A Year of Opportunities for the International Community: Transatlantic Roles & Implications

Transcription

1 ASPEN ATLANTIC GROUP A Year of Opportunities for the International Community: Transatlantic Roles & Implications May 19-22, 2005 Vancouver, Canada MEETING BRIEFING PAPER THE TSUNAMI DISASTER: AID EFFECTIVENESS AND SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS Ray Offenheiser President, Oxfam America The intent of this paper is to provide Oxfam America s perspective on some of the operational challenges and policy opportunities presented by the Indian Ocean tsunami. Our reasons for sharing these ideas with you is that we believe that the tsunami has paradoxically set the table for a national and global discussion of global poverty and humanitarianism in a way that is unprecedented since 9/11. Our concern is that the public, now sensitized to these issues, is keen to make sure that its generosity is being properly stewarded by Oxfam and the many other agencies involved. The spotlight is on the UN and all aid agencies. The focus is on aid effectiveness and sustainable solutions. If we get it right, we may have brought tens of thousand of new individuals and families into a greater awareness or global issues. If we blow it, we could kill the whole discussion of Millennium Development Goals and set back the efforts to alleviate global poverty by decades. There is a lot at stake. How we respond and how we communicate our response to the public will be crucially important in the coming months. Background: The Challenge

2 The Asian tsunami was a massive natural disaster, unprecedented in scale and scope. In addition to devastating lives and destroying livelihoods, the tsunami presented extraordinary challenges to relief and recovery operations in meeting the needs of its victims across 12 nations and thousands of miles of ocean. In Indonesia, it is estimated that some 4.5 million persons were affected along hundreds of miles of coastline. The infrastructural damages to major population centers were enormous. A huge and complex logistical operation was mounted to meet these challenges. The international relief community, including USAID, the U.S. military, and other U.S. Government agencies, displayed remarkable ingenuity in saving lives and providing survivors with the basic necessities food, water, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Quick action prevented major outbreaks of waterborne diseases that could have doubled the death toll from the disaster. There is much in this response that we can take pride in. Nonetheless, despite the courage and generosity displayed in Indonesia and elsewhere across the region, the sheer scale and complexity of the humanitarian response has also caused problems that threaten to overwhelm fragile economies and civil society organizations in the affected countries, exacerbate religious and ethnic tensions, and potentially foment bitterness and recrimination among survivors and their neighboring communities. Oxfam and others are working to ensure a successful outcome, but it will be impossible to mitigate these threats unless steps are taken to ensure that aid programs are designed and implemented as effectively as possible. This paper identifies some of the key challenges to optimizing the effectiveness of this relief effort such as quality of aid, coordination, accountability and impartiality. It also looks at the need to engage and empower local communities in the recovery process, to build civil society, uphold and protect 2

3 individual rights, especially women, to incorporate proposals on debt relief and trade reform, and issues of access in order to ensure a comprehensive and effective response for the millions of victims of the tsunami catastrophe. Critical Issues 1. Quality of Aid: Are agencies following internationally recognized standards? Oxfam is concerned about quality and standards of aid across the board. The professional humanitarian community has worked very hard over the last 10 years to develop internationally recognized standards for both policy and operations. The International Committee of the Red Cross Code of Conduct has been a bible for our community for much of the 20 th century. More recently, the Sphere Project developed very precise operational standards for even the minute details of humanitarian response. Yet many aid groups showing up in the tsunami areas, particularly the more voluntarist ones, are either unfamiliar with these standards or simply ignoring them as they attempt to define a role for themselves. As a consequence, emergency responses have suffered from agencies lack of knowledge and use of standards, weak consultation with beneficiaries, and limited efforts at promoting quality overall. Shelter, for example, is of particular concern at this stage. As we move from emergency shelter to transitional shelter it is imperative to adhere to existing quality standards. It is estimated that up to 90,000 families in Sri Lanka will be put up in transitional shelter from anywhere between 18 months and 4 years. Two key elements must be taken into account when building transitional shelter: 3

4 It needs to be spacious enough for families of up to 5 people and sturdy enough to withstand monsoon rains and winds; and It must be built with access to proper water and sanitation facilities. Some shelter has been hastily thrown up without considering spaciousness; where people will get water; where they will dispose of old water; where latrines will be located; nor overall density of the housing complex. Greater consistency across the sector could be achieved with a wider promotion and application of general standards, which would, in turn, ensure more equitable distribution of aid and protection of the rights of victims. Governments and the UN should insist agencies adhere to quality standards in the various sectors. 2. Coordination: Are we optimizing coordination at the national and local level? There are currently around 700 NGOs in Sri Lanka, an estimated 500 NGOs in Aceh, and several hundred in South India. These organizations vary widely in experience, skills, missions, and operating styles. More professional agencies are accustomed to coordinating. We have worked side by side in the Congo, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Darfur. We know the importance of UN leadership and we understand how coordination works and how it benefits us all. Unfortunately, in the tsunami areas, there are agencies running poor quality programs that have participated only marginally in the efforts at coordination, either because they assume that they know their business and do not want to be bothered, or because they do not appreciate the importance of a well-coordinated response. Under these circumstances, coordination becomes either ineffective due to the extremely large number of agencies involved, or pointless, as key agencies may not participate in coordination meetings, thereby rendering 4

5 the investment of time meaningless for others. It ceases to be a forum where interagency issues can be identified and resolved. In order to help with coordination, Oxfam has taken the lead in some water and sanitation coordination meetings, providing technical support to agencies with less experience. While this is important, it is difficult to balance the tradeoffs of supporting less experienced agencies in coordination meetings versus investing this precious staff time working in the field. Coordination is important at both the national and local level. At the national level, it is critical that the UN and governments make sure that overall institutional resources are distributed both evenly and equitably. Failure to do so can create the perception that officials are discriminating against certain areas or groups for political reasons. These perceptions exist in Sri Lanka between both the Tamil and Sinhalese and between East and West. In Indonesia, NGOs concentrated in Banda Aceh while very few attempted to work in the periphery due to lack of robust logistical backup. Coordination tends to be most useful and leverages even greater efficiencies and impact at the local level. It is here where the tires hit the road, where lives are saved or lost. It is here where important triage decisions need to be made about which communities need assistance, in what order, and at what level of magnitude. It is here that complex cultural and political differences must be noted and negotiated. The leadership of local level coordination by governments has been reasonably good in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Indonesia has been the most problematic because of the impact of the tsunami on its institutions and personnel. Many civil servants were lost. The arrangements for local level coordination in Indonesia have had to be improvised and agencies have had to be more pragmatic in order to get on with their work. 5

6 Better coordination by governments (at the national, regional or local levels) and the UN is essential otherwise aid may be distributed unevenly, leading to resentments among beneficiaries. National governments must provide overall leadership, while leaving tactical field-level coordination to local governments and other institutions. For coordination to be successful, there must be a willingness and openness by governments to provide comprehensive information about the needs in affected communities to help guide plans for the rebuilding phase and make sure that no community is passed over because of politics or confusion. When adequate coordination does not exist the international community should push governments to adopt stronger and more transparent coordination roles. In order to achieve a greater degree of coordination among non-governmental actors, the UN could oversee the implementation of a system of accreditation of international humanitarian organizations to ensure that their experience qualifies them for the scope and duration of the work they propose to do. Any effort to do this should be bureaucratically light and established for the particular emergency on a short-term basis. Anything too bureaucratic would only slow down the response and lend itself to political manipulation. There is however a need for the UN to assist affected governments in distinguishing among the hundreds of agencies showing up between those that can really make a difference against internationally recognized standards, and those that are arriving with little knowledge of context and limited competency and financing. Admittedly, for some NGO s this idea may be controversial. They will fear its misuse both at the national and international level. They will also argue that it undermines the voluntarist character of 6

7 humanitarianism. While this may be in part true, the reality is that pure voluntarism may not provide the kind and level of support that may be needed in many situations. Aid groups, for their part, should stick to doing what they know best. Faced with a myriad of urgent needs and fueled by a donation bonanza, some organizations have been tempted to expand their programs into areas where they have little experience and less expertise. With a surfeit of groups on the ground, they should focus on their core competencies, leaving other tasks to those with the capacity to do them well. 3. Accountability and Impartiality: Is aid being provided where it is really needed or where funds are most easily spent? The Tsunami emergency has been largely driven by the financial response of the public and media. The UN Flash Appeal for all the affected countries for six months is $997 million, more than the combined consolidated appeals for Chad, Uganda, the Great Lakes, Somalia and Ethiopia in In the Tsunami emergency, the estimated expenditure per person will be above $400. It was $40 per person in Kosovo and a mere.40 cents per person in the Mozambique floods. Given the variety and number of actors involved, it is probably impossible to arrive at an accurate figure for the amount of money in play. It is no surprise therefore that the impartiality principle that aid be provided without discrimination and on the basis of needs only has been seriously challenged as agencies are receiving pressure from head offices and donors to make large expenditures in a short period of time in the tsunami-affected 7

8 areas. There is concern not only for the quality and accountability of programming, but of protecting agencies credibility particularly with their contributing public. Regardless of the pressure the international relief community is experiencing, it is crucial that agencies insist on unhindered, inclusive, and equal assistance to beneficiaries to ensure aid is provided without discrimination and on the basis of needs. Relief, recovery, and reconstruction efforts by all actors must not be conducted with a bias towards populations that are easier to reach or simply more visible or based on any other criteria apart from need. This means all actors must be transparent about their programs, and their work must be demonstrably based on needs not ease of access and pressure to spend the money. 4. Empowering local communities: Are we enabling families and communities to participate and define their needs in the rehabilitation process? Tsunami survivors must be full participants in planning the rebuilding of their communities. While the emergency phase of relief delivery is mostly a top-down process, the rehabilitation and reconstruction programs now underway must be designed with input from the people whom they are intended to benefit. Too often, their wishes are an afterthought at planning meetings. The relief phase is now over in most parts of the region. It is critical in this next phase that we work closely with families to rebuild their communities and lives in ways that are consistent with who they are and how they wish to live. It is important that we listen and not just act. The problem on the ground is that many agencies, in their haste to spend and with their lack of experience and knowledge 8

9 of the context, just want to get on with it. Engaging families and communities in a consultative process is time consuming and assumes that agencies have the language and cultural facility to do it. For many agencies, this is just too inconvenient. Yet paradoxically, we have seen over and over again that consultation gets results that are durable and sustainable. Already we have seen the results of slam dunk programming in the form of housing that is unsuited to local family size and cultural practices, and latrines installed that completely ignore local sanitary practices. The resources and time taken to provide these goods end up as a waste as the houses go unoccupied and the latrines unused and ultimately torn down and replaced by something more appropriate. 5. Building Civil Society: Is the aid process contributing to building civil society or could it, in the end, undermine civil society? Too much money reaching an impoverished area can be almost as debilitating as too little. International aid organizations must be careful not to overtax the fragile systems of domestic NGOs that lack the capacity to absorb large grants. Nor should they hire away key staff members from domestic groups, but instead should consider recruiting highly trained expatriates to return to their country to help manage rebuilding projects for a specific term. We ve already seen how a flood of US dollars in developing economies has caused a steep appreciation of local currencies like the rupee and bhat against the dollar. If not managed closely, that trend could lead to rapid inflation that could cause further economic calamity on par with the tsunami itself. The large volume of aid available should enable countries affected by the tsunami not only to recover but to put their people on a path toward sustainable long-term development. To merely return survivors 9

10 to the marginal lives of poverty many of them led before the waves came would be unthinkable, leaving them just as vulnerable as they were on that terrible day. There is a tremendous opening to empower local communities and people. For example, Oxfam is working to empower women by ensuring their full consultation and participation in livelihoods and cash-for work programs, electing women s representatives in communities and providing equal pay for women and men in cash-for work programs. Donor governments, the United Nations agencies, the international development banks, and the wider international community should view recovery and reconstruction efforts in tsunami-affected countries as an opportunity to achieve reconstruction plus, promoting standards of development in the province in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals. To this end, the development of a robust and independent civil society in tsunami-hit countries should be strongly supported by the international community, so that disaster victims, community networks, local non-governmental organizations, women s groups, academics, occupational associations, religious organizations, the local business community, youth, and other members of Acehanese and Sri Lankan society in particular are engaged legitimately as the central actors in the development, implementation, and evaluation of recovery and reconstruction strategies, policies, and programs. Empowerment must involve building capacity at local levels to build up local skills in projectmanagement and delivery, accountancy, and other key skills. 6. Individual Rights: Will the rights of families and communities be sacrificed to the aid process? 10

11 There remains a lack of clarity on certain issues, such as the impact of buffer zones on people s ability to return to their homes or livelihoods or how to resolve legal problems pertaining to damaged or lost property, including land. In the transition from relief to recovery, beneficiaries and agencies working in tsunami affected countries must have access to accurate information on policies, as well as clear mechanisms through which questions and concerns can be directed to appropriate authorities and actors. Oxfam is particularly concerned about the plight of fishing communities where we are working. As so many fishermen and their families have been affected, it is essential that their traditional rights to land and resources be respected and upheld. Many of the affected countries are imposing a 100 to 200 yard buffer for all housing along the seashore. Unless fisherfolk can find suitable alternative housing sites close to the water, their ability to resume their way of life may be impossible. In Sri Lanka, there are cases of transition housing for fisher families that is being constructed in an agricultural area, five miles inland with no convenient public transportation. For fisherfolk who own no trucks or even motorbikes how will they manage their boats and sustain their access to the sea? Although in some cases, it might be beneficial to communities to move away from high-risk areas, governments should not impose blanket solutions and make sure communities and their local institutions participate actively in all decisions for their relocation where it is necessary for their own safety. 7. Disproportionate Effect on Women: Will the particular needs and rights of women be recognized and protected? 11

12 On the issue of gender, Oxfam completed research that shows up to three times as many women than men may have been killed in the tsunami. Women may have suffered disproportionately because they had a more difficult time outrunning the surging waters or they were home while the men were out at sea fishing or in the fields. It is important to understand the consequences of such demographic changes on relief and long-term reconstruction. How safe are women in crowded camps and settlements when they are so outnumbered by men in several of the countries in question? Will widows in India have access to land once owned by their husbands? Will younger women enter into marriages with much older men, as already seems to be happening in some locations? And will this carry risks in terms of compromising women s education and reproductive health? In the fishing communities of South India, what rights will surviving women enjoy under new arrangements and programs? In whose names will newly built houses be registered? Will men take on new domestic roles, or will women s workloads increase? Oxfam is responding to the tsunami impact on women by ensuring full consultation and participation of women in all livelihoods and cash for work programs, building women s facilities in areas where they feel secure and assessing the different needs of women and men. 8. Debt and Trade Relief: Can we take the innovative step of using sound trade policy to jump start the economic recovery process? Debt relief and reduction of textile and apparel tariffs could help tsunami affected countries by releasing billions of dollars for reconstruction. The Paris Club of creditors offered to freeze debt repayments from tsunami-affected countries and Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Seychelles indicated that 12

13 they would take advantage of this offer. However, the Club failed to go beyond this. An urgent assessment should be conducted to determine what level of debt repayments is sustainable for each of the indebted countries affected by the tsunami. The results should lead to the cancellation of debts above that sustainable level, so long as the proceeds are spent on reconstruction and to reduce poverty, provided that the decision and the process are transparent to both creditors and the people of the countries concerned. In the U.S., President Bush requested $45 million for debt relief for tsunami affected countries. Unfortunately, this amount was not included in the final supplemental recently passed by Congress. On January 1, the Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) came to an end. This quota system gave textiles and clothing from Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Indonesia better access to EU and US markets than that granted to exports from China and India. Six days after the tsunami, these countries lost that support. Some companies, however, have changed their plans as a result of the tsunami. They appear to have postponed plans to relocate from affected countries, as these countries became less attractive sources of textiles and clothing as the MFA came to an end. The European Union agreed to support some other trade reforms that would benefit tsunami-affected countries. Following a meeting of its 133 Committee, EU members gave their support to a Commission proposal to fast-track reform of the EU s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which will improve access to EU markets for imports from tsunami-affected countries and others. Oxfam welcomed this while pressing the EU to guarantee that larger developing countries, whose exports constitute more than 1% of GSP-covered trade, are not excluded from the change announced. The EU 13

14 should confirm that developing countries would not loose preferences for particular sectors after only a short time. In the U.S., Oxfam America is supporting legislation on tariff relief that, if passed, will provide crucial tariff relief to some of the tsunami-affected countries. 9. Access: Will aid agencies be forced to leave affected zones prematurely? Given the scale of destruction there is much work to be done in India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia to assist communities in the rebuilding process. The Thai government response was very strong and many agencies have already pulled out of Thailand. The Indian government has worked out a very structured approach to engaging international agencies during the relief phase and is gradually taking on functions that aid agencies had provided in the immediate aftermath of the emergency. Indian NGOs are quickly filling the breach in providing other essential services. There appears to be opportunities for international agencies to support Indian NGOs in the long term process of rehabilitation and reconstruction. Sri Lanka has substantial unmet needs and has been welcoming to international NGOs. Nonetheless, there is a growing public perception of aid excess and inefficiency that needs to be quickly addressed. It is certainly the right of Indonesia as a sovereign state under international law to define how it wishes to provide support to its citizens in the tsunami-affected areas. This issue is made more complex by the conflict that has been underway in Aceh for some time. We respect the Indonesian government s desire to exercise these rights. At the same time, we feel that the needs in the region are great and there 14

15 is a role for national and international aid agencies to work together to assist families in rebuilding homes and livelihoods and we have the resources to do so. It would be extremely useful if the UN could continue to monitor this situation closely and encourage Indonesian leadership to proceed prudently in trying to exert its sovereignty in these areas. In our view, there is plenty of room for aid agencies to continue their work in social development alongside other initiatives of infrastructural development et al without aiding or abetting the conflict. For our part, we need to protect our neutrality and impartiality in delivering that aid. While there has been some anxiety about this, so far it has not proven to be a major obstacle to getting the job done. 10. Public versus Private Funds: How do we manage the funding responsibilities between public sector funds and privately raised funds? The scale of the public response to the tsunami relief appeal has created an unprecedented situation for most of the large private relief organizations. We have extraordinary levels of funding and may not require any bilateral or multi-lateral funding for our programs. It is estimated that some $2-3 billion have been raised globally from private sources for the response to the tsunami. Oxfam alone expects to raise some $250 million. The Red Cross estimates run from between $1.3 to $2.0 billion worldwide. CARE, Save the Children, World Vision and Catholic Relief Services all have large tranches of money and have internally taken the decision not to accept any further funding from governments. The implication of these numbers is that many of the groups that generally do much of the heavy lifting for the UN in emergency situations will not need, nor do they want, additional government funding for 15

16 social development work. There is danger in this situation that we are already seeing to some extent. If these agencies feel that their funding is sufficient, where will this government funding go? Other agencies and contractors are seeing this as an opportunity and are beginning to pursue these funds aggressively. Many of them have no experience in emergency response and rehabilitation work of this sort; nor do they have the staff to support such work. But they will take the money if it is available. Similarly in the UN, it provides the temptation for many UN agencies to create an operational capacity where before there was none. The question will then be how to support that new capacity in the future. Oxfam recommends that governments be held to meet their pledges for tsunami relief and that these pledged funds be used to build infrastructure and promote investment. We would recommend that they not be used in large measure to support the social development programs of NGOs. Many of these areas are quite poor and could benefit from infrastructure investments. We need not think of just replacing what is there but rather we can envision a process that Oxfam refers to as reconstruction plus. Replace a narrow two lane road with a four lane road that would promote market access. Upgrade communications capabilities in ways that would attract foreign investment. Improve ports and marketing infrastructure for both accessing both internal as well as international markets. Purchase land for housing and perhaps build housing to replace lost equity. There needs to be a clear division of labor between how the public and governmental funds are distributed to avoid over funding in areas where funds are not needed. Recommendations: 16

17 In order for aid programs to be designed and implemented as effectively as possible and to ensure sustainable solutions actors responding in the tsunami-affected countries must: 1. Promote and Require Standards: Governments and the UN should require all humanitarian agencies in the tsunami affected zone to promote and apply internationally recognized standards. The International Red Cross Code of Conduct and the SPHERE Standards are the globally accepted guides for all professional humanitarian agencies today. 2. Invest and Ensure Strong Coordination: Donors should ensure more money goes towards coordination and the international community should push governments to adopt stronger coordination roles at both the national and local level. 3. Assure Needs Are Being Met Without Discrimination. Regardless of the pressure agencies are under to spend money, aid should be provided on the basis of need and without discrimination on the basis of race, religion, geography or political affiliation. 4. Engage and Consult Beneficiaries in the Reconstruction Process. Ensure that appropriate consultative processes are in place to ensure that beneficiaries are being given adequate opportunity for participation and consultation in the rehabilitation and reconstruction programs. 5. Avail Opportunities to Build Rather Than Undermine Civil Society. Ensure that appropriate measures are in place to avoid gutting existing civil society leadership capacity via recruitment to UN and international agencies and imploding fragile local organizations with excessive funding. Rather, 17

18 use the opportunity to develop civil society and empower communities by training local leadership in project-management, logistics, best practices in aid delivery, accountancy, and other key skills. 6. Protect the Basic Human Rights of Tsunami Victims. The UN should do what it can to ensure that the rights of people living in the region are protected. The focus should be on protecting traditional rights to land and resources and ensuring governments don t impose blanket solutions on communities that compromise the ability of families to rebuild homes and livelihoods. 7. Recognize the Particular Vulnerability of Women. The UN should do what it can to highlight the particular vulnerability and burdens facing women. This would include ensuring the full consultation and participation of women in all livelihoods and cash for work programs, equal pay for women and men in cash-for work programs, building women s facilities in areas where they feel secure and assessing the different needs of women and men. 8. Endorse Proposals for Debt Cancellation. The UN should go on record in support of proposals to cancel the outstanding debts of tsunami affected countries above sustainable levels with the condition that proceeds from debt relief should be spent on programs of reconstruction and poverty alleviation. 9. Endorse Proposals for Tariff Relief. The UN should go on record in support of the efforts by the EU and US Congress to provide tariff relief to tsunami-affected countries. 10. Ensure Continued Humanitarian Access. The UN should continue to closely monitor the issues of humanitarian access with particular attention to Indonesia. It would further be of extraordinary value 18

19 to have the UN engage the Indonesian government in high level confidential diplomatic conversations about the issue of continued presence of international humanitarian agencies in Sumatra in order to forestall any precipitous decision to terminate the operations of all international NGO s and if necessary to negotiate a satisfactory arrangement for the extension of important reconstruction activities. Conclusion Each successive major disaster offers the humanitarian aid community lessons in how we can improve our work. But unless those lessons are implemented by the scores of aid groups that have flocked to South and Southeast Asia, our collective best practices will be submerged in an anarchy of altruism. That would be a discouraging return indeed on the world s massive investment to rebuild the lives and communities devastated by the tsunami. 19