Tsunami relief effort hits difficult time: United Nations
Tsunami relief effort hits difficult time: United Nations
Richard Waddington, Reuters/Geneva
The international drive to help victims of the Asian tsunami faces difficult times, with frustration amongst survivors at the pace of reconstruction, the UN's top aid official warned on Wednesday.
Reporting on the United Nations' efforts some three months after the disaster that killed up to 300,000 people, Jan Egeland said the world's initial response had been hugely successful, but the problem now was to maintain the momentum of assistance.
"There is in some communities a growing frustration. They have heard of the large sums of money pledged but they have not yet got their house rebuilt nor their livelihood and it will take more time," the UN's disaster relief coordinator said.
Egeland said the United Nations was raising its initial appeal for help for countries around the Indian Ocean basin, particularly Indonesia and Sri Lanka which took the brunt of the Dec. 26 earthquake and giant waves, to US$1.08 billion from $970 million.
Some 80 percent of the appeal had already been raised or firmly pledged -- a record response to a UN call for help. Total international promises of assistance stood at nearly $6 billion, although much of it could take years to materialize, he added.
The initial emergency response had provided food for some two million people, with a similar number receiving medical assistance, which helped prevent any major disease outbreaks.
"It has been a truly remarkable effort. In the United Nations we have never ever recorded such generosity," he told a news conference.
But providing shelter for the homeless in the Aceh province of Indonesia and Sri Lanka was a pressing problem, with disputes over land ownership complicating the task.
The fact that Aceh and Sri Lanka faced internal political conflicts was an additional difficulty, while progress could also be slowed by the need to ensure that development projects met environmental standards.
"I think it will be a difficult period that we are now entering. After a successful emergency relief phase and before we really get a development phase going, these will be several months of transition," Egeland said.
"What we have to avoid is a loss of momentum ... We have to re-double our efforts," he said, adding that former U.S. President Bill Clinton would help keep up the pressure on donors in his role as special UN envoy.
But aid for the tsunami victims must not come at the expense of assistance to other parts of the world, notably West and Central Africa, where people often lived in even worse conditions, Egeland said.
Although there were no signs that donors were deliberately switching funds, the flow of financing for other well known problem areas had slowed.
Egeland said that the United Nations had received less than 10 percent of the some $1.8 billion it sought in 2005 for these so- called "forgotten disasters," such as Ivory Coast, Chad and Somalia.