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| Thursday, 06 January 2005 |
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Annan calls for world leaders to honor tsunami aid JAKARTA, Jan 5 (Reuters) U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on world leaders to honour their pledge of $2.3 billion in aid, as they gather in Jakarta for a conference on Thursday to deal with the Asian tsunami crisis. "I hope all the money will be delivered," Annan said in a television interview broadcast on Wednesday. International aid groups echoed Annan's call. "We must ensure we don't repeat mistakes of previous humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Liberia, and elsewhere where donors have either failed to deliver the aid quickly enough, or at all, or delivered aid at the expense of other disasters," said Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam. "Aid should also be given in the form of grants not loans, not tied to the interests of the donor government," she said. As aid workers struggled to feed and shelter millions of survivors still burying their dead 10 days after the killer waves struck, leaders from 26 nations and humanitarian organisations arrived in Jakarta seeking an answer to the question - how can the world prevent such a catastrophe ever occurring again? Leaders will also look at the huge reconstruction needed to rebuild the shattered lives of millions of people in six nations. "Tomorrow's conference is not only for Indonesia but for all countries that have suffered from the earthquake," said Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. "And of course we do hope that tomorrow there will be a concrete result in the mechanism of how to assist countries that are to be assisted." Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said coordinating the aid effort was a key agenda item. |
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