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| Thursday, 13 January 2005 |
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UN secures aid commitments, urges donors to speed up delivery GENEVA, Wednesday (AFP) The United Nations said that it had secured concrete aid of 717 million dollars toward its emergency relief appeal for the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, and urged donor countries to speed up delivery of further aid promises. Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian relief coordinator, said it was the first time the world body had collected so much money in such a short space of time after a disaster. It comes to 73 percent of a 977-million-dollar UN appeal launched last week to meet immediate needs in the next six months of regions stricken by the devastating December 26 tsunamis. "This has never ever happened before, that we, two weeks after a disaster, have 717 million dollars that we can spend on an emergency relief effort," he told reporters at the close of a donors' conference here. When the meeting started hours earlier, he had warned that only 300 million dollars had been committed and more cash contributions had to be made far more swiftly. Egeland said he was confident that the appeal for six months would soon be met in full. Of the 717 million dollars, 250 million alone is from Japan. "I expect, from hearing of the very generous pledges additionally, that we will have 100 percent coverage of this emergency appeal." Some nine billion dollars has been pledged worldwide in short and long term aid after the disaster, when a powerful undersea earthquake unleashed massive waves that slammed into Indian Ocean coastlines, killing more than 157,000 people. The figure, obtained by an AFP count, includes government money, donations pledged in an unprecedented outpouring of global public sympathy - "humanity at its best," Egeland said - as well as debt relief and loans. The conference, under UN aegis, brought together representatives of scores of countries and organisations, aid agencies and the affected nations, to firm up promises and ensure better coordination of how, when and where that aid is delivered. Donors signalled during the conference that they wanted the effort to move toward the next phase, reconstruction and rehabilitation of the coastal areas, as swiftly as possible. Representatives of the two hardest-hit countries, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, said they expected to present assessments of long-term reconstruction needs to donors this month, according to the World Bank, which is likely to act as the international coordinator. Earlier, Egeland said the UN would use a tracking system, consultable over the Internet, to keep tabs on relief aid promises from the instant they are given to when they are finally realised on the ground. "It will make the donors actually accountable for honouring their pledges," Egeland went on, with public scrutiny making it "very hard" for donors not to follow up. |
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