Aid groups hope post-tsunami world becomes more generous

Aid groups hope post-tsunami world becomes more generous

Irwin Arieff, Reuters/United Nations

The Indian Ocean tsunami has triggered the most generous
outpouring of humanitarian aid in history, making relief groups
hopeful of a basic shift in the way the world reacts to
desperately needy people.

In all, governments, aid groups, businesses and individuals
have pledged US$8 billion to $9 billion for tsunami relief in
just eight weeks after an earthquake and wall of water devastated
coastlines from Somalia to Thailand on Dec. 26.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
says governments, international agencies and relief groups alone
have notified it of $5.7 billion in donations.

That figure excludes corporate and private gifts, loans,
direct government-to-government aid and many in-kind gifts such
as search and medical teams, helicopters and military assets.

International donors have already pledged 90 percent of the $1
billion requested by the United Nations a little over a month ago
to cover the first six weeks of emergency humanitarian needs for
victims of the tsunami, which killed more than 200,000 people and
left more than 1 million homeless.

Aid workers already have in hand an unprecedented 75 percent
of that $1 billion, the latest UN figures show.

In sharp contrast, a UN appeal last year for $141 million in
emergency aid for Liberia, recovering from a long civil war,
netted just $68 million over a full year's time, less than half
of what was sought.

A similar plea for $7.6 million in humanitarian assistance for
the Central African Republic, plagued by frequent uprisings and
abject poverty, yielded just $2.9 million in donations.

Many in the aid community have begun referring to such
forgotten crises as "silent tsunamis" in hopes of stirring up
global generosity.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland pleaded on Friday
for more aid for a humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan's strife-
torn Darfur region, saying the "tsunami" there could kill more
than the Indian Ocean disaster if left unchecked.

Egeland outraged many government leaders when he accused rich
nations of growing stingy in their help for poor states.

But the outrage soon turned into a sort of bidding war as
governments sought to outdo one another in their aid pledges,
moved by the magnitude of the havoc caused by the tsunami and the
stark media images of the suffering it had caused.

Purse strings may also have been loosened by the sight of
victims who were tourists from Western nations, a fact that
brought the reality of the disaster home to many donors.

Egeland now insists the tsunami has altered the way wealthy
nations look at suffering in the rest of the world.

Having seen the unprecedented response to a crisis that
spanned Africa and Asia, he predicts governments, international
agencies and private donors will now be more generous.

Hilary Benn, Britain's secretary of state for international
development, also feels the tsunami may have changed things.

"Some people thought that the tsunami would somehow exhaust
the well of human compassion at the beginning of 2005. I don't
think that is the case," he said during a recent visit to UN
headquarters. "On the contrary, I think it has made people more
aware about responsibilities to our neighbors."

"The tsunami has changed everything in terms of connecting
millions living in the Western world with the untold suffering of
hundreds of thousand of people in affected countries," agreed
Caroline Green of relief group Oxfam International.

Oxfam, appealing for tsunami aid in 12 countries, raised $154
million within seven weeks of the disaster, the biggest response
it has ever had "by a staggering amount," she said. "People are
demanding an end to poverty, and governments know they must do
much more."

Nicolas de Torrente, who heads the U.S. arm of Doctors Without
Borders, the international medical aid group, said only time will
tell whether the generosity will continue.

"I don't think it's a sea-change in attitudes," said de
Torrente, whose group got so many contributions after the tsunami
that it had to ask contributors to let it shift their gifts to
other programs.

"The pie is not infinite. I think the pie can grow a little
bit, but if the follow-up is not good, it will hurt" he said.

"So aid agencies also have a big responsibility -- to ensure
that the money they received -- and they received enormous
amounts -- is used effectively." de Torrente said.