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| Southeast Asia | |
| US groups spend 42 percent of tsunami aid: report | |
| 2005-12-21 | |
| WASHINGTON - US relief groups have spent about 42 percent of the $1.78 billion raised from private donations to aid victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami, according to a report released on Tuesday. InterAction, an umbrella group representing 165 US-based aid organizations, said spending levels in the nine months following the Dec. 26 tsunami reflected the fact that many projects were only in the first year of multiyear commitments. âThe recovery effort is one thatâs going to require three to five years at a minimum, and the agencies that are going to stay the course have to extend their funds in a way calculated to allow them to complete the work,â said Jim Bishop, InterActionâs director of humanitarian policy and practice. But the report also attributed spending delays to the uneven pace of recovery from the deadly earthquake and waves that killed some 220,000 people and devastated Indian Ocean coastal communities from Somalia to Indonesia. âIn several nations the capacity of the local authorities and civil society to engage in rehabilitation was undercut by high loss of life among civil servants and community leaders, as well as by massive destruction of transport links and vital infrastructure,â it said. âDelays in reaching some key policy decisions, particularly regarding land use in the most affected areas, inhibited permanent resettlement activities,â the report added. It did not specify countries or regions.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 Gee, 'Moose, that sounds a lot like what is going on down here in New Orleans. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2005-12-21 22:47 |
| #2 All "relief aid" can ever amount to is to provide immediate, life-saving support of fresh water and food, and to a lesser extent, electrical power. That is why the US Navy was such a godsend to the Tsunami victims. Beyond that, what little a local people can do for themselves is a hundred thousand times more potent than anything that can be done for them. If the locals are unwilling to work, are poor and poorly educated, have an ineffectual local and national government and a torpid business community, no amount of aid will help them. However, if they are determined to succeed, and no one stands in their way, then aid is almost superfluous, and if it is well used, acts as a multiplier to recovery; and if not used, to inhibit recovery. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-12-21 10:21 |
| #1 yeah, how much to "adminsistrative costs", versus how much to the actual aid. |
| Posted by: Jan 2005-12-21 00:40 |