Earthquakes and Tsunami in Asia

6th January 2005

The devastation caused by the tsunami is far-reaching. There are clear immediate priorities and longer-term repercussions that need to be addressed as soon as possible. We call on donors not to repeat the mistakes of the past and to commit to a comprehensive package of aid, debt relief and trade concessions for the countries affected by the tsunami disaster.

  1. Humanitarian aid: Governments should immediately pledge to fully fund the UN appeal for $997 million launched on 6th January. Every single pledge must be turned into real aid getting to people on the ground as fast as possible. Donor governments must contribute their funds to the UN effort far faster than has happened in some previous crises, and must ensure that all money pledged actually arrives on schedule.
  2. The rest of the world: It would be a terrible failure if international compassion for the victims of the tsunami blotted out compassion for the many millions of people suffering from other humanitarian crises - from Darfur in Sudan, to Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo - or from the tens of thousands of people who die each day as a result of poverty. The UK contribution should be funded by new money from the Treasury beyond DFID's contingency reserves, to ensure poor people in need elsewhere in the world do not suffer as a result of diversion of aid to the Asian crisis.
    Since more money has already been pledged for this crisis than for all the other humanitarian disasters of 2004, donor governments should make a 'double humanitarian pledge' at the 11th January donors meeting in Geneva:
    • To fully fund the UN Secretary General's appeal for the victims of the tsunami
    • To fully fund the UN's 2005 Consolidated Appeals for other crises launched by the Secretary General in November 2004, and still sorely under funded.
  3. Most rich countries including the UK have made a commitment to provide 0.7% of GNI in aid. Yet only five countries have reached the 0.7% target. We call on the UK government and other donors to rapidly move towards the goal of reaching 0.7%.
  4. Humanitarian coordination: The major donors must support the UN as the coordinator of the international response. The immense humanitarian effort will require increased support by many others, including the use of foreign military resources. This should be temporary - to meet these extraordinary needs - and clearly under overall civilian leadership. Humanitarian aid must be distributed on the basis of impartial assessments and according to the fundamental principles of humanity and impartiality.
  5. Local capacity: Whenever possible, international aid efforts should work with local aid groups and civil society to increase effectiveness and to build capacity for local emergency and relief response. In the Bam earthquake in Iran, the local Iranian Red Crescent society was seven times more effective at locating survivors than international teams that flew in from abroad. Aid supplies including food should be purchased as locally as possible. In the long-term, after the media spotlight moves on, local groups will be among the foundations that remain in place.
  6. 'Reconstruction plus': Affected governments and donors should commit now to a plan for 'reconstruction plus': aiming to reduce poverty and ensure environmental sustainability in the blighted regions. They should commit to support this for the long-term, no less than 5 years, as part of the affected countries' plans to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Donor governments should provide grants, not loans, focussed on reducing poverty as well as rebuilding the devastated physical infrastructure. Aid should not be 'tied' to benefit companies of donor countries.
  7. Debt: We welcome the proposals that there should be an immediate moratorium on all bilateral and multilateral debt repayments from the worst affected countries. When the Paris Club creditors meet on 12th January they should look at debt cancellation as well as a moratorium for the affected countries. Debt relief must be strictly ring-fenced to reduce poverty and rebuild affected communities. Given the very different economies of the affected countries, creditors should listen carefully to the views of their governments on a debt moratorium and debt cancellation. Any debt response to the tsunami should not reduce the vital need for the G7 to cancel 100% of HIPC countries' debt early this year.
    Aid and debt relief must not be conditional on economic policy reform. Such conditions have often been extremely harmful to poor people where applied elsewhere, and have also held up urgently needed funds arriving when countries have been unable or unwilling to meet them. Donors should cancel the debts of the tsunami-affected countries as long as those governments show that they will spend the proceeds of "reconstruction plus" and development in a transparent way.
  8. Early warning: Even though there has been a dramatic increase in natural disasters in the last 50 years, evidence shows that early warning can lessen the impact of these disasters considerably. Donor governments should commit investment in global monitoring systems for natural hazards, and work with the UN and affected governments to improve vulnerability assessments and adaptive capacity, as recommended by the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change in November 2004.
  9. Protection of Children: There are major threats to children, especially those orphaned or separated from their families. These threats include the abduction, trafficking and sexual exploitation of boys and girls. Donor and national governments should ensure that child protection work is prioritised in the response to the immediate crisis and long-term reconstruction. Measures to achieve this should include Child Protection Advisors employed in all UN coordinated responses, separated or orphaned children being kept with extended families, and as soon as possible, quality education should be provided to contribute to protection of children and the longer-term effort to halt the cycle of poverty.
  10. Trade: The reconstruction of Sri Lanka and the Maldives may be hampered by unfair terms of trade with the US and EU. Clothing exports, which account for half of Sri Lanka's export earnings, are threatened by the phasing out of quotas under the Multi Fibre Arrangement, high tariffs and restrictive rules of origin in the US and EU. Unilateral and permanent measures by the US and EU to make their markets more accessible to these clothing exports would demonstrate that they were making a joined-up response to the tsunami disaster. Negotiations on Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), including on fisheries, should not compromise the ability of fishing communities to rebuild their livelihoods. Equally, previously fragile local markets in many of the affected countries, made even more so by the tsunami, must not be forced open by economic conditions attached to aid and any subsequent debt cancellation.
    Disasters that hit poorer countries kill more people because of the lack of early warning, dilapidated infrastructure, weak communications, poor health services and the overall level of poverty. This reinforces the message of Make Poverty History that 2005, beginning with this tragedy, must be the year when rich governments commit to take action on aid, canceling debt relief and delivering trade justice for the world's poor.

ENDS

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