Officials say the fill-in-the-blank format will save valuable hours after the Guinea collapse.
After a landfill collapse killed at least 30 people in Guinea, an international bureau launches a reusable, fill-in-the-blank statement of concern. Officials say only the country field ever changes. Six copies have already been pre-filled for future disasters.
"— and frankly, drafting a fresh one every time was becoming a strain on staff," said Hildegard Voss, spokeswoman for the International Bureau of Expressed Concern, on Monday. "The template solves that."
The Bureau has released the world's first reusable statement of sorrow for landfill disasters. It has six blank fields: country, death toll, weather event, promised review, unnamed official, and lessons to be learned. A diplomat fills them in, files the form, and moves on with the afternoon.
The launch follows the collapse of a mountain of waste in Conakry, Guinea, where at least 30 people died after heavy rain sent a hillside of rubbish down onto the homes built beneath it. The homes were beneath it because that was the land nobody with power wanted.
Anyone who has worked this beat will know the shape of the thing. Addis Ababa, 2017. Colombo managed it barely a month later. And there was Manila, in the summer of 2000, about which the less said the better.
Voss said the template had been stress-tested against the archive and fitted every such collapse on record. "We were struck by how little editing was needed," she said. "Honestly, the only field that ever changes is the country. We considered making the rest permanent."
"The only field that ever changes is the country. We considered making the rest permanent."
The form ships in the six official languages of the United Nations. Each version pledges that the tragedy "must never happen again," a phrase the Bureau describes as its most durable asset. It has survived more disasters than any wall in Conakry.
Not everyone applauded. "A statement is not a retaining wall," said Beatrice Onana of the relief group Shovels Before Statements. "You could fund actual drainage for what this consultation cost. Nobody has ever been dug out from under anything by a communiqué."
The Bureau rejected that as cynicism. Voss noted that the money saved on drafting would be redirected into a review of why previous reviews changed nothing. Results are expected after the next collapse, whichever country hosts it.
One has read the reports from Guinea before, in a manner of speaking. Different city, same rain, same slope of other people's rubbish, same families underneath. The sequel never improves on the original. It merely relocates.
At the launch, a reporter asked whether pre-filling the forms might look callous. Voss said six copies had already been completed, with only the country field left blank. "For efficiency," she explained. Somewhere, the rain is already taking care of the rest.
