Your own perspective and reflection on the book: How has this book shaped your own understanding of emergency preparedness and response?

 This essay should be 2 pages (12 point Times New Roman font, double spaced, 1’’ margins). The essay should include:

Your own perspective and reflection on the book: How has this book shaped your own understanding of emergency preparedness and response?

Social, cultural, political and economic factors shaping preparedness, response and recovery related to your book. For example, how did socioeconomic status affect the population or overall economy and the ability of the government to prepare and respond effectively? How has it affected recovery? How did culture shape or contribute to the emergency in meaningful ways?

Population affected – Are there similarities or differences in the vulnerabilities and/or resilience of different segments of the population? How did vulnerabilities or strengths impact the ability of people to respond and/or recover? Consider minority status, languages spoken, race, ethnicity, and culture in your reflection.

What are some lessons learned you took away from reading the book? What could have been differently? What should be done in the future?

Solution

Executive summary

Stearns authored the book to understand the causes of the violence in Congo and "the bigger regional problems" (Hoffmann et at., 2020). Far more than victims of the conflict, the book concentrates on the region's leaders and army commanders. The events can be used to enhance disaster and emergency preparedness, response, and recovery plans and procedures. This helps those responsible and advises on how to improve can be given (Ritchie & MacDonald, 2010, p. 3-7).

During the conflict, the social-economic elements that impacted the populace and government shall be discovered in this review, and further analysis on the lessons learned and recommendations for change in the future will be given. These are usually the policies and procedures that can be implemented in the future to prevent such heinous atrocities that took place in Congo from occurring again.

The overall investigation revealed that governments throughout the Congo war lacked emergency readiness, response, and recovery systems or policies that may have avoided the war and safeguarded civilians, particularly the vulnerable (women and children). The international community, particularly the donors, did not do enough for people to prepare for or recover from the conflict, either because the war was too complicated or because it was not taken seriously.

Table of content

	Page
Introduction	3
How the book has shaped my understanding of emergency preparedness and response.	3
The Analysis of the book in regards to the preparedness, response, emergency	3
Social economic factors that shaped/ affected preparedness, responsiveness and recovery	3
How the vulnerabilities or strengths affected people’s ability to respond and/or recover	3
Minority status, languages, race, ethnicity, and culture	4
The lessons learnt	4
What could have been done differently	4
What could be done in the future	4
Conclusion	4
References	5-6

Introduction

Based on Jason Stearns' book, this study offers an examination of the socioeconomic issues that impacted the people and government throughout the Congo war. The goal is to assess the information and identify elements that will help affected parties plan for, respond to, and recover from emergencies.

The book taught me that a country governed by idealistic leaders, like Mobutu Sese Seko (Stearns, 2012a, p. 21) or Laurent Kabila, can paralyzes both the economy and national security to the point that it is unable to plan for and respond to emergencies.

Congo's leadership lacked emergency preparedness to protect its citizens, compared to the attackers, Kagame, Museveni, and Buyoya (Stearns, 2012b, p.89). Its population lived in poverty and was unable to prepare or respond to emergencies. Although the United Nations tried to respond to the deteriorating humanitarian crisis (widespread diseases, starvation, and lost shelter continued).

The socioeconomic status of Congo during the war can be viewed as a predatory state (Stearns, 2012c, p.215), with a lack of visionary leadership – that rewarded ruthless behavior (Stearns, 2012d, p.321; p. 138). It allowed rebels to thrive because of weak political institutions (Stearns, 2012e, p.21;p.131), and a collapsed economy (Stearns, 2012f, p. 177). Therefore, both the government and the people were unable to prepare or respond to emergencies throughout the war.

The key populations affected were the vulnerable women and children through rape, malnutrition, and diseases (Stearns, 2012g, p.247). Although the United Nations helped in the recovery process, it was too late or limited. The atrocities suffered by the vulnerable groups were too brutal to recover from but could have been prepared for or prevented if the international community had intervened immediately (Stearns, 2012h, p.53).

Cultural factors such as ethnicity, languages, and minority status played a huge role in fueling the war: The government failed to solve colonial-era problems of a violent society, discrimination of Banyamulenge (Stearns, 2012i, p.73). The growing western influence, and a lack of unity caused by conflicting ethnic groups from Rwanda and Burundi (Stearns, 2012j, p. 69).

Lesson learned from the book is the complexity and causes of war are understood when the focus is more on the perpetrators than the victims, thus with a changed mindset, Joseph Kabila contributed to the end of the war by making peace with his people and neighboring countries (Stearns, 2012k, p.300-303).

Things could have been different if media coverage was immediately available to report the truth resulting in imminent emergency procedures and help from other African regions. Donors should have helped the Congolese to recover because of their past benefits from Congo (Stearns, 2012l, p.323).

My Suggestion for the future is all nations should care and do enough to prevent escalations of such conflicts.

Conclusion

From the analysis, the Congolese government never had emergence preparedness, response and recovery plans. The poor leadership contributed to failure to tackle social-economic issues, and these issues became complicated or prolonged the war in Congo.

References

Hoffmann, K., Vlassenroot, K., Carayannis, T., & Muzalia, G. (2020). Violent conflict and ethnicity in the Congo: beyond materialism, primordialism and symbolism. Conflict, Security & Development, 20(5), 539-560. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14678802.2020.1840789

Ritchie, L. A., & MacDonald, W. (2010). Enhancing disaster and emergency preparedness, response, and recovery through evaluation. New Directions for Evaluation, 2010 (126), 3-7. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ev.325

Stearns, J. (2012a). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p.21

Stearns, J. (2012b). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p.89

Stearns, J. (2012c). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p. 215

Stearns, J. (2012d). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p.138

Stearns, J. (2012e). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p. 131

Stearns, J. (2012f). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p. 177

Stearns, J. (2012g). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p. 247

Stearns, J. (2012h). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p. 53

Stearns, J. (2012i). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p.73

Stearns, J. (2012j). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p. 69

Stearns, J. (2012k). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. pp. 300-303

Stearns, J. (2012l). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Reprint ed.). PublicAffairs. p.323