press releases
Tsunami Aid Response "First Class," United Nations Says
01/05/2005
(Relief coordinator says pledges growing daily)
By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- The huge, unprecedented international tsunami relief effort is making extraordinary progress in tackling the massive problems humanitarian workers face in getting aid to millions in South Asia and as far away as Africa, the chief U.N. relief coordinator said January 4.
Jan Egeland, U.N. emergency relief coordinator, called the response of the international community "first class," with pledges "growing by the day" and now totaling the "phenomenal" sum of $2 billion. In addition, nations are responding positively to U.N. requests for equipment ranging from C-17 transport aircraft to bulldozers and water treatment units.
"I respectfully disagree with those who said our member states reacted too late," the coordinator said at a press conference at U.N. headquarters. "I think they were first class. I've never, ever had this kind of response."
"From the United States to the European Union to the countries in the region we had an immediate promise and pledge of full support," he continued. "There is nothing which has held us back.”
"I wish we would have had this in many other emergencies in the past year," Egeland said, describing his work in 2004 as often "going hat-in-hand with my colleagues asking for helicopters and money instead of having the opportunity to coordinate vast emergency services."
Egeland said that he has daily phone conversations with Washington and "whatever I request there is a positive and immediate answer."
"That is why I respectfully disagree with those who say that the U.S. was slow in this. The U.S. could not have been more pro-active or active from the U.N. point of view in this disaster," he added.
The United Nations has asked the United States to coordinate helicopter service to ensure that there will be an adequate, well-coordinated, helicopter-borne aid operation along the coastline of Sumatra, Egeland said.
The office of the emergency relief coordinator acts as "oil in the machinery," Egeland explained, ensuring exactly what workers, transport, and supplies get to all the affected areas. He described the U.N. office in Geneva as "the humanitarian capital of the world." In New York, Egeland and his team do the "political coordination," with offices in Bangkok handling military-civilian coordination and offices in Rome overseeing joint logistics services.
"Many of bottlenecks have been cleared, thanks to dozens and dozens of experts who are highly trained (arriving) in the first 48 hours to facilitate exchange of aid in proportion to need," he said.
On his "wish list," Egeland said, are more C-17 military transport planes and other aircraft, helicopters, trucks, landing crafts and boats, base camps with staff support, fuel stores and handling units, water treatment units, generators, and deployment kits for personnel.
"In all these areas, we're making progress," he said.
A conference will be held on January 6 in Jakarta, Indonesia, to continue raising funds for the aid efforts. Egeland urged nations to go to the conference with "the money you pledge" and make those pledges "additional money -- as much as possible."
"We have had too many instances of very generous pledges being publicly made and money not coming in the final leg of the marathon," the U.N. official said.
"It would be the ultimate irony if we started the year with unprecedented global generosity and we would end this year again with no money for those most in need in the forgotten and neglected emergencies in Africa and elsewhere," he said.
Egeland also said relief efforts are "making extraordinary progress in reaching the majority of the people affected in the majority of the areas." Emergency workers are solving many bottlenecks earlier than in similar disasters in the past, he said, but, nevertheless, aid operations are also experiencing "extraordinary obstacles in many, many areas."
Nowhere are the problems bigger than in northern Sumatra and the Aceh region, he said.
The international community didn't "wake up earlier to the devastation" in Sumatra partly because the tsunami hit so hard "there was nobody to notify us."
Describing the differences across the region, Egeland said that "in the Maldives it was like sudden flooding of more than one-third of all of the island; in Sri Lanka it was a tidal wave crushing everything. In Sumatra it was really an explosion. It was like a wall of concrete exploding on that coast and many, many, many villages are gone."
"When we needed the roads the most, when we needed the telecommunications the most, they were not there," he said.
Sri Lanka, the coordinator said, is good illustration of scope and magnitude of the disaster. All the costal provinces except one in the extreme northwest is affected and half of the country's provinces have been severely affected; about 780,00 displaced persons are now in 800 camps.
The United Nations is waiting for Indonesian officials to estimate the toll on Sumatra, especially on the Aceh coast, but Egeland said that he does not expect an accurate figure soon. "We may never know," he added.
Egeland said that the United Nations now estimates that 150,000 have perished, but he expects that number to rise as the Sumatra situation becomes clearer.
"Much more than 1 million people are displaced altogether and we will have to assist 5 million in one form or another," he said.