Sustainable Reconstruction Report
Six months on and aid for long term Sustainble Reconstructrion is on hand but is not reaching those in need because of slow mobilization of reconstruction efforts:
From REUTERS TSUNAMI AIDWATCH
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/aidtracker/
Big tsunami donors allocate three-quarters of funds LONDON (AlertNet) - Seven months after the Indian Ocean tsunami the top donors have paid or approved over $5 billion in aid for the region - just over three-quarters of the funds they originally pledged for emergency relief and reconstruction.
Figures for countries like Britain have in part increased in recent weeks because they had been waiting for a multi-donor trust fund to be set up to handle long term reconstruction aid for Indonesia - the country by far the worst affected by the Dec. 26 disaster.
The fund, which is run by the World Bank, pools resources saving Indonesia the time-consuming task of performing numerous individual transactions with donor countries for parcels of aid money. From the donors' point of view paying into a World Bank administered fund also eases concerns over possible corruption in the use of their money.
Major donors say most money they pledged for humanitarian aid has now been disbursed and the tsunami effort is moving increasingly into the reconstruction phase.
The Netherlands said the immediate response for funds was so generous that not all its promised emergency aid was needed. It has now reassigned nearly $9 million of this for food relief in Ethiopia and Sudan.
Aid pledges by governments and multilateral organisations total around $7 billion, according to Reuters research. Add to that almost $5 billion of private donations to aid organisations by individuals, companies, foundations and religious groups, and you have the biggest display of generosity after any natural disaster in history.
But a lot of that cash has yet to make it to the ground. Some large donors like Germany and Canada, where the bulk of their aid is earmarked for long term reconstruction, say they have only allocated a portion so far because the money is to be spent over several years.
The United States is the biggest tsunami donor with a total $2.34 billion of government and private pledges. But Norwegians gave the most on a per capita basis, with combined governmental and private donations amounting to $59 per head -- seven times more than Americans and 10 times more than Japanese.
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