Joint
evaluation of the international response to the Indian Ocean
tsunami: Synthesis Report (July 2006)
Key Messages
Impact of the Disaster and Scale of the Response
The earthquake that triggered the Indian Ocean tsunamis on 24
December 2004 was the world's largest natural disaster in 40 years.
It led to the most destructive series of tsunamis in recorded
history with approximately 227,000 people killed or missing and
assumed dead. Fourteen countries were affected with Indonesia, Sri
Lanka, India and Thailand the hardest hit in terms of loss of
life.
The disaster threatened development. Economic, infrastructural
and human development losses, both actual and projected, were
originally estimated at US$9.9 billion across the affected region.
Indonesia has borne the brunt of these losses, accounting for
almost half of the total. In Aceh, economic damage and losses were
equivalent to almost the entire GDP of the province.
The response to the tsunami was unprecedented and represents the
largest international response to a natural disaster on record. At
least US$13.5 billion has been pledged or donated for emergency
relief and recovery: 44 per cent from donor governments and 41 per
cent from private sources (the remainder came from the
international financial institutions). [These figures are for
countries covered by the TEC studies. The term 'private' refers to
non-institutional donors and covers both the general public and
private companies. The bulk of these donations came from private
individuals in donor countries and was made to NGOs, the Red Cross
and the UN.] Private donations broke many records, with the general
public providing the vast majority of the US$5.5 billion in private
giving.
The funding response was also the fastest ever recorded. In the
UK the world record for online donations was broken with over £10
million (some US$17.2 million) donated to the Disasters Emergency
Committee (DEC) website in 24 hours. While this speed of donation
was partly attributed to increased use of the internet for
collecting donations, phone-in donations also broke records. The
speed of pledges and funds to the initial International Federation
of Red Cross (IFRC) appeal was also a record. [The initial appeal,
created in the first five days of the emergency, was very quickly
subscribed to. The subsequent appeal, revised and based on better
information from needs assessments, was not well subscribed to and
is in fact a significant issue for the agency now.]
This scale and speed of the funding response helped to ensure
that most relief needs were met and that recovery interventions
could start early. It also led to inevitable challenges, many of
which are considered below.
Key Messages
The Synthesis Report focuses on up to the first 11 months of the
tsunami response and the following messages identify the main
findings from that period. They do not reflect changes in practice
that may have occurred since then. It is also important to point
out that the findings are based on a very particular and
extraordinary event and some of the lessons learned cannot easily
be applied to other types of emergencies. However, in a broad sense
we are quite sure that the report is able to broadly reflect
similar themes and trends have been evident in many other emergency
situations and are thus indicative of both strengths and weaknesses
in the current humanitarian response system.
Ownership and Accountability to Affected Populations
Findings
As is often case in the aftermath of a
sudden and intense natural disaster, it was those directly affected
by the calamity and those people in the immediate vicinity who were
the first to respond. They rescued family members and neighbours,
provided shelter and food, transported the injured and organised
community responses. In addition, along with professional aid
workers, volunteers poured into the devastated area from
surrounding regions and from other parts of the affected countries.
These ordinary people are the heroes of this emergency response.
Yet the contribution of affected populations and local
organisations are often overlooked by international aid agencies,
private aid providers and the media.
The international aid effort geared up several days after the
immediate life-saving work had taken place. One of the biggest
weaknesses with the international operation was its lack of
understanding of the local context and its reluctance and/or
inability to consult with and work through and with local
communities, groups and organisations. This laid the basis for some
inappropriate and poor quality programming which in some cases even
undermined the progress of local initiatives. This lack of
consultation is a long-standing problem in humanitarian responses
and there are measures in place to try and address it. Aid
principles such as the Red Cross/Crescent Code of Conduct, Sphere
standards and the Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) initiative
underline the primary role of affected people and their
authorities.
International aid was found to be more effective when provided
in tandem with local and national initiatives. The key issue here
is that of ownership. Aid works best when local communities and
authorities have been consulted and are involved in the planning
and management of programmes. Such collaboration creates an
environment where responsibilities are owned by local people.
Examples of good practice from the tsunami response demonstrate
that local and national ownership of aid programmes can be
supported through patient, discerning and context-sensitive
approaches where the international community supported national
responses. Success stories were more common when international
agencies had existing relationships with local partner
agencies.
On the whole, however, the urgency to spend money quickly and
visibly led to many poorly executed aid projects and acted against
the best interests of affected people. Opportunities to strengthen
and build local capacity were therefore often missed, and agencies
often did not adequately consult with, or even inform, the affected
population about their projects. This tendency did not establish a
firm footing for building appropriate local capacity and longer
term recovery.
Recommendation
The international humanitarian
response system needs to work much harder to understand local
contexts and work with and through local structures. It is not just
a question of supplying quantities of aid to far off places, it is
also about making sure aid is appropriate and improves the
capacities of local structures to do it their way. International
support should aim to empower affected people to articulate their
needs, demand accountability from international agencies, and to
make their own choices.
International agencies must respect the role and responsibility
of affected states as the primary duty bearers and authorities in
responding to natural disasters.
Quality of the International Response
Findings
This was the first international emergency where the affected
population were extensively surveyed on their views of the
response. In general it was found that affected people were
satisfied with the initial relief assistance, but became
increasingly less satisfied with the assistance to help them
recover, particularly with regard to re-establishing their
livelihoods.
The evaluation found many of the same problems that have been
seen in other emergencies. For example, the proliferation of
agencies led to an oversaturated humanitarian environment which
militated against sensible coordination and led to unhelpful
competition between agencies to find something to do. Overall, the
quality of programming was uneven. These kinds of problems have
been seen before in other emergencies and demonstrate the need for
agencies to improve the quality of what they do on the ground.
Recommendation
One way of approaching the issue is to tighten up quality control.
This may involve regulation - for example, establishing an
international accreditation and certification system to distinguish
between operational agencies that work to a professional standard
in a particular sector, from those agencies that do not.
There are a number of options for regulation, and all such
systems have costs and disadvantages as well as benefits. The
Synthesis Report provides a range of options that could be
considered. (See Annex 1 below for more information.)
International Response Capacity
Findings
Despite the huge funding response the scale of the disaster
challenged the capacity of the international community to manage
the huge surge in money and resources (and to deal with problems of
coordination associated with agency proliferation). As has been
seen in other emergencies, funding - in the past largely provided
by donor governments - has fluctuated enormously so that agencies
have not been able to establish an adequate 'standing capacity'.
This has resulted in a shortage of trained staff on stand by, a
lack of necessary financial tracking systems in place, an absence
of working relationships on the ground and an inadequate
understanding of local contexts. In the tsunami response, although
the funding was available in abundance, the 'standing capacity' was
not in place to deliver aid to greatest effect.
Recommendations
The international aid community and
disaster-prone states should strive to increase their disaster
response capacity at community, national and international
level.
International actors need to increase the linkages and coherence
between themselves and the other components of the disaster
response system. For example, governments in disaster-prone
countries would benefit from legislation and structures to
strengthen their interaction with the international community.
INGOs should develop the skills and tools needed for mapping local
capacity, and INGOs and the military should train together to plan
in advance for humanitarian responses.
Funding Response: According to Need?
Findings
The enormous influx of funds highlights discrepancies in how aid
money is raised and spent. From 2000 to 2004, an average of US$6.4
billion per annum was spent on humanitarian aid globally (vs
US$13.5 billion for the tsunami) [DAC Online Database]. In the
tsunami, total funding was over US$7,100 [This is calculated on the
basis of US$13.5 billion divided by 1.9 million people considered
to have been directly affected. The Synthesis Report has more
details.] for every affected person which contrasts starkly, for
example, to funding of only US$3 per head actually spent on someone
affected by floods in Bangladesh in 2004.
In addition, the TEC Synthesis Report finds that funding allocated
by international agencies was rarely based on need. Formal
assessments completed by international agencies of the needs of the
affected people were often not used, often not undertaken jointly,
and not always shared. In particular, donor funding was often a
consequence of political and public reactions to anecdotal stories
in the mass media. Globally, gross inequities in funding for
different emergencies are also evident (leading to, for example,
half-rations in Sudan in the face of increasing malnutrition, while
very generous funding is provided for Iraq and Afghanistan). Donor
governments and international agencies also failed to ensure
adequate tracking of funds within the system.
Recommendations
The TEC is calling for a fairer system so that all those affected
by emergencies can be provided an equal opportunity to escape
suffering and early/premature death and rebuild their lives.
Governments in particular are urged to make the current funding
system fair and more efficient, flexible, transparent and in line
with the principles of good donorship.
-ends-
ANNEX 1: Regulation and Accreditation: Some
considerations
- Regulation by a UN body might seem the natural course, but NGOs
and the Red Cross would probably not accept this for a variety of
reasons. These include questions about the UN's capacity to keep
its own house in order, and issues of independence from a
multilateral body made up of member states.
- Regulation could be (and in many cases already is) based on
national legislation, but this creates a very uneven playing field,
with agencies from different countries operating within very
different regulatory frameworks.
- Another option is to have a variant of the ISO9000 standards
specifically for humanitarian aid agencies. An international
standard gets around the issue of variations in the national
legislation of different countries.
- A fourth option is for the Inter-Agency Standing Committee
(IASC) to develop a set of criteria against which agencies have
their performance evaluated. Such criteria would include many of
the standards that have been adopted by agencies in recent years.
Under this system, agency operations would be reviewed by an
independent external mechanism against these criteria.
Governments can support regulation by making tax-exempt status
dependant on meeting accountability requirements, such as those
required in the US, as well as demanding regular published audits
and independent evaluations. Affected-country governments can
demand similar transparency requirements of agencies responding to
natural disasters in their countries. The European Commission could
introduce a directive to ensure that NGOs in the European Union are
obliged to be as transparent about their finances and expenditures
as are NGOs in the US via Form 990.
Complementary to the regulation of aid agencies is
'professionalising' the role of aid workers, both national and
international. International aid agencies should consider, along
with academic institutions and training providers, setting up a
professional body with transparent criteria for admission and for
the achievement of 'certified professional' or 'chartered' status.
As an initial step, the IASC or a major donor could host
discussions on what the requirements for such professional status
would be.