good practices, for example the Japanese one. This implies taking preparedness and preventive mitigation seriously, without there being such a great dependence on central governments.”

Garay believes that the change that the move from Onemi to Senapred means is “transcendental,” but “it requires increased responsibilities.” Of course, “they cannot lose their role as coordinator and supervisor so that emergencies are attended to early and correctly,” the academic clarifies. Although there is an urgency, “rushing through chaos does not solve and wastes public resources.”

For the academic, the budget figures are not the issue, “the planning of activities to strengthen an emergency care structure at a local level is, and that should be a topic of permanent discussion.” Now, in any case, it agrees that supporting municipalities with resources can help along these lines, but “these will be monitored for correct and transparent execution” and “a great leap would be made.” Public accounts must be made transparent.”

The vision of Senapred himself

When the service was consulted about how they see this option of generating changes and the allegations of the municipalities, the institution stated that “we have fulfilled our functions of technical advice to the municipalities, in accordance with the provisions of the law. respective regulations. In this context, we advised the municipalities early to prepare their plans; we have provided technical guidance; we have made the new formats available; Training has been designed and carried out, and along with this, courses have been carried out for municipal officials precisely for the development of plans.”

Now, they gave space so that “certainly, after the emergency, the corresponding analyzes will be carried out to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.” On the other hand, regarding the capacity they have, they reported that “any necessary analysis on the improvement of capacities, both in response and preparation, must be approached from a systemic perspective, supported by a view of continuous improvement.”

The latter, alluding to the fact that Law 21,364, which in one of its points creates Senapred, also defines that this service has public-private collaboration, has different territorial focuses and has other technical monitoring mechanisms that warn about various natural threats. within Chile.