If the scale of destruction and the depths of tragedy generated by the Asian tsunami disaster have been staggering, then so has the response from the British public. Donating at the rate of a million pounds an hour following the launch of the joint agency appeal, this response is, in the words of an appeal spokesman, “remarkable and humbling”.
Yesterday that Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal, of which Christian Aid is a member, topped £50 million and is set to break all records. It also seems to have had a salutary effect on the British government, which last week more than trebled the amount it was pledging to the relief effort as the scale of public concern became clear.
So it is not surprising that people now want to know where and how all this money is being used. More precisely, they want to know why, after this magnitude of cash has been given, millions of people still remain in a parlous state — without the very basics. Children dying for the want of simple drugs. A lack of clean water threatening deadly epidemics to further swell the terrifying statistics of loss. What, generous donors may well ask, is going on?
The picture is not helped by the apparent confusion over who is in charge. Is it the United Nations or is it the new “core group” unilaterally set up by the United States and which also includes Australia, Japan and India? Surely world leaders are not already playing politics with the disaster?
In the words of Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, this is an “unprecedented global catastrophe” that requires an “unprecedented global response”. Put at its simplest, it means that no one has done this before. There has never been, in the memory of the modern aid world, such a colossal challenge to the way disasters are dealt with.
It is worth revisiting the facts. Some 11 countries have been hit over a huge geographic spread. Those areas hit hardest, in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, are those with the worst long-term political problems. Many of the areas affected have weak or damaged infrastructures — and that was true before the tsunami struck. Others, like the Andaman and Nicobar islands, are just severely isolated. And all this against the backdrop of thousands of bodies lying where the waters left them or being washed up with every tide. The prospect is awesome.
Much, however, is already being done. While international aid is needed on a massive scale, the image of stricken people waiting passively for it to arrive is as inaccurate as it is patronizing.
Local organizations, some of whom have years of experience preparing for and dealing with natural disasters, were able to start their operations within hours of the huge waves crashing ashore. Alongside the military efforts seen on television, small community groups have organized themselves quickly to distribute basic food and water to some of those most in need. Others have got down to the grisly task of burying the dead to guard against infection — clearing watercourses of corpses and dead livestock. So far, these are the largely unsung heroes of the crisis. Together they are undoubtedly saving thousands of lives.
Christian Aid works through such organizations throughout the world in order that help, in the shape of emergency funds, can be channeled quickly to where it can do the most good. The day after the disaster, for instance, £150,000 was allocated to the Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action (Casa) toward its ambitious relief program in southern India. This has since been augmented by a £400,000 grant from the British government’s Department for International Development (DfID). Christian Aid has now earmarked a further £100,000 for other partner organizations in the area, and another £500,000 for immediate assistance to Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
Casa workers and volunteers are now providing two emergency packs to victims of the tsunami — one with basic food items of rice and lentils, the other with plastic sheeting for shelter, clothes and bedding. Together with helping to provide clean drinking water, this program is gearing up to help 50,000 families in Tamil Nadu and other areas in southern India — or around 250,000 people. Medium-term plans include supporting 20,000 families with locally available building material so that they can rebuild their homes.
Elsewhere, while heroic efforts are being made, logistical problems have hampered even this local aid being distributed. In Sri Lanka, heavy rains over the past two days have led to flash floods stopping trucks getting through from Colombo, the capital, to the areas in the north and east that are worst affected. Those very areas were the scene of decades of conflict in the country’s protracted civil war with the Tamil Tigers, and so had very poor infrastructure to start with. Fears that thousands of landmines will have been dislodged by the waves and the floods add yet another difficulty, reports a Christian Aid emergency assessment team operating there.
But it also reports the story of a partner organization that immediately moved in to help villagers near Batticaloa who had fled to a temple in the hours after the tsunami struck. All week 1,500 people have been provided with food, water and basic medical care.
Some of the worst problems are in the Aceh province of Sumatra in Indonesia, another area of conflict. Again, the infrastructure is simply not there to get the aid to desperate people quickly. Aid flights are arriving, but the nearest airport capable of taking heavy transport planes is at Madan — 400 km from Banda Aceh, the regional capital. Supplies must then be reloaded onto smaller planes to fly to Meulaboh and from there taken on again by helicopter. A desperate shortage of trucks and badly damaged roads are preventing a large-scale effort being made by land. Everywhere the problems of coordination have been deepened by the scale of casualties among local government officials. Some aid agencies, which already had a presence in these areas, also report losses among their staff.
All of these examples demonstrate the two-stage nature of any relief operation. First, the aid material has to be bought and transported to the area. Then the even more difficult task of proper distribution has to be tackled. This needs careful and accurate assessments to be made to ensure that the aid is of the right kind and that it reaches the most vulnerable people first. Without secure distribution processes, for instance, the strong and the healthy will take all the aid — leaving children, the weak and the old with nothing. Agencies across the region are carrying out those assessments now as a vital prelude to widespread aid distribution in the next few days
The UN, as the only international agency with the ability to do it, must be given the central role in coordinating this relief effort. There has to be a central point through which all these assessments are channeled and priorities set, and the UN’s emergency coordinating office has to be that point. Anything resembling a free-for-all will lead to duplication and confusion, with the potential to make matters even worse in some areas. In the meantime agencies must cooperate locally, as is happening in eastern Sri Lanka.
— John Davison is an emergencies officer for Christian Aid.
