Go/No Go Decision Criteria: Staff Perspective Transcripts 

 
My name is Mariana Alvarez. Currently I serve as Program Manager for FH Guatemala.  
 
When disaster strikes an FH program area, what criteria are important to consider in the 
Go/No Go decision to respond? 
 
In September 2017, one of the largest earthquakes, in the history of Latin America, hit 
Mexico. As a neighboring country, the western part of Guatemala was also impacted. In 
the departments of San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, and Huehuetenango. The last is an FH 
program area. So some of our communities were affected. You don’t really know when a 
disaster will occur, but when it does you need to make decisions quickly and at the right 
time.  
 
An important factor we first considered in deciding to respond was the principle of 
responding to human suffering. A principle that guides FH action. Another factor that 
moved us to respond was the reach of the damage on families FH serves. The people 
that we work with: community and church leaders, and mother volunteers were seriously 
affected. They were injured or their homes affected. So this moved us to decide to 
respond in the areas where FH was working. Once we were involved in the humanitarian 
coordination meetings we decided to act because the larger organizations and the 
government were focusing their efforts in San Marcos which was hardest hit. Few 
resources were aimed at Quetzaltenango and Huehuetenango, that were also affected. 
Considering the limited resources that were targeted for Huehuetenango, where FH 
serves, we made the decision to be the focal point for coordinating the response in this 
area with other organizations and help the affected families in Huehuetenango.  
 
When disaster strikes a non-FH program area, what criteria are important to consider in 
the Go/No Go decision to respond? 
 
In 2018, the volcano - El fuego, had a series of eruptions from moderate to strong. In 
February, an unprecedented event occurred that the country did not expect. El Fuego 
had a very large eruption, spewing out large amounts of pyroclastic material that totally 
destroyed and devastated parts of southern Guatemala. In this area FH does not have 
programming. However, once again the determining factors that moved us to respond 
as we did was responding to human suffering. By the end of the day, the magnitude and 
reach of the disaster were not clear. The next day the government convened the team 
of humanitarian actors in the country. This time they called on FH specifically, even 
though they knew we did not operate in the area, because there was a need to gather 
reliable information on the level of impact and the needs and context of the affected 
population. It was necessary to do an assessment on the damage and analysis of the 
needs. In this opportunity,the decision to respond was more complicated and difficult, 
because it was not an area where we had communities where we work. It was an area in 
the south of the country that we did not know very well. However, we decided to 
consider first that the capacity of the national authorities had been surpassed. And the 
government and all its resources and personnel could not respond to the emergency. 
The civil society organizations that served in the area, their capacity to respond was also 
surpassed. So it was necessary to gather additional support from organizations like ours. 
Even though we did not have experience in saving the injured or volcanology. But we 
coud, and in fact we did, acommopany local authorities, map out the situation of the 
population, and offer this information to our authorities and our partners.