Joint evaluation of the
international response
to the Indian Ocean
tsunami:
Synthesis Report
By John Telford and John Cosgrave
Contributing author: Rachel Houghton
Published by the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC)
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
ISBN 0 85003 807 3
© TEC
London, July 2006
Suggested citation: Telford, J, J Cosgrave and R Houghton (2006) Joint Evaluation
of the international response to the Indian Ocean tsunami: Synthesis Report. London:
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition.
Photocopies of all or part of this publication may be made providing the source is
acknowledged. ALNAP, which facilitates the TEC, would appreciate receiving
details of its use. Requests for commercial reproduction should be directed to
ALNAP. Contact: alnap@odi.org.uk
For further copies of this publication please contact:
ALNAP, c/o Overseas Development Institute, 111 Westminster Bridge Road,
London SE1 7JD, UK. Tel: +44(0)207 922 0300. Fax: +44(0)207 922 0399.
Email: alnap@odi.org.uk. Website: www.alnap.org
This report represents the views of the authors only. They are not necessarily
those of the managing or funding agencies.
Overall series design by The Design Unit Ltd. www.thedesignunit.com
Management of the Synthesis Report
Overall management of this Synthesis Report was provided by the TEC’s CMG.
CMG members mostly come from the evaluation departments of the agencies
involved. Donors: Danida (Denmark), SDC (Switzerland) and Sida (Sweden). UN
agencies: FAO, OCHA (Chair), UNDP, UNICEF and WHO. NGOs/Red Cross: CARE
International UK, AIDMI, the IFRC and World Vision International. Networks/
research institutes: the ALNAP Secretariat and Groupe URD.
Day-to-day management of the Synthesis Report team was provided by the ALNAP
Secretariat.
Financial contributions to the Synthesis Report
This Synthesis Report was made possible through the following support. Donors:
CIDA (Canada), Danida (Denmark), DFA (Ireland), DFID (UK), IOB/MFA
(Netherlands), MFA (France), MFA (Luxembourg), NORAD (Norway), NZAid (New
Zealand), Sida (Sweden) and USAID (United States). UN agencies: OCHA, UNDP,
UNICEF and WFP. NGOs/Red Cross: the IFRC and World Vision International.
Networks/research institutes: DaRa International.
Funders of the TEC’s five thematic evaluations
This Synthesis Report is based primarily on five thematic evaluations undertaken
by TEC members. In addition to those agencies listed above, some of whom also
funded these thematic studies, the following agencies also provided support to one
or more of the thematic evaluations: Donors: AusAid (Australia), BMZ (Germany),
JICA/MoFA/JBIC (Japan) and SDC (Switzerland). UN agencies: FAO, UNFPA and
WHO. NGOs/Red Cross: ActionAid International, Cordaid and World Vision Canada.
A full list of donors for each of the five thematic evaluations can be found in Table
A5, Annex A.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Foreword
Foreword by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy
for Tsunami Recovery
In the immediate weeks following the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster of 26
December 2004, many of us pledged that this operation would set new standards
of accountability and transparency. We also pledged that out of the rubble of the
Indian Ocean’s coastlines, and the suffering of its inhabitants, we would ‘build
back better’: placing coastal communities on a better development path; leaving
survivors safer from future disasters; using the lessons learned today to ensure
better responses in the future. A disaster of this scale and a response of such
sweeping breadth and generosity deserve nothing less.
Therefore, I was greatly encouraged to see, in the early months of 2005, over 40
key aid agencies – including the United Nations, donor governments and non￾government organisations – join hands to form the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition
(TEC), an historic, collaborative process to evaluate key elements of the relief and
recovery effort. The TEC represents an extraordinary effort at reflection, self￾criticism and transparency. The studies it has sponsored, and this Synthesis
Report, provide an invaluable, independent account of how the tsunami response
has proceeded so far.
As reflected in the pages that follow, our efforts to respond to the tsunami have
placed in sharp relief both strengths and weaknesses in the way we organize
ourselves when faced with such massive challenges. Indeed, the report includes
both praise and uncomfortable reading, but the honesty of the analysis does us all
a great service.
This report and the companion thematic studies identify important lessons and an
agenda for reform that deserve careful analysis and an appropriate response.
They help us to see how we can and must do better in responding to ongoing and
future disaster relief and recovery challenges.
To my mind, the overriding messages of this report are three-fold:
First, we must do better at utilizing and working alongside local structures. With
nothing but good intentions, the international community descends into crisis
situations in enormous numbers and its activities too often leave the very
communities we are there to help on the sidelines. Local structures are already in
place and more often than not the ‘first responders’ to a crisis. The way the
international community goes about providing relief and recovery assistance must
actively strengthen, not undermine, these local actors.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Second, we must find the will and the resources to invest much more in risk
reduction and preparedness measures. Local structures and local measures –
whether part of national or provincial government efforts or embedded in the
communities – need to be strengthened to reduce vulnerabilities to tomorrow’s
disasters. And international and local actors need to forge solid partnerships
between and among themselves, well in advance of their being tested in crisis.
Third, we must translate good intentions into meaningful reform. The report
identifies critical systemic challenges for the humanitarian community, many of
which were analyzed at length in the aftermath of the Rwanda crisis and have
already been included in a range of standards and codes of conduct. But the fact
that we continue to struggle to turn these principles into practice, as this report
highlights, demands that we set about on our shared agenda for reform with the
courage and commitment necessary to see the process through to full
implementation.
The final story of the tsunami recovery process has yet to be written. This is a
multi-year effort, which makes it even more important that we pay close heed to
the analysis and recommendations in this report. I ask you to commit to helping
us multiply our successes, realign our efforts where necessary, and retain the
spirit of openness and self-criticism that this report so ably embodies.
William Jefferson Clinton
5
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Preface
This Synthesis Report is the outcome of an international collaborative process
involving over 40 humanitarian and development cooperation agencies.
Individuals involved have come primarily from the evaluation departments of UN
agencies, multi- and bilateral donors, as well as non-governmental organisations,
the Red Cross Movement and a number of research groups.
A week after the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, a number of members of
ALNAP – the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in
humanitarian action – began to discuss how to coordinate evaluations of the
tsunami response. A consultative interagency and donor meeting was
subsequently convened in Geneva on 23 February 2005. Those present were
interested in maximising learning from the tsunami response through thematic
joint evaluation. They identified five key areas for investigation: coordination;
needs assessment; the impact of the international response on local and national
capacities, links between relief, rehabilitation and longer term development
(LRRD); and the funding response. Most of the agencies present at that meeting
subsequently formed the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC), and management of
each thematic area was set up with the evaluation departments of interested TEC
agencies forming a series of Steering Committees that provided the necessary
oversight for each of the studies.
This synthesis is based on these five thematic studies, each undertaken by one or
more independent evaluation team/s. The evaluations involved in-depth country
case-studies, beneficiary surveys and extensive consultations with stakeholders.
The report also benefits from a wealth of secondary sources produced on the
tsunami response.
In drawing on such an extensive array of evaluative studies, this Synthesis Report
provides a higher level, more system-wide analysis than any single agency
evaluation could attain. It also represents the most comprehensive and intensive
examination of humanitarian response since the Joint Evaluation of Emergency
Assistance to Rwanda in 1996, and provides a solid foundation from which to
reflect on and appraise the capacity of the current international humanitarian
response system.
The overall TEC strategy and process has been managed by a Core Management
Group (CMG) made up of representatives mostly from the evaluation departments
of 14 member agencies. The CMG is chaired by OCHA’s evaluation department.
The CMG is aware that its composition and strategy has been weakened by lack of
representation from the South Asia region, but it is committed to a programme of
dissemination in the region so that national, regional and local leaders and
organisations, as well as the affected populations, can fully participate in the
discussion about the evaluation’s findings and recommendations. Prior to
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
publishing this Synthesis Report the TEC presented a series of initial findings,
based on the studies’ field work, in December 2005.
The Synthesis Report has been written by a team of three independent consultants
recruited and managed by the ALNAP Secretariat and the CMG. The report has
been subject to extensive scrutiny and earlier drafts have been shared with all
members of the TEC and beyond. Subsequently the team gave full and fair
consideration to an extremely large set of substantive comments. The Synthesis
Report has also benefited from comments provided by a distinguished panel of
experts, comprising individuals with extensive knowledge of the South Asia
region, expert knowledge of disaster preparedness, mitigation and response, as
well as higher level policy issues.
We believe that the thematic reports and this Synthesis Report produced by the
TEC are a clear indication of the collective desire of the humanitarian community
to work together to share and learn from their experiences in order to continue to
improve future performance. The process has also demonstrated a shared
commitment to be both transparent and accountable. The findings and
recommendations from the Synthesis Report point clearly to some of the systemic
deficiencies in our collective response capacity. We now urge all stakeholders in
the humanitarian enterprise to seriously consider the findings and
recommendations contained in this report, and to move toward a more effective
and appropriate humanitarian response system.
Finally, the CMG would like to acknowledge and thank all informants who gave
generously of their time as well as the thematic evaluation teams who have shown
patience, dedication and hard work in preparing the reports on which this
synthesis is based.
Susanne Frueh
Chief, Evaluation and Studies Unit, OCHA, and Chair, TEC CMG
On behalf of all CMG members, past and present:
Mihir Bhatt, Honorary Director, AIDMI; Tijana Bojanic, Monitoring and Evaluation
Officer, IFRC; Amy Cavender,* Tsunami Response Programmes, World Vision UK;
Niels Dabelstein, Head, Evaluation Department, Danida; Stefan Dahlgren, Senior
Evaluator, Department for Evaluation and Internal Audit, Sida; Andre Griekspoor,*
Technical Officer (responsible for evaluation), Health Action in Crises, WHO;
François Grünewald, Chair, Groupe URD; Jamo Huddle, Design, Monitoring and
Evaluation Manager, World Vision International; Christoph Jakob, Evaluation and
Controlling, SDC; Simon Lawry White, Senior Programme Officer, Evaluation
Office, UNICEF; J Wayne MacDonald, Senior Project Officer, Evaluation Office,
UNICEF; John Mitchell, Head, ALNAP Secretariat; Miles Murray,* Emergency
Programme Officer, CARE International UK; Suppiramaniam Nanthikesan,
Evaluation Advisor, Evaluation Office, UNDP; Rachel Sauvinet-Bedouin, Senior
Evaluation Officer, Office of Programme, Budget and Evaluation, FAO; Margaret
Stansberry, Senior Officer, Monitoring and Evaluation Department, IFRC. (*
Positions held when involved in the CMG.)
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Acknowledgements
The Synthesis team would like to thank the following for contributing to this report:
• The ALNAP Secretariat, which has hosted the TEC team and supported the
process.
• The TEC Core Management Group (CMG), which provided a professional
balance of clear management, wise advice and respect for the team’s
independence (please see Annex C for biographies of CMG members).
• The TEC thematic evaluation teams, steering committees and
working groups, whose incisive work forms the basis of this report (please
see Annex A for details). We particularly appreciated the hard work of the
evaluation team members who often worked in difficult conditions facing
illness or accidents. The painstaking work of the Funding Response Report
teams in trying to quantify funding flows from different sources was also
appreciated.
• The interviewees and affected people who patiently informed the TEC
and other reports by sharing their experiences and insights (please see the
individual TEC thematic reports for details).
• The peer reviewers for their time, depth of experience and willingness to
take on the onerous task of commenting on drafts of this report (please see
Annex C for biographies of the peer reviewers).
• The authors of numerous secondary and tertiary materials drawn
upon for this Synthesis (please see Bibliography in Annex I).
• Ms Patricia Bianchi, who assisted throughout the process with time￾consuming research.
Finally, other actors contributed generously through, for example, informal
consultations. In particular, many thanks are offered to members of the
Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).
8
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Contents
Foreward by the UN Secretary-General’s
Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, William Jefferson Clinton 3
Preface: Core Management Group, TEC 5
Acronyms and abbreviations 12
Executive summary 16
1 Introduction 24
1.1 The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition 24
1.1.1 Background 24
1.1.2 The TEC’s thematic focus 25
1.1.3 Methodology and management of the thematic evaluations 26
1.2 The TEC Synthesis Report 27
1.2.1 Approach, limitations and constraints 27
1.2.2 The Synthesis team 29
1.2.3 Terminology 29
1.2.4 Structure of the report 31
2 The disaster: an overview 33
2.1 Immediate effects of the disaster 33
2.2 Media coverage 36
3 The response 40
3.1 Pre-disaster risk reduction and early warning 40
3.2 Emergency 42
3.2.1 Survival and safety 42
3.2.2 National institutional responses 44
3.2.3 Support for affected tourists 45
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
3.3 Stabilisation and relief 47
3.3.1 Assessing and informing 47
3.3.2 Basic needs 49
3.3.3 Proliferation of international organisations 55
3.3.4 International coordination 61
3.3.5 Costs and efficiency 64
3.4 Building back better: capacities for recovery 66
3.4.1 Achievements 66
3.4.2 Disenchantment among the affected population 68
3.4.3 Moving to recovery 71
3.4.4 Inequities and accountability 74
3.4.5 Accountability and support to affected people 75
3.5 Disaster risk reduction 79
3.6 Funding flows 80
3.6.1 Funding scale and speed 80
3.6.2 General public financial response 81
3.6.3 Official funding 82
3.6.4 Funding balance 82
3.6.5 Country allocation and proportionality 86
3.6.6 Appeals 87
3.6.7 Flexibility and earmarking 88
3.6.8 Financial tracking and reporting 88
3.6.9 Global aid flows 89
4 Conclusions 91
4.1 Ownership and accountability 91
4.1.1 Role and achievements of local people 91
4.1.2 Good practices despite constraints 92
4.1.3 Information and accountability 92
4.1.4 Overall: a missed opportunity 93
4.2 Funding 94
4.2.1 Scale, speed and strengths 94
4.2.2 Imbalances in allocation and programming 95
4.2.3 Accountability and transparency in funding 96
4.2.4 Impartiality and global funding 97
4.3 International relief capacity 97
4.3.1 Interwoven capacities 97
4.3.2 Staffing 98
4.3.3 Coordination of capacities 99
4.3.4 Assessment 100
4.4 International recovery capacity 101
4.4.1 Recovery and humanitarian action 101
4.4.2 Achievements and constraints 101
4.4.3 Relief approaches and recovery: an uncomfortable mix 102
4.4.4 The key: context sensitivity 103
4.4.5 Disaster risk reduction (DRR) 104
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
4.4.6 Inequalities and armed conflict 104
4.5 Quality 105
4.5.1 What is quality? 105
4.5.2 Quality is an enduring problem in the sector 105
4.5.3 Quality and proliferation 107
4.5.4 Why does quality continue to be such an issue? 108
5 Lessons and recommendations 110
5.1 A fundamental re-orientation 110
5.2 Accountability and support to affected people and authorities 111
5.2.1 Accountability to affected people 111
5.2.2 Support to local capacities 113
5.2.3 Accountability to host authorities 114
5.2.4 Support to host authorities 115
5.3 Strengthening international disaster response capacity and quality 117
5.3.1 Emergency surge capacity 117
5.3.2 International coordination and information management 118
5.3.3 Strengthening recovery practices and capacities 119
5.3.4 International regulation 120
5.3.5 Improving information flow from the affected population 122
5.4 Strengthening international funding for disaster response 122
5.4.1 Proportionality, impartiality and flexibility 122
5.4.2 Accountability: quality, tracking and reporting 124
5.4.3 Donor, public and media education 125
Endnotes 126
Annexes
Annex A: TEC actors, financing and methods 129
Annex B: TEC synthesis terms of reference 138
Annex C: Biographies 140
Annex D: TEC reports on CD-ROM 146
Annex E: Recommendations by aid actor 148
Annex F: The military logistics contribution 152
Annex G: Data and sources for figures and tables 153
Annex H: What caused the tsunami? 161
Annex I: Bibliography 163
List of tables
Table 2.1. Numbers of people lost (dead or missing) 33
Table 2.2. Demographic and economic impact of the tsunami 37
Table 3.1. Numbers killed and missing from outside the affected countries 46
Table 3.2. Varying estimates of the number of IDPs with host families
in Aceh 49
Table 3.3. Timeline for selected elements of international assistance
in Aceh 55
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Table 3.4. Press coverage of the tsunami in Sri Lanka 72
Table 3.5. Funding for the tsunami response 81
Table 3.6. Per-capita international funding for different disasters 86
Table 3.7. UK official funding for the tsunami 89
List of figures
Figure 2.1. Changes in death toll (including missing) over the first month 34
Figure 2.2. Age-specific tsunami mortality at five locations
(plus one historic disaster) 34
Figure 2.3. Tsunami mortality risk for females compared with males 35
Figure 2.4. Tsunami press citations (for 12 months to Feb 2005) 36
Figure 3.1. General patterns of need imposed by rapid- and slow-onset
disasters 42
Figure 3.2. National and international capacities in Aceh (illustrative) 43
Figure 3.3. Comparison of UK aid and UK expenditure on consular services 46
Figure 3.4. Number of registered INGOs in Banda Aceh 56
Figure 3.5. Global spending on the military and on development 60
Figure 3.6. DAC donor commitments and disbursements against pledges 82
Figure 3.7. Tsunami fundraising in the UK 83
Figure 3.8. Funding channel by donor type 83
Figure 3.9. Institutional donor support for UN and intergovernmental
organisations by state donors 84
Figure 3.10. Sectoral allocations by some institutional donors 84
Figure 3.11. Balance between reconstruction and relief for different donors 85
Figure 3.12. Allocation of funding by country 87
Figure 3.13. Net relief disbursements as a percentage of all net ODA
disbursement 90
Figure 4.1. Information flow from affected population to the donor public 109
List of boxes
Box 3.1. The nature of disasters 41
Box 3.2. The multi-layered relief response 43
Box 3.3. Host families 50
Box 3.4. Inappropriate aid 52
Box 3.5. Disasters and disease 53
Box 3.6. The costs of proliferation 57
Box 3.7. What does it cost to open an aid office for one year? 65
Box 3.8. Impact on women 70
Box 3.9. Relief and recovery 73
Box 3.10. Local capacities and humanitarian standards 76
Box 3.11. Hyogo principles for action 80
Box 3.12. Why was the public so generous? 83
Box 4.1. Types of regulation 106
Box 5.1. Types of regulatory system 121
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Acronyms and abbreviations
ADB Asian Development Bank
ADPC Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Thailand
AIDMI All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (formerly DMI)
ALNAP Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in
humanitarian action
BAKORNAS National Disaster Management Board, Indonesia
BAPPENAS Badan Perencanaan dan Pembangunan Nasional (Ministry of Planning),
Indonesia
BPDE Badan Pengelola Data Elektronik Electronic Data Management Body
BPS Badan Pusat Statistik BPS-Statistics Indonesia (Central Statistics
Board)
BRIMOB Indonesian paramilitary police
BRR Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency
CARE Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere
CBO community based organisation
CDC Centres for Disease Control
CERF Until 2006, the Central Emergency Revolving Fund, now the Central
Emergency Response Fund
CIDA Canadian International Development Agency
CIESIN Centre for International Earth Science Information Network
CM-COORD Civil–military Coordination
CMG Core Management Group of the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition
CRC Canadian Red Cross
CRED Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters
DAC Development Assistance Committee
DAD Development Assistance Database
Danida Danish International Development Assistance
DDPM Department for Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, Thailand
DEC Disasters Emergency Committee, UK
DFID UK Department For International Development
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
DIPECHO disaster preparedness ECHO
DRC Danish Refugee Council
DRR disaster risk reduction
EAC Evaluation Advisor and Coordinator
EC European Commission
ECHO European Commission’s Humanitarian Office
FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation (of the United Nations)
FTS Financial Tracking System
GAM Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement)
GBP British pounds sterling
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GHD Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative
HC Humanitarian Coordinator
HIC Humanitarian Information Centre
HPG Humanitarian Policy Group at the Overseas Development Institute
HRR Humanitarian Response Review
IASC Interagency Standing Committee
IAWG Interagency Working Group
ICMH International Centre for Migration and Health
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
ICVA International Council of Voluntary Agencies
IDP internally displaced person
IDRL international disaster response law
IFI international financial institution
IFRC International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
ILO International Labour Organisation
INGO international non-governmental organisation
IOM International Organisation for Migration
IRCS Iranian Red Crescent Society
ISDR International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
JBIC Japan Bank for International Cooperation
JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency
LRRD linking relief, rehabilitation and development
MDG Millennium Development Goals
MDTFANS Multi-Donor Trust Fund for Aceh and Northern Sumatra
MoU Memorandum of Understanding
MSF Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders)
NDMC National Disaster Management Centre
NGO non-governmental organisation
NRC Norwegian Refugee Council
OCHA Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
ODA official development assistance
OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
PTWC Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
RC Red Cross and Red Crescent (Movement)
RC (UN) Resident Coordinator
RC/HC (UN) Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator
RDC Researcher and Deputy Coordinator
SDC Swiss Development Corporation
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Sida Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
SME small and medium-sized enterprise
TAFREN Presidential Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (Sri Lanka)
TEC Tsunami Evaluation Coalition
TICA Thai International Cooperation Agency
TLC temporary living centre
TNI Indonesian military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia)
ToR terms of reference
UN United Nations
UNCT UN Country Team
UNDAC UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination
UNDGO UN Development Group Office
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
UNFPA United Nations Population Fund
UNHAS UN Humanitarian Air Services
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
UNIFEM UN Development Fund for Women
UNJLC United National Joint Logistics Centre
UNORC United Nations Office of the Recovery Coordinator
USAID United States Agency for International Development
USD United States dollar
WFP World Food Programme
WHO World Health Organisation
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Strait of Malacca
India
Indonesia
Thailand
Malaysia
Myanmar
Kuala Lumpur
Khao Lak
U-tapao
Aceh
Meulaboh Medan
Colombo
Male
Sri Lanka
Maldives
Bay of Bengal Andaman
Sea Gulf of
Thailand
Nicobar Islands
(to India)
Andaman Islands
(to India)
Bangkok
INDIAN OCEAN
Chennai
Map 1. Countries affected by the tsunami
INDIA
BANGLADESH
SRI LANKA
MALAYSIA
MADAGASCAR
SOUTH AFRICA
SEYCHELLES
SOMALIA
KENYA
TANZANIA
YEMEN
MYANMAR (BURMA)
THAILAND
INDONESIA
MALDIVES
INDIAN OCEAN
Detail above
16
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Executive summary
1 The report
This report synthesises the five Tsunami
Evaluation Coalition (TEC) thematic
evaluation reports, their sub-studies and
other materials relating to the Indian Ocean
earthquake and tsunamis of 26 December
2004. These five studies are published
alongside this Synthesis Report as a set,1
and their titles are:
• Coordination of the international
response to tsunami-affected
countries
• The role of needs assessment in the
tsunami response
• Impact of the tsunami response on
local and national capacities
• Links between relief, rehabilitation
and development (LRRD) in the
tsunami response
• The funding response to the tsunami.
The report consists of three main parts: an
introduction; sections on the disaster and
response; and conclusions and
recommendations. It addresses primarily
the initial phase of the international
response, up to the first 11 months after
the disaster. The report has two main aims:
to improve the quality of natural disaster
response policy and practice, and to
account to both donor and affected-country
populations.2 Information on content,
methods and constraints are contained in
the Introduction.
Background
On 26 December 2004, a massive
earthquake off the west coast of Northern
Sumatra led to movement along a 1,200km
section of the sea floor. This generated a
series of tsunamis that killed people in 14
countries around the Indian Ocean.
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, India
and Thailand were the hardest hit. Entire
coastal zones were destroyed, with the
tsunamis causing damage up to 3km inland
in some cases. Over 227,000 people lost
their lives and some 1.7 million were
displaced. A massive media-fuelled, global
response resulted, producing an estimated
US$13.5bn in international aid. The total
1 All reports are also available on the TEC website, www.tsunami evaluation.org, as well as on an
accompanying CD Rom.
2 This aim will be addressed largely through other outputs based on this Synthesis Report, such as a
condensed version of the report written for a public audience, as well as a series of feedback workshops in
the affected region to validate and create ownership of TEC findings.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
economic cost of the damage and the
consequent losses were estimated at
US$9.9bn across the affected region, with
Indonesia accounting for almost half of the
total. In the Maldives, economic damage
and losses accounted for over four-fifths of
GDP and in Aceh, Indonesia, damage and
losses were equivalent to almost the entire
GDP of the province.
Pre-existing vulnerabilities, whether socio￾economic, environmental, political, psycho￾logical, age- or gender-based, resulted in
multiple impacts. Chronic poverty,
environmental degradation (such as over￾fishing and deforestation), displacement,
inequalities, weak respect for human
rights, and long-running armed conflict
compounded the impact of the disaster.
While parts of Indonesia were struck
within 20 minutes, it took up to several
hours for the waves to hit many of the
other affected countries. Wider knowledge
of the nature of tsunamis, an alert media,
and/or systems for communicating
warnings could have saved many lives, as
would have disaster-resistant construction.
It is notable that disaster risk reduction
(DRR) and preparedness, though
demonstrably cost-efficient and effective if
correctly undertaken, receive only a small
portion of international aid.
2 Constraints and
achievements
The tasks, complexity of situations and
scale of the constraints facing locals,
nationals and internationals alike in their
efforts to respond were enormous. These
are explained in The Response section of
this report. In the affected region, pre￾existing weaknesses in disaster-affected
national and local capacities were a major
constraint. Other constraints included: the
ongoing armed conflicts in Sri Lanka and
Indonesia; ill-advised, confusing and
sometimes bureaucratic official policies
and procedures; politicised and centralised
decision making, including in beneficiary
targeting; and concerns about corruption
and distrust of local leaders.
Vacillating and restrictive national and
regional leadership constrained
international response activities in all of the
affected countries to a greater or lesser
degree. The ‘buffer zones’, in which
residential reconstruction was initially
forbidden and later permitted within a
particular distance of the shoreline, are a
case in point. Shelter reconstruction,
poverty alleviation, risk reduction and
livelihood recovery are slow, highly
complex undertakings that frequently
involve factors outside the control (and
competence) of international humanitarian
relief agencies. These factors can include
issues of land rights and availability,
national poverty trajectories and
environmental considerations.
Constraints are also rooted within
international agencies themselves, and
include: the quantity and quality of
international personnel; inappropriate
programme methods and tools; and weak
engagement in or management of
coordination. The lack of significant,
predictable, non-earmarked, multi-year
funding for developing appropriate
international capacities is also a major
drawback and negatively affected the
tsunami response in the way that agencies
struggled to scale up. A fragmented
approach was due in part to the
proliferation of international agencies and
their insistence on distinct programmes.
This limited the effectiveness of
international assessments and of recovery
activities, as did an evident shortage of
relevant expertise, high turnover of
international staff, and a general lack of
appropriate language skills. The TEC
evaluation reports suggest that UN security
rules and finance procedures may also
have inhibited rapid deployment to remote
areas. Slow, overlapping, poorly shared,
and imprecise assessments were a
constraint for donors in meeting their Good
Humanitarian Donorship (GHD)
18
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
commitment to fund ‘in proportion to needs
and on the basis of needs assessments’.
Despite these impediments, generous relief
provided affected populations with the
security they needed to begin planning
what to do next. Large amounts of funding
allowed rapid initial recovery activities and
some innovative practices, including a
wider use of cash grants than has been the
case in other emergencies. The gap
between relief and recovery3
 that
commonly appears in disaster response
was avoided. Within a few months there
was palpable evidence of recovery. In all
countries, children were back in school
quickly and health facilities and services
were partly restored and, in some cases,
much improved. By month six in Aceh,
some 500,000 people had a solid roof over
their heads (albeit mostly in host families
and although some 70,000 were still living
in tents). In Sri Lanka, more than 80 per
cent of damaged fish markets, boats and
fishing equipment was rapidly restored.
Tourist numbers are on the rebound in
Thailand and in the Maldives. In Sri Lanka,
over 70 per cent of affected households are
reported to have regained a steady income.
Disaster preparedness, while limited, was
carried out by some international agencies,
especially in Sri Lanka, the Maldives and
Thailand. Good practices illustrate how
local and national ownership of aid
programmes can be supported through
patient, discerning and context-sensitive
approaches. These include: the judicious
use of cash grants; participatory
complaints and polling mechanisms; joint
projects, capacity building and staff
secondments between national and
international agencies; respect for national
reconstruction standards; training of
agencies’ national staff; and detailed
reporting to authorities. Weaknesses in
international operations must be seen
against this background of both major
constraints and important achievements.
3 Accountability,
ownership and recovery
Disaster response was mostly conducted
by the affected people themselves.
Practically all immediate life-saving actions
and initial emergency support in the first
few days (and weeks in some cases) was
provided by local people, often assisted by
the wider national public and institutions,
including the national militaries. The role of
host families is an under-valued and often
overlooked example. The international
response was most effective when
enabling, facilitating and supporting these
actors, and when accountable to them.
Overall, international relief personnel were
less successful in their recovery and risk
reduction activities than they were in the
relief phase. More sustainable, context￾specific approaches, through and with local
and national capacities, are required.
In industrialised countries, natural disaster
response is managed (‘owned’) by the
affected states and communities.
Supporting national and local ownership is
a core principle of international
development and humanitarian aid.4
Exceptional international funding provided
the opportunity for an exceptional
international response. However, the
pressure to spend money quickly and
visibly worked against making the best use
of local and national capacities. TEC
studies do not find that many international
agencies lived up to their own standards
with regard to respect and support for local
and national ownership: where local and
national capacities were recognised, they
were often applied in strengthening
3 In contrast with linkages between recovery and development, which have so far not been particularly
successful.
4 As expressed in various codes of practice for humanitarian response including the GHD initiative.
19
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
international agencies more than local
responses. ‘[L]ocal ownership… was
undermined and some local capacities
were rendered more vulnerable’ (TEC
Capacities Report, 2006, p9). Many efforts
and capacities of locals and nationals were
marginalised by an overwhelming flood of
well-funded international agencies (as well
as hundreds of private individuals and
organisations), which controlled immense
resources. Treating affected countries as
‘failed states’ was a common error (TEC
Needs Assessment Study, 2006).
Information is power. Access to high
quality information enables affected people
to define and demand accountability, based
on their own expectations and standards. It
also allows them to plan their own
recovery. Yet international agencies
frequently failed in the modest objective of
informing affected people in an accurate,
timely, and comprehensive manner. The
TEC LRRD Report (2006) notes: ‘A tragic
combination of arrogance and ignorance
has characterised how much of the aid
community… misled people[.]’ (p83); ‘Poor
information flow is undoubtedly the biggest
source of dissatisfaction, anger and
frustration among affected people’ (p73);
‘[S]ome… interventions may actually
undermine future development[.] A lack of
information to affected populations about
reconstruction plans greatly limits their
capacity to proceed with their own LRRD
projects’ (p10).
Other identified weaknesses include rarely
coordinated or shared assessments;
‘supply-driven’, unsolicited and
inappropriate aid; inappropriate housing
designs and livelihoods solutions; poor
understanding of the development role of
income and tax generation; and
stereotyping of options for women, small￾farmers and small entrepreneurs. Such
shortcomings led to greater inequities,
gender- and conflict-insensitive
programming, cultural offence and waste.
Moreover, aid resources are rarely tracked
accurately by the international system. The
myth that any kind of international
assistance is needed, and now, is fuelled
through lack of understanding among the
mass media and donor public.
Other problems identified in the TEC
thematic evaluations and their sub-studies
include: brushing aside or misleading
authorities, communities and local
organisations; inadequate support to host
families; displacement of able local staff by
poorly prepared internationals; dominance
of English as the working language;
‘misrecognition’ of local capacities resulting
in inefficient implementation; applying
more demanding conditions to national and
local ‘partners’ than those accepted by
international agencies; ‘poaching’ of staff
from national and local entities; and limited
participation of the affected-population.
‘Recovery’ is context- and location-specific,
rather than time-bound. It can also occur
alongside relief efforts. Recovery and
support to preparedness are embedded in
the objectives of humanitarian actors, for
example, in the GHD principles, the Sphere
standards and the Red Cross Code of
Conduct. While it is too early to judge the
ultimate success of tsunami recovery
efforts – a follow-up TEC LRRD study will
be conducted in 2007 which will provide
further information on the progress of the
recovery effort – indications of initial
performance are available. Affected people
were appreciative of achievements and
good practices, notable in, for example,
addressing transient poverty and the rapid
move from relief to recovery.5 Recurrent
weaknesses, however, included unduly
short-term approaches; a shortage of
appropriate agency ‘recovery’ skills; and
poor understanding of local contexts,
5 There was no fixed chronology for this, as the duration of the relief phase varied by sector and location.
While relief approaches remained appropriate in some sectors, others moved quickly to recovery.
20
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
including ongoing recovery processes and
the dynamics of armed conflicts in Sri
Lanka and Indonesia. Re-building
communities and livelihoods is more
complex and takes longer than building
houses or distributing goods. The
concentration on distribution of assets,
especially boats, demonstrated a failure to
understand and support diversified and
sustainable livelihoods and communities.
Affected people have frequently
complained that NGOs deal only with
village officials and that poorer people are
marginalised. At best, the international
response restored the ‘status quo ante’. At
worst, it strengthened those who were
better off and/or more articulate, such as
fishermen who possessed boats, while
marginalising those who had few assets,
notably women and the most poor.
The impact of the international presence on
the peace and governance situation in Aceh
is deemed to have been positive, albeit not
explicitly planned nor commensurate with
the scale of funding. This has not been the
case in Sri Lanka.
Despite advances in early warning
systems, the tsunami response has rarely
enhanced local preparedness or
significantly reduced longer term
vulnerability. How people conceptualise
and respond to risk in organising their
own recovery has been, so far,
inadequately addressed. LRRD is a
transition whereby recovery comes to be
led by the affected people themselves.
Such a shift away from dominance by the
international community has been slow to
take hold. It would be reasonable to ask
‘Whose emergency was it?’
4 Funding
This was the most rapidly and generously
funded disaster response in history:
US$13.5 billion has been pledged or
donated internationally for emergency
relief and reconstruction, including more
than US$5.5 billion from the general public
in developed countries. Private donations6
broke many records. Governments were
flexible and quite rapid in their funding.
Reporting of pledges and commitments and
the timeliness of official donations has
been better than in other crises. In some
cases, funds were reallocated due to the
wealth of tsunami response resources.
Audits and evaluations were often
commissioned exceptionally early by
implementing agencies.
Most private funding went to a dozen of the
main actors. NGOs and the Red Cross
Movement often had more funding than did
donor administrations or multilateral
organisations. The budgetary constraints
normally associated with humanitarian
action did not exist. ‘Good donorship’
responsibilities were not, therefore,
restricted to official donors. Few
international agencies tried to halt
fundraising when limits were reached. The
TEC Needs Assessment Report (2006, p17)
sums up the impact of generous funding on
implementing agencies as follows:
Generous funding not only exceeded
the absorption capacity of an
overstretched humanitarian industry
and deprived it of its customary excuse
for built-in systemic shortcomings, but
also led to the proliferation of new
actors with insufficient experience (and
therefore competence), as well as to
established actors venturing into
activities outside their normal area of
expertise. Finally, the relative excess of
6 The term ‘private’ covers both the general public and private entities such as companies, religious groups
or associations ie, all non institutional donors. The bulk of these donations came from private individuals.
21
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
funding was a disincentive to assess, to
coordinate and to apply the results of
the few collective assessments.
Both governments and international
agencies failed to ensure that funding was
needs-based. Imbalances, non-needs￾driven motivations (including supporting
NGOs based in a donor’s own country,
regardless of whether they had any
comparative advantage over other NGOs),
poor ‘end-user’ traceability and inadequate
monitoring were evident among official
donor responses. ‘Allocation and
programming, particularly in the first
weeks and months of 2005, were driven by
politics and funds not by assessment and
need’ (TEC Funding Response Report,
2006, p38). Slow, overlapping, poorly
shared and imprecise assessments were a
constraint. Some major donors by-passed
UN mechanisms, such as the UN Disaster
Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC)
team, by deploying their own assessments.
Also, the allocation of funds was fairly
evenly split between relief and recovery.
This did not reflect the reality that recovery
needs are by far the most important.7
Most private funding appeared to be based
on media reports. Nor was official funding
based on systematic measurement of the
relative effectiveness and efficiency of
agencies and their programmes. The limited
number of agencies with the capacity to
absorb the scale of funding available was a
constraint, as was the lack of system-wide
definitions and standards for reporting of
funds. Cascading layers of contracts among
international, national and local
organisations compounded these problems:
…the standards of financial reporting
among UN agencies, the RC Movement,
and international NGOs leave the
humanitarian system vulnerable to
criticism. (TEC Funding Response
Report, 2006, p36)
The flow of financial information locally to
affected populations in their own languages
was also weak. Additionally, each donor
has unique proposal and reporting formats,
which makes donor reporting costly,
complicates tracking and adds little value.
Funding databases such as the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Development Assistance Database (DAD)
were welcome but insufficient tools.
While tsunami funding may not have
reduced funding for other emergencies, if
more of it had been reallocated it would
have increased funding for other
emergencies. In the tsunami, total funding
was over US$7,100 for every affected
person which contrasts starkly, for
example, with funding of only US$3 per
head actually spent on someone affected by
floods in Bangladesh in 2004. The current
international appeals system delivers
variable amounts of funding bearing little
correlation with real needs on a global
level.
For example, the World Food Programme
(WFP) in the Sudan finds itself forced to cut
rations by half in the face of increasing
malnutrition, while donors generously fund
programmes in Iraq or Afghanistan. This
lack of adherence to core funding
principles almost three years after the
adoption of the GHD principles is striking.
There is an urgent need for external
monitoring and control of donor
accountability and performance. Self￾regulation is clearly not working.
5 International relief
capacity and quality
The quality and capacity of the
international relief system is inadequate
given the scale and frequency of modern
emergencies. Greater and more consistent
investment in personnel, coordination,
7 It should be recognised, however, that some donors strongly favoured recovery or reconstruction over
emergency relief activities.
22
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
assessment and quality control, including
agency certification/accreditation, is
necessary.
The capacity of the international disaster
response system to respond to sudden
increases in demand (the ‘surge capacity’) is
very limited. The lack of a career structure
in general encourages high turnover and
recruitment of inexperienced personnel.
Despite initiatives within the sector to
address some of these issues, relatively few
people are adequately trained and few of
them are from developing countries. The
tsunami response highlighted major
weaknesses in international staff profiles,
staff quality and continuity. ‘Poaching’ of
staff from national or local organisations
can have mixed results: debilitating the
contributions of those local organisations to
recovery, while perhaps strengthening
international agency capacity and
developing the ‘poached’ individuals. Yet
international capacity is most effective
when combined appropriately with local
capacity: ‘The engagement of international
actors with local capacities was most
effective and efficient when it was built on
sustained partnerships with the local actors
that existed before the disaster’ (TEC
Capacities Report, 2006, p35).
The appointment of a high profile UN
Special Envoy for the tsunami response
was seen as a positive step. Also,
coordination (of both UN/international
actors and internally to the RC Movement)
showed a marked improvement in late
2005. Nonetheless, the TEC reports show
numerous examples of poor coordination.
Three issues stand out: the proliferation of
agencies made coordination more
expensive and less effective; generous
funding (especially private) reduced
agencies’ need to coordinate; and the
perceived need for quick, tangible, agency￾specific results fuelled competition for
visibility, ‘beneficiaries’ and projects. The
absence of agreed field representation
mechanisms for (well-funded) NGOs and
poor coordination skills among some
managers complicated coordination. These
were compounded by lack of clarity
between coordination at the operational
level (who does what) and coordination at
the policy level (including joint advocacy).
The military played a key role in the disaster
response. They will most likely, despite their
high cost, continue to do so globally. There
is, however, little joint planning and training
between the military and traditional
humanitarian actors and field coordination
between them remains weak.
Just as there was a profusion of agencies,
there was a profusion of assessments.
Most were conducted by agencies for their
own needs and did not influence collective
decision takers. Media reports had a large
influence on donor policy, thus taking the
place of more formal assessments. Almost
all international assessments relied on data
culled from national and local sources.
Better national and local preparedness
would have made a big difference. A single,
authoritative joint-assessment, at least
between the UN, the RC Movement and the
authorities, was sorely missing.
Humanitarian agencies have much to
learn from the successful approach
adopted by the IFIs: expedient
cooperation among all partners (above
all, the national governments),
significant influx of expertise and
visibility, and use of teams of analysts to
reconcile and compile the various
sources of information. (TEC Needs
Assessment Report, 2006, p12)
Quality and capacity are closely linked, and
all major relief responses have raised
questions about the quality of the
response. Several quality initiatives have
emerged in the last decade, mostly in
response to the Rwanda evaluation of the
mid-1990s. Despite important steps, the
lack of quality enforcement mechanisms
means that the same problems keep
reappearing in emergency responses (the
Rwanda, Kosovo or Mitch responses, for
instance). There is general agreement, for
23
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
example, that there were far too many
agencies of all types in Indonesia and Sri
Lanka, be they NGOs, bilateral, multilateral
or RC Movement agencies. Actors whose
primary institutional motivation is not
humanitarian also proliferated, such as the
military and commercial enterprises. One
reason for this is the ease of entry of
inexperienced and incompetent actors into
humanitarian operations.
The recurrence of many of the problems
seen in the Rwanda response as well as
other emergency responses, and the failure
of agencies to meet their formal
commitments to, for example, Sphere or
the GHD principles, suggest that the
various quality initiatives are not having a
sufficient impact. The quality delivered by a
normal business is driven by its customers.
The same model of quality control does not
operate in the aid sector. The biggest
potential driver for quality should be
feedback to the donor public on the quality
of an agency’s operations. Public
knowledge is often limited, however, to the
materials produced by agencies’
communications departments and/or
media that concentrate either on these
agency sources or on single dramatic
issues rather than presenting a
comprehensive analysis of the situation.
This lack of information flow from the
affected people to the donor population on
the quality of the response means that
there is little external pressure for
improvement in the humanitarian sector.
If there were significant external pressure
for change, many of the problems within
the sector would not have been left
unresolved for so long. The limited impact
of the existing, voluntary quality initiatives
suggests that we are unlikely to see any
major improvement in the quality of
humanitarian response. A regulatory
system is needed to oblige agencies to put
the affected population at the centre of
measures of agency effectiveness, and to
provide detailed and accurate information
to the donor public and taxpayers on the
outcomes of assistance, including the
affected populations’ views of that
assistance.
6 Summary
recommendations
Four main recommendations emerge from
this Synthesis Report. In line with the TEC
reports, they are aimed primarily at
international actors. Section 5 of the
Synthesis Report presents these recom￾mendations in more detail, explaining the
rationale behind them and analysing their
implications. Annex E further presents a
list of ‘enablers’ for the recommendations,
broken down by international actor. The
recommendations are:
1 The international humanitarian
community needs a fundamental
reorientation from supplying aid to
supporting and facilitating
communities’ own relief and recovery
priorities.
2 All actors should strive to increase
their disaster response capacities and
to improve the linkages and
coherence between themselves and
other actors in the international
disaster response system, including
those from the affected countries
themselves.
3 The international relief system should
establish an accreditation and
certification system to distinguish
agencies that work to a professional
standard in a particular sector.
4 All actors need to make the current
funding system impartial, and more
efficient, flexible, transparent and
better aligned with principles of good
donorship.
24 1.1 The Tsunami Evaluation
Coalition
1.1.1 Background
In February 2005, eight weeks after the devastating earthquake and
tsunamis of December 2004, a group of predominantly humanitarian
agencies met in Geneva.E1 The agencies were interested in maximising
learning from the tsunami response though joint evaluation, with a focus on
topics which would benefit from a sector-wide approach rather than an
individual agency one. It was hoped that this collaboration would reduce
the need for individual agency evaluations and duplication of effort. Another
significant intention was to focus collaborative efforts on recurring systemic
problems in humanitarian action, with analysis concentrated more at the
level of policy rather than programming.
In the wake of this meeting many of the participating agencies formed the
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC). This independent initiative on learning
and accountability represents the most intensive study of a humanitarian
response since the multi-donor evaluation of the response to the Rwanda
crisis in the mid-1990s. It is also the first time since then that the sector has
sought to scrutinise itself as a whole. The TEC is managed by a Core
Management Group (CMG) of agencies, and the ALNAP (Active Learning
Network for Accountability and Performance in humanitarian action)
Secretariat is the facilitating platform for the TEC.8 Please see Annex A for
more information on the CMG.
Introduction
1
Chapter one
8 See www.alnap.org for more information.
25
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
The primary aim of the TEC is to improve the quality of humanitarian action –
including the linkages to recovery and longer term development – by learning
lessons from the international response to the tsunami. To optimise this learning,
TEC member agencies have worked together by sponsoring five joint thematic
evaluations on selected aspects of the response. It is the reports from these five
studies that form the basis of this Synthesis Report (see 1.1.2 below).
In addition to its primary aim, the TEC has the two further aims of providing
accountability and testing a collaborative model. To provide accountability to both
donor and affected-country populations for the overall response, the TEC is
producing a number of different reports in addition to this Synthesis Report that
are suitable for a wider readership, and is holding evaluation feedback workshops
in the affected region to validate and create ownership of TEC findings. In order to
test the TEC approach as a possible model for future joint evaluation, the TEC has
held two learning reviews.9
 Further reviews will be undertaken over the lifetime of
the TEC.
1.1.2 The TEC’s thematic focus
Even before the February 2005 meeting, it was evident that aspects of the
international tsunami response were unusual. These included the speed and scale
of funding as well as the large number of actors involved. As the response gained
momentum, these factors served to exacerbate many of the pre-existing
weaknesses in the international system of disaster response, such as poor
coordination and needs assessment.
These and other perennial difficulties, including lack of genuine consultation with
affected populations, unsustainable programming and concerns regarding funding
mechanisms, have been highlighted annually over the past five years by ALNAP’s
Review of Humanitarian Action. They have also been brought to the humanitarian
community’s attention by independent evaluations of disaster response, including
the response of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) to the earthquake in
Gujarat in 2001, as well as by a number of ProVention Consortium studies on
learning lessons from disaster recovery.10
Aided by this collective knowledge, participants at the first TEC meeting selected
five themes that represented recurrent weaknesses in humanitarian action. In
retrospect, the selection of topics was done in a somewhat ad-hoc way without a
detailed analysis.11 The topics chosen by the meeting participants were:
coordination; the role of needs assessment in humanitarian response; the impact
of international action on local and national capacities;12 linkages between relief,
9 The reports from both of these reviews are available on the TEC website: www.tsunami
evaluation.org.
10 See http://www.proventionconsortium.org.
11 One of the TEC’s learning reviews (undertaken in February 2006; see Footnote 2) makes a
number of observations about topic selection, including the need to involve affected country
nationals in the choice of themes to be studied.
12 The term capacities used in this report refers to a complex of social, political, cultural and
economic processes. For a comprehensive definition of this term see the TEC Capacities Report
(2006).
26
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
rehabilitation and development (LRRD); and funding mechanisms. Selection of
these themes, from an initial list of over 10,13 was also driven by pragmatism – that
is, the ability and willingness of agencies to lead a particular study area.14 It was
initially planned that a further topic, that of the overall impact of the response,
would be covered by a planned International Federation of the Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies (IFRC) study, but this has yet to get under way.15 It was intended
that studying and evaluating the tsunami response at the thematic level would
provide an opportunity to identify solutions and improvements in these five areas
of international disaster response.
The TEC’s five thematic evaluations are published alongside this Synthesis Report
as a set. They assess the performance of humanitarian actors at both policy and
‘ground’ level.16 Most of the studies employed, indirectly, the various standards
and criteria that exist for humanitarian interventions rather than any specifically
formulated objectives for tsunami interventions. This is for a number of reasons,
including the greater policy focus of some of the studies and also because, like the
response itself, the evaluations required a nuanced, context-sensitive approach
that recognised both the common elements and the diverse, country-specific
aspects of the response. It is also because in some instances ‘causality and
impact… depend on a set of indicators not yet developed’ (TEC Coordination
Report, 2006, p19).
1.1.3 Methodology and management of the thematic
evaluations
The thematic evaluations varied in both management and research structure – for
example, three of the five evaluations were managed by multi-agency Steering
Committees while two employed multiple research teams. It is anticipated that the
variety of models used will increase the learning potential when it comes to
assessing the relevance of the TEC approach for future joint evaluation processes.
Annex A provides a series of tables on the thematic evaluations with regard to
cost, timeframe of the response evaluated, interviewees, geographical coverage,
methods employed and the limitations and constraints experienced by each study.
While each of the TEC evaluations faced its own limitations, some constraints
were common to all studies, for example:
• shortage of time for document review prior to fieldwork and for the fieldwork
itself;
13 Other suggested themes included: an evaluation of the impact at field level of the various
accountability initiatives in the humanitarian sector; the role of the military (subsequently
subsumed into the coordination study); the impact of the media; gender; and environmental
impact.
14 TEC members decided that each thematic evaluation should be individually commissioned
rather than the process managed as a whole, as with the multi donor Rwanda evaluation. In the
event, OCHA took responsibility for coordination; FAO, SDC and WHO for needs assessment;
UNDP and AIDMI for capacities; Sida for LRRD; and Danida for the funding response study.
15 See endnote E2.
16 Three of the TEC’s evaluations Capacities, LRRD and the Funding Response Local Study
Overview used beneficiary surveys as part of their research toolkit. This enabled the evaluations
to make better assessment of the quality of the response from local perspectives. See Annex A for
more information.
27
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
• difficulty in identifying interviewees who had been present in the relief phase
of the response;
• the collection of data in different field locations, which were not always fully
comparable.
Annex A also contains information on evaluation management and other issues,
including the membership of the evaluation teams, role of the evaluation Steering
Committees and the funders of each evaluation.
1.2 The TEC Synthesis Report
This Synthesis Report represents the culmination of over a year’s work by TEC
member agencies. In line with the TEC’s thematic evaluations, it examines the
successes and failures as well as the constraints of the response up to the first 11
months after the tsunami. It is based on a distillation of the findings and learning
from the TEC’s thematic evaluations, and also from over 170 additional reports.
Full sources for this report are listed in the Bibliography in Annex I. In summary,
they consist of:
• Primary sources: the five TEC thematic reports. In addition, this report draws
on a number of the constituent studies to these evaluations, such as the
country case studies.
• Secondary sources: other evaluations and reviews relating to the tsunami
response. Most of these are individual agency studies, including evaluations
and lesson learning reviews from TEC members.
• Tertiary sources: eg, reports and materials from the World Bank and
governments of the affected countries, focusing on the overall capacity,
performance and accountability of the international humanitarian system.
1.2.1 Approach, limitations and constraints
In writing this Synthesis Report the team took the following approach:
• analysis of the five overall TEC thematic evaluations and their constituent
studies, as well as discussions with evaluation team leaders;
• review and triangulation17 of secondary and tertiary materials, including the
production of a regularly updated summary of issues, lessons and
recommendations from the materials;
• discussion with a number of policy experts with regard to analysis of
different aspects of humanitarian policy and practice relevant to this report;
17 Triangulation is the process of comparing information across a variety of sources in order to
validate that information between documents or data sets.
28
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
• re-drafting based on comments received on two drafts, including from an
expert peer review panel as well as all interested TEC stakeholders.
While the thematic evaluations each identify their own limitations and constraints,
as noted in Annex A, when viewing the evaluation set as a whole it is possible to
note a number of additional points:
• The TEC evaluations were designed to focus on specific aspects of the
international disaster response. While the TEC reports, including this one,
refer to other actors, such as affected states and International Financial
Institutions (IFIs), they do not study their response systematically.
• While TEC members selected five themes reflecting recurrent policy and
operational challenges, the thematic set would have benefited from the
inclusion of a study on impact, or at least ‘results’ assessment.E2 Without this
there can be no conclusive statement about the scale of the effects of the
systemic weaknesses on the outcome of the response.
• Another important aspect of the response not directly addressed in the TEC
themes is the question of how the tsunami and the aid influenced the
conflicts in Sri Lanka and Aceh. Related to this, reports – both primary and
secondary – generally do not consider relief and recovery interventions from
the perspective of the vastly differing ethnic and political contexts in which
the response occurred.
• Individual studies do not always distinguish between the different phases of
the response. Neither do they always define the different phases
(occasionally even using different terminology) and/or assign timelines to
these phases. While this is understandable in that phases of the response are
not chronologically distinct but rather location-specific, context-dependent
and often run alongside each other, it has sometimes made it hard to
decipher which aspects of the response the studies are referring to.
• Not all TEC evaluations differentiate systematically between, for example,
good and less good practice, and link this to specific agencies. While this is
partly because of the TEC focus on process rather than results, it is also
because even within a single national context individual organisations
performed both well and less well – as evidenced throughout this report.
However, this has made it difficult to identify good practice easily, and to
make differentiated judgements across agency groupings – including between
strictly humanitarian and mixed-mandate agencies. Nevertheless, and
particularly in Section 3 (The Response), an attempt has been made to
disaggregate international agencies by referring, where possible, to a specific
agency or to types of agencies.
• It is hardly surprising that in such an extensive response there were
examples of poor practice by nearly all agencies. However, there were also
examples of good practice by most of the major agencies. The Synthesis
Report refers to examples of good and/or bad work by individual agencies,
but these examples are used to illustrate general points and should not be
29
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
understood as a statement of the overall performance of that agency (which
the Synthesis team are not in a position to offer).
• The studies covered a number of countries, as specified in each individual
report. The focus has been mostly on Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and
Thailand, with references to other countries, including India. As far as
possible, references are made in this Synthesis to specific countries, but
given that the materials do not always specify locations this has not always
been achievable.
• Finally, the evolving nature of the thematic reports, some of which were
finalised only during the later stages of writing this Synthesis Report, meant
that the Synthesis authors had to incorporate new material at different
stages.
In addition, the Synthesis team faced constraints similar to all those writing
syntheses – namely, the challenge of drawing lessons from evaluations on
different topics, in different contexts and by different teams applying a variety of
methodologies. One of the recurring points in the two learning reviews already
undertaken on the TEC process (see Footnote 2) has been the need for greater
coherence between the individual terms of reference (ToR) – either through use of
a common framework for writing the ToRs (the key idea being to increase
comparability for increased lesson learning) or alternatively through use of one
overarching ToR.
1.2.2 The Synthesis team
This Synthesis Report has been prepared by two senior international experts on
humanitarian response, who have direct experience of both evaluation and
participation in humanitarian action, including natural disaster prevention,
preparedness and response. They were supported by a consultant with
considerable monitoring and evaluation experience in both humanitarian and
community development contexts. The report has benefited from the advice of an
expert peer review panel. The reviewers provided experience and knowledge of
the affected region and of international aid (including humanitarian, recovery and
development aid). Some of the thematic evaluation team leaders have also
commented on drafts of this report, as has the CMG – the latter acting as the
quality control mechanism for the report. Short biographies of the three authors,
the peer reviewers, the CMG and the evaluation team leaders are contained in
Annex C. Biographies of the TEC evaluation team members are included in the
relevant TEC reports.
1.2.3 Terminology
This Synthesis Report and the five thematic TEC reports generally use the term
‘affected population’ (or ‘affected individuals’ or ‘affected community’, as
appropriate) rather than, for example, ‘beneficiary’ or ‘victim’. This is a deliberate
choice by the team as aid recipients do not necessarily ‘benefit’ from the aid that
they receive, and not all those who are affected may receive aid.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
There is no commonly accepted definition of an affected person, an important
issue raised in the studies.18 The term is applied loosely in this report to people
living and present in the affected region who were in some significant manner
affected by the disaster. In most cases this implies losses and damage involving
themselves, their families and friends, property and livelihoods.
When referring to agencies that make up the international humanitarian response
sector, the following terms are used:
• When referring to the Red Cross Movement, the shorthand ‘RC Movement’ is
used. This is also taken to include the International Committee of the Red
Cross, the IFRC and Red Crescent Societies, and all the National Red Cross
Societies.
• Reference to ‘international agencies’ refers to any operational agency and
therefore includes the UN, international NGOs (INGOs), the RC Movement,
and any operational donor entities.
• Governmental or inter-governmental donors are referred to as ‘donors’ or
‘official’ or ‘institutional’ donors.
• The term ‘private’ covers both the general public and private entities such as
companies, religious groups or associations. ‘Public’ money comes from
governments while ‘private’ money (generally) comes from these non￾institutional donors (ie, the public and these private entities).
• The term INGOs includes regional NGOs ‘national NGOs’ refers to NGOs
that have a nationwide presence but don’t extend beyond national borders;
and ‘local NGOs’ refers to NGOs that don’t have nationwide presence. The
term NGO on its own may refer to any or all of international, national or
local NGOs.
The term ‘humanitarian response’ is used for the overall response to the tsunami,
and implicitly constitutes relief and recovery. The ‘immediate relief phase’ is used
for immediate search and rescue and life-saving activities that, in the case of the
tsunami, lasted from a few days to a few weeks. The ‘relief phase’ then refers to
traditional humanitarian activity focused on saving and protecting lives, such as
the provision of food aid and temporary shelter. In the tsunami response, the
length of the relief phase depended on the sector and the geographic location, with
some relief activities such as food aid continuing well beyond the relief phase.
Thus relief and recovery phases happened at the same time alongside each other.
The term ‘recovery’ is used most commonly in this report. Recovery constituted
the most significant proportion of the response. In comparison with relief,
recovery is about saving, protecting and regenerating livelihoods and
communities. Disaster-affected populations, while still concerned about basic
needs, within days become absorbed in longer term concerns such as permanent
18 Some of the best practice noted in the TEC Capacities Report was observed when the definition
of affected communities was broadened to include entire geographical units, such as the district in
Sri Lanka, so that inequities were not heightened and conflicts not exacerbated.
31
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
housing, schooling and how to re-establish their livelihoods. Similarly,
communities and authorities move rapidly from saving lives and rescuing
survivors to re-establishing basic services and infrastructure. Recovery therefore
involves all decisions and actions taken by both international and national actors
after a disaster with a view to restoring or improving pre-disaster living conditions,
while encouraging and facilitating necessary adjustments to reduce disaster risk.
Though often referred to as a phase, recovery is better defined by qualitative,
contextual aspects and is more a description of concerns, steps and happenings.
The term ‘reconstruction’ is used sparingly and only when referring specifically to
reconstruction standards or reconstruction of specific infrastructure. It is also
used if quoting from one of the sub-studies that utilises the term. ‘Rehabilitation’ is
also rarely used except in relation to the LRRD Report, which includes the term in
its title. As with reconstruction, rehabilitation is also used when quoting from the
thematic reports and sub-studies.
1.2.4 Structure of the report
Following this Introduction, Section 2 provides a brief overview of the impact of the
earthquake and tsunamis on the affected region. It raises the need to see beyond
the human tragedy, in terms of lives lost and the immediate economic shock of the
disaster, to the larger issue: the impact on people’s livelihoods, their social
structures and their environment. Section 3 presents an account of the response.
Moving from the immediate relief phase, through stabilisation to the beginnings of
recovery, the report traces the relief phase through the movement to recovery – a
highly complex socioeconomic and ultimately political process. It also addresses
the issues of ‘building back better’, disaster reduction and funding flows.
The conclusions presented in Section 4 are based primarily on the findings
identified in Section 3, as well as in the accompanying TEC reports. Analysis
proceeds under the following headings:
Ownership and accountability which addresses the degree to which the
international response recognised and supported national and local
‘ownership’ of the response, during both the relief and recovery phases.
Funding which mainly considers the exceptional public and official donor global
funding for the response, and its broader implications.
International Response Capacities which looks at the international aid
sector’s capacity to respond to disasters, including support to recovery.
Quality which examines the reasons why major quality problems persist despite
a decade of reform initiatives in the humanitarian sector.
Finally, Section 5, Lessons and Recommendations, is based around the principle
recommendation about the need for a fundamental re-orientation of the
humanitarian sector to shift emphasis from delivery to support and facilitation of
the relief and recovery priorities of affected populations, including:
• Accountability and support to affected populations and authorities.
• Strengthening international disaster response capacity.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
• Strengthening international disaster funding to improve proportionality and
impartiality.
Some of the conclusions and recommendations are unique to the tsunami
response, while some may also be applicable to other similarly large-scale natural
disasters, or even to the humanitarian system as a whole. Clearly the context of a
sudden-onset natural disaster in middle income countries with considerable
resources of their own is very different from the chronic political emergencies in
the poorest countries which probably form the bulk of humanitarian
interventions, and readers should bear this in mind when considering any
recommendations made.
The Annexes to this report present details of the five TEC thematic evaluations,
the ToR for this Synthesis Report, biographies of the CMG, authors and peer
reviewers, sources of data for tables and charts, and a full bibliography.
Importantly, Annex E contains a more detailed breakdown of recommendations by
actor. Recommendations for ongoing operations or for specific countries can be
found in the individual thematic reports and their constituent sub-reports. These
are available on the TEC’s website and on the CD Rom being made available with
this report.
Finally, this report highlights issues for ongoing TEC studies,19 for other potential
research on the tsunami, and on research topics of wider relevance to the
humanitarian sector. Suggestions for further research have been derived from
some of the analytical gaps found in the TEC and other studies.20
19 The LRRD study is being conducted in two phases as it was realised at the outset that it is too
early to draw firm conclusions about many aspects of LRRD. A second round of empirical research
will therefore be conducted during early 2007.
20 These gaps result more from the discrete, thematic focus as well as the scope of the studies (as
set out in the ToR) rather than from inadequate analysis in the studies themselves.
33
See sources p159.
2.1 Immediate effects of the
disaster
At 07.58 Aceh time on 26 December 2004, the biggest earthquake for 40
years struck off the west coast of Northern Sumatra. The earthquake led to
the most destructive series of tsunamis in recorded history, which radiated
through the Indian Ocean at speeds of more than 500km/h. The waves,
while not very big in deep water, slowed down and grew in size as they
reached shallower water near land. In the worst cases the waves reached
over 20m high at landfall in parts of Aceh; in other locations they spread
3km inland, carrying debris and salt water with them. The retreating waters
eroded whole shorelines.
The tsunamis killed people in 14 counties around the Indian Ocean. In
terms of lives lost and people missing, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and
Thailand were the hardest hit. By the end of January 2005, 40 other
countries had reported that their citizens were among the dead and 12
more reported that their citizens had been in the area and were feared
dead.22 Germany and Sweden were the worst affected counties outside the
region and lost more citizens (over 500 each) than all but the four most
affected counties.
The tsunami gripped the world’s attention, though news of the extent of the
tsunami emerged only slowly (Figure 2.1). The published death toll was
The disaster: an overview
2
Chapter two
Country Number lost
Indonesia 167,540
Sri Lanka 35,322
India 16,269
Thailand 8,212
Somalia 289
Maldives 108
Malaysia 75
Myanmar 61
Tanzania 13
Seychelles 2
Bangladesh 2
Yemen 2
South Africa 2
Kenya 1
Total 227,898
Table 2.1. Numbers of
people lost (dead or
missing)21
21 Sources for tables and base data and sources for charts are presented in Annex G.
Please refer to the page reference provided at the foot of each table or figure.
22 Table 3.1 gives details of those lost from outside the region. The numbers given in
Table 2.1 include tourists from other countries who were killed or went missing in the
affected countries.
34
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p153.
Sources BBC, Channel AsiaNews, Agence France Press, and The Guardian. See sources p153.
300
200
100
Figure 2.1. Changes in death toll (including missing) over the first month
Thousands dead or missing
0
26 Dec
2 Jan
9 Jan
16 Jan
23 Jan
30 Jan
Figure 2.2. Age-specific tsunami mortality at five locations
(plus one historic disaster)
Sources Figure 2.2a Doocy et al, 2006 (based on 291 deaths); F u igure 2.2b
Nishikiori et al, 2006 (based on 456 deaths); Figure 2.2c Birkmann et al,
2006 (based on 94 deaths); Figure 2.2d Guha Sapir et al, 2006 (based on
231 deaths); Figure 2.2e Maldives Disaster Management Centre and Maldive
2000 Census data (based on 104 deaths); Figure 2.2f Chowdhury et al,
1993 (based on 1,206 deaths).
10%
5%
0%
Figure 2.2b. Ampara (Sri Lanka)
Age (years)
15%
20%
Mortality rate (%)
0–14 15–49 50+
10%
5%
0%
Age (years)
15%
20%
Mortality rate (%)
0–14 15–49 50+
Figure 2.2a. Aceh (Indonesia)
5%
0%
Figure 2.2c. Batticalao (Sri Lanka)
Age (years)
10%
Mortality rate (%)
0–10 11–59 60+
5%
0%
Figure 2.2d. Tamil Nadu (India)
Age (years)
10%
Mortality rate (%)
0–14 15–49 50+
1%
0%
Figure 2.2e. The Maldives
Mortality rate Age (years)
(as % of population)
0–14 15–49 50+
2%
10%
5%
0%
Figure 2.2f. Bangladesh storm
surge mortality (Bay of Bengal, 1991)
Age (years)
15%
Mortality rate (%)
0–14 15–49 50+
 
35
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
12,000 on 26 December 2004, and it was only on 30 December that it went over
the 100,000 mark. By the end of January 2005 the death toll stood at 286,000 only
to fall back by over 50,000 when Indonesia reduced its estimate for numbers
missing on 7 April.
The raw death toll tells only part of the story. Disproportionate numbers of the
most vulnerable people died. In the Maldives those aged 65 or over, though
comprising only 3.1 per cent of the population, accounted for 17.3 per cent of the
deaths, or five-and-a-half times the proportional level. Elsewhere the tsunami
typically claimed more of the under-15s and the over-50s, although countries
varied as to which of these two groups had the highest mortality rates (Figure 2.2).
More women than men died. This was highlighted early on when Oxfam
announced that, in the villages it had surveyed, there were three times as many
adult male survivors as female ones (Oxfam, 2005a). This was a very small
sample, however, and the ratio may have been due to specific factors in fishing
villages. Figure 2.3 shows the relative risk for females compared with males: a
value of 1 here would indicate equal risk of death for females and males, but the
data show that the relative risk varied from 1.2 (1.2 times as many women died) to
2.1. There were wide variations for individual villages.
The increased risk that flood events like the tsunami pose for children, the elderly
and, in this context, women is highlighted by historical data from the storm surges
in the Bay of Bengal in 1970 (Sommer and Mosley, 1972) and 1991 (Bern et al,
1993; Chowdhury et al, 1993). All of these instances show a realtively low
mortality rate for 15–49-year-olds and increased mortality rates for children and
older people.
The examples also show higher mortality rates for adult females compared with
adult males. The reasons given for the gender and age differences in survival rates
in these disasters are usually related to strength and stamina, and the ability to
swim or climb trees. One study in Tamil Nadu found that women who were able to
swim were more than twice as likely to survive (Guha-Sapir et al, 2006). However,
it is clear that factors such as location also play a role in determining survival.
Sources Various. uS See sources p154.
Note Some data points refer to relative mortality rather than relative risk.
A value of 2 indicates that women were twice as likely as men to be killed by the tsunami
1.0
0.5
0
1.5
2.0
1.0
0.5
0
1.5
2.0
Banda
Aceh
Banda
Aceh
Aceh
West Coast
Aceh
Barat
Meu aboh
Aceh
East Coast
Other
Aceh
Ampara
District
Ga e
Battica ao
Tami
Nadu
Figure 2.3. Tsunami mortality risk for females compared with males
36
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
The succession of tsunamis manifested differently in different locations. In Aceh
the tsunamis were walls of mud and debris, but by the time they reached the
Maldives they were more akin to a storm surge with a swell sweeping over the
islands. The ratio of dead to injured varied with location. While the ratio of
tsunami fatalities to injuries in Aceh seems to have been over 6:1,E3 the ratio was
1.53:1 in Sri Lanka (WHO, 2005) and 0.28:1 in Tamil Nadu (Guha-Sapir et al, 2006).
2.2 Media coverage
In late December, many factors combined to make the tsunami a key news story
that generated enormous media coverage: the lack of other news stories; the time
of year; the involvement of Western tourists; the geographical range of the
tsunami; the daily climbing death toll; the availability of dramatic amateur footage
of the waves hitting shore; and the celebrities who perished or survived.E4 The
tsunami was probably the most reported disaster up to that date.23
As shown in Figure 2.4, press coverage of the tsunami in the first six weeks was
more than the combined total coverage for the previous year for 10 key
humanitarian ‘stories’E5 selected by an expert panel (Jones, 2005). The tsunami
dominated the internet as well.24 All of this media attention, together with the time
23 The tsunami occurred prior to Hurricane Katrina, which also generated enormous media
coverage.
24 A search for the phrase ‘Indian ocean tsunami’ on 5 April 2006 on Google indicates that there
are 1,380,000 documents on the web bearing this phrase. The phrase ‘tsunami disaster’ returns
nearly six million hits.
See sources p155.
Infectious disease
Colombia
Nepal
HIV/AIDS
Haiti
Chechnya
DRC conflict
West Africa
Northern Uganda
Sudan War
Tsunami (6 weeks)
010 20 30 40
Press citations (thousands) from 200 English language media
sources from around the world
Figure 2.4. Tsunami press citations (for 12 months to February 2005)
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Note D&L damages and losses See sources p159.
Indonesia Sri Lanka India Maldives Thailand
Demographic impact
Population (million) 214.7 19.2 1,064.40 0.293 62
Population loss (incl. missing) 167,540 35,322 16,269 108 8,212
Population loss (incl. missing)
as % of total population 0.077% 0.184% 0.002% 0.037% 0.013%
Population loss in the
most affected province 2.3% 2.7% n/a n/a 1.5%
Economic impact
GDP per capita, US$ 970 950 564 2,440 2,306
Calculated GDP US$billion 208.3 18.2 600.3 0.7 143.0
Total D&L from tsunami, US$m 4,451 1,454 1,224 603 2,198
Total D&L from tsunami, % of GDP 2.0% 7.6% 0.2% 83.6% 1.4%
Most affected province D&L
as % of GDP of that province 97.0% 90.0% 4.0% 8.0%
Pre disaster GDP growth rate 2005 5.4% 6.0% 7.2% 7.5% 6.0%
Revised GDP growth rate 2005 5.2% 5.4% 7.2% 1.7% 5.7%
Damage and losses
Damage, US$m 2,920 1,144 575 450 508
Damage, % of total D&L 65.6% 78.7% 47.0% 74.6% 23.1%
Losses, US$m 1,531 310 649 153 1,690
Losses, % of total D&L 34.4% 21.3% 53.0% 25.4% 76.9%
Losses, % of GDP 0.7% 1.5% 0.1% 21.3% 1.0%
Sectoral % of total damage
Housing 47.9% 36.0% 33.6% 20.9% 4.3%
Physic infrastructure 21.8% 23.9% 13.6% 27.3% 5.3%
Social sectors 9.5% 7.2% 1.9% 7.3% 1.8%
Productive sectors 12.1% 31.8% 46.1% 28.4% 88.6%
Other 8.8% 1.1% 4.9% 16.0% 0.0%
Remittances (for comparison only)
Remittances in US$bn (2004 est.) 4.6 1.3 23.0 1.6
As % of GDP (by calculation) 2.2% 7.1% 3.8% 1.1%
Remittances as % of D&L 103.3% 89.4% 1,879.1% 72.8%
Table 2.2. Demographic and economic impact of the tsunami25
of year, the level of association with those affected and familiarity with some of the
affected countries, prompted an unprecedented flood of both official and private
funding and of material assistance.
25 Please note the comments on the accuracy of this table in the text.
38
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
The coverage in the Western press was not balanced, however. For example, in a
survey of press coverage of humanitarian disasters, CARMA (2006) found that 40
per cent of the tsunami articles that dealt with the impact of the tsunami on people
looked at Western tourists (who accounted for just over 1 per cent of the
casualties). Partly as a result of all this media attention, hundreds of international
humanitarian agencies and military forces from nearby descended on the affected
counties in what some referred to as the ‘second tsunami’ (Brochard, 2005). The
result, as shown by examples throughout this report, was a largely muddled relief
operation in which ‘information circulated badly and coordination at times
appeared non-existent’ (IFRC, 2005b, p81).
The tsunami disaster threatened development. Economic, infrastructural and
human development losses, both actual and projected, were originally estimated at
some US$9.9bn across the affected region. This has to be contrasted with
international funding of at least US$13.5bn (See Section 3.6 below, on funding).
This does not represent 40 per cent over-funding as it may first appear, however,
as the US$13.5bn includes the cost of the international relief effort, some parts of
which were quite expensive (the US military services cost US$0.25bn alone). Also,
the figure for loss and damage does not include costs of transitional shelter or
livelihood support, all of which have to be borne by the response. Some initial cost
estimates (such as for housing) have proved optimistic, and some components of
the response have wasted money.26
Indonesia has borne the brunt of the losses, accounting for almost half of the total.
However, in terms of impact relative to the overall size of the economy the
Maldives was worst affected, with damage and losses equivalent to 83.6 per cent
of GDP (BRR and World Bank, 2005).
Table 2.2 shows both sustained and projected losses in five of the most affected
countries: India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand. This table
should be interpreted with caution as it presents initial estimates of loss and
damage. Estimates of GDP growth were later revised and the figures for projected
losses were probably pessimistic. The economic impacts of disasters are dynamic
and complex (Benson and Clay, 2003), and the lumping together of damage (the
capital cost of rebuilding assets) with losses (expected lost income) is
problematic.E6
Despite the magnitude of the economic losses it is noticeable that, except for the
case of the Maldives, the loss and damage from the tsunami is not much more
than the value of remittances in 2004 for Sri Lanka and Thailand, slightly less than
2004 remittances to Indonesia, and only about 6 per cent of remittances for India.
In line with experiences from other disasters, remittance flows can be expected to
increase to the region following the tsunami (World Bank, 2006, p99). The data for
remittances are included in Table 2.2 not to suggest that remittance flows can
replace international assistance, but merely to highlight the relative size of these
flows compared to the tsunami impact.
26 For example, the wholly unsuitable fishing boats supplied by Kuwait via the Kuwaiti Red
Crescent Society that were unfit for use in Aceh (Schulze, 2005, pp14 15).
39
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Economic data need to be considered at the provincial level, and not just at the
national level. Total damage and economic losses in Aceh alone are estimated at
some US$4.5bn – equal to almost the entire GDP of Aceh (BAPPENAS and World
Bank, 2005). The extent of this localised devastation reveals the real magnitude of
the disaster as it has affected local populations.
The overall impact of the tsunami should also be understood in terms of the type
of damage suffered: How many houses were lost? To what extent was the water
supply damaged? What happened in the productive sectors of fishing and
agriculture? Answers to these questions give some indication of the likely time –
and resources – required for recovery.
The sector that experienced most damage in Indonesia has been housing and
human settlements: 141,000 houses were destroyed, which accounts for 47.9 per
cent of the total damage (BRR & World Bank, 2005). Over 600,000 people in Aceh
lost their livelihoods (in some cases for only a few months) including all those in
the fishery sector and 30 per cent of those in agriculture (Government of
Indonesia, 2005). Different countries had different contexts, different economic
histories, and were under different economic stresses at the time of the tsunami.
Fisheries were hardest hit in India, but tourism was the worst affected sector in
Thailand and the Maldives (BRR and World Bank, 2005).E7
The devastation has reached far beyond lives lost and economic damage caused,
however. Disasters are increasingly recognised as having psychological and social
consequences (Mattock, 2005). This will necessarily affect the speed and nature of
the recovery and is proving a challenge to agencies designing livelihoods
programmes. The tsunami has also had an environmental impact. Land has been
contaminated by salt water, forests damaged and ecosystems disturbed.
The affected countries were already dealing with problems such as chronic
poverty, environmental degradation, displacement, poor governance, inequality,
overly bureaucratic administration systems, caste, conflict and weak respect for
human rights. Whole sections of populations were already marginalised, many as
a result of several different causes. It is these poorest groups, including the sick
and the elderly, those in remote locations, migrant workers and the landless – in
some cases all living within armed conflict areas – that have been the hardest hit
by the effects of the tsunami (TEC Capacities Report, 2006).
40 3.1 Pre-disaster risk reduction
and early warning
Six months before the 2004 tsunami, the UN’s Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission warned that the ‘Indian Ocean has a significant
threat from both local and distant tsunamis’ (Revkin, 2004). Risk reduction
and preparedness prior to a disaster event can reduce fatalities. The Indian
Ocean region is at risk from natural hazards, including tropical cyclones,
tidal surges and earthquakes. Yet little attention was paid to these tsunami
risks as they were not considered to be a major hazard27 – even though
tsunamis killed many in Sumatra and Java following the Krakatoa eruption
in 1883.E8
Unlike the tsunami warning system in the Pacific, set up after a tsunami
killed 159 people in Hawaii in 1946, no tsunami warning system had been
installed in the Indian Ocean.28 And while the Hawaii Pacific Tsunami
Warning Center (PTWC) issued a bulletin to its regular circulation list29 in
the Pacific basin informing that a tsunami watch was advised within 15
minutes of the December 2004 earthquake, it did not warn affected
countries (which were all outside the Pacific Ocean) of the possibility of a
tsunami.
The response
3
Chapter three
27 A 2004 publication from ADPC lists Indonesia as facing a low relative intensity of
tsunami hazards and does not even include tsunamis in the table of nine hazards in the
South East Asia region (Abarquez and Murshed, 2004, p137).
28 An interim tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean is expected to be operational
by the end of July 2006.
29 Anyone can join the circulation list by submitting their email address via a link on the
PTWC site: www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc.
41
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Despite the absence of a formal system, some life-saving warnings were
given – mostly by ordinary people. Traditional knowledge helped to save
tribes on India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands from the worst of the
tsunami (Bhaumik, 2005). Phonecalls to family members in India advised
them to evacuate (IFRC, 2005b, p16) and a 10-year-old British tourist
recognised the signs of a tsunami from her geography class. This led to
more than 100 people evacuating a beach and hotel (BBC, 2005a).
There were reports that a warning to the mainland from the Indian military
in the Nicobar and Andaman Islands went unheeded. Apparently, the
Indian meteorological service sent a warning fax to a former minister of
science rather than the incumbent (Singh, 2004). In Thailand, the head of
the Meteorological Service was sacked because he had decided not to issue
a warning (Associated Press, 2005; Watts, 2005).
These warnings were far from generalised, however. While parts of
Indonesia were struck within 20 minutes, Thai officials discussed the
earthquake and tsunami risk an hour before the waves struck but decided
against causing a panic (Financial Times, 2005). It was more than an hour￾and-a-half before Sri Lanka was hit, ample time for a warning to circulate. In
the Maldives, 108 people were killed when the tsunami struck three hours
after the earthquake. Wider knowledge of the nature of tsunamis, the ability
to swim,E9 or simple systems for communicating warnings could have saved
many lives. Media organisations could, for example, have issued warnings for
India and Sri Lanka had they been better educated about the phenomenon.
Better construction would also have saved lives and property lost due to
both the tsunamis and the earthquake.30 Better disaster preparedness would
Box 3.1. The nature of disasters
Disasters can be defined as: ‘A serious disruption of the functioning of society, causing widespread human,
material or environmental losses which exceed the ability of affected society to cope using only its own resources’
(DHA, 1992, p27). The ability or capacity to cope is a key aspect of impact and response to a disaster, and the
assistance provided by national or international responses is intended to alleviate this shortfall in capacity.
Clearly a society (which can be a community, a province or a whole country) with greater capacity to cope with
the impact of any disaster event is less vulnerable to the effects of that disaster. Some disasters exceed the local
capacity but fall within the national capacity and need no international assistance.
There is a significant difference in the pattern of need for external assistance between the cases of sudden-onset
and slow-onset disasters (Figure 3.1).
Rapid-onset disasters, like the tsunami, have a very high initial need for relief assistance, which may be followed
by a second peak for recovery assistance. Slow-onset disasters have a slowly building requirement for external
assistance. The timescale over which assistance is needed depends on the extent of the disaster and the
complexity of the affected infrastructure.
30 No separate death toll is available for the earthquake as the tsunamis followed within 20
minutes. However, the relatively light damage from the earthquake suggests that the death toll was
probably no worse than for the earthquake of 28 March 2005 that is, fewer than 1,000.
42
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
have made the response more effective and efficient. Disaster risk reduction (DRR)
and preparedness receive a relatively small portion of international aid. Developing
a community’s capacity to deal with disasters (be it a storm or a tsunami) is
normally a cost-efficient approach (IFRC, 2005b, p46). Moreover: ‘It may pay more
to prepare our national counterparts than to invest in our own readiness to
intervene forever’ (TEC Needs Assessment Report, 2006, p63).
3.2 Emergency
3.2.1 Survival and safety
The tsunami was a sudden-onset natural disaster, and local people did most of the
search and rescue and life saving. Survivors were rescued by their neighbours
and by other survivors using whatever means were at hand. Surviving doctors,
nurses and paramedics rendered first aid in makeshift or remaining health
facilities. While the fatalities and missing made world headlines, initially it was the
survivors who were of most concern locally. The recovery of bodies and, where
possible, dignified burial and mourning came later.
In Indonesia, 91 per cent of those interviewed by the Fritz Institute (2005c, p4)
reported that they had been rescued by private individuals. In Sri Lanka and
Thailand, life-saving and immediate relief during the first two days was led almost
entirely by the general public from adjacent areas (TEC Capacities Report, 2006).
The first few flights to Aceh were jammed with volunteers and official teams from
all over Indonesia and the national military played a key role in the initial rescue.
In Sri Lanka damage was limited to the coastal strip so local health services did all
the main medical work.
The TEC Capacities Report (2006, p23) notes:
Some 4 per cent of the population of Aceh province was killed in the tsunami.
An estimated 60 senior leaders of civil society... 5,200 staff from local
authorities and 3,000 civil servants died and another 2,275 were reported
missing. Despite the scale of the disaster and loss of government leadership,
communities coped effectively on their own in the first days after the disaster.
Survivors sought refuge at higher altitudes and lived on fruits and coconuts in
Aceh Jaya, or were taken in by family and neighbours in urban settings in
Aceh Besar. Depending on the proximity to the capital and the scale of the
destruction, it took aid workers between one (for Banda Aceh) and 10 days (for
Krueng Sabee) to reach the affected communities. The Indonesian Marines
provided immediate response to remote Aceh Jaya district, which was cut off
by road, while Special Operations and TNI (Indonesian army) reached Banda
Aceh by road.
Teams formed spontaneously, the skilled and unskilled, rich and poor, one
ethnicity or class side-by-side with another. Some uncovered, others cleaned and
Figure 3.1. General
patterns of need
imposed by rapid- and
slow-onset disasters
Time
Rapid-onset disaster
Slow-onset disaster
43
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p155.
Box 3.2. The multi-layered relief response
The response to the tsunami disaster had many components – from the
affected population, provincial and national authorities and the military, to
international agencies and international military. All of these components layer
together to provide the overall response. The contribution that any component
can make to the response depends on both its mobilisation time and its
resource base. Traditionally, local and national components bring context￾specific knowledge and international components bring technical skills and
financial resources.
The first relief response after the tsunami came from the affected
communities. (This is not shown in Figure 3.2 as there is no means of
estimating this, but it does fill up part of the white area shown in the figure.)
After the community capacities came the national military and civil capacities,
and later the international military and civil capacities (such as the UN, RC
Movement and INGOs).
It can be several weeks before international civilian response components are
fully in place. In Aceh this was complicated by the former exclusion of
international actors and the fact that it was two days after the tsunami before
the decision to open the province became widely known.
The peak need for rescue, food and medical assistance occurs in the first few
hours and days and these needs have to be met first from local and then from
national resources. Clearly, not all needs are met in this very first phase. It can
be seen that the mobilisation time for the international civilian response means
that international assistance may have only a limited impact on the acute
phase of a sudden-onset disaster.
The interplay of the various capacities making up the response is quite
complex. This interplay is not neutral but can be positive or negative in terms
of the overall response. The TEC Capacities Report (2006) found that cash
grants enabled people to use their skills and abilities in their own way. It also
allowed people to make good use of the economic resources held by the
international agencies in a synergistic way. The TEC Coordination Report
(2006) found that most of the international military contingents in Indonesia
had their tasks allocated by the Indonesian military, thus coupling the
immense foreign logistics capacity with detailed local knowledge.
Capacities can also interact negatively. The TEC Capacities Report (2006) found
that build-up of the international capacity may lead to the reduction of local
and national capacity through the poaching of staff and through the
marginalisation of local structures, or the recognition of only English-language￾based local capacities. Similarly, the capacity of the international response can
be reduced by delays in gaining access or through customs delays (TEC LRRD
Sri Lanka Case Study, 2006) or through a lack of policy coherence – as was the
case over the ‘buffer-zone’ policy about whether reconstruction should take
place near the sea (TEC LRRD Policy Study, 2006).
90123 6
0123 5678901 12 4567890123456789 2345678901234567890 2123 23456789012345678901 1234 4567890123456789012 34 01234567890121
Figure 3.2. National and
international capacities
in Aceh (illustrative)
Time
Needs
12345 12345
12345
12345 International civil
International military
National military
National civil
Note: capacities are cumulative
44
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
tended. Some carried, others drove. More gave water, covered, informed or
comforted. Local people, officials, the police and the military, the Red Cross/
Crescent, religious people, students, different associations, private companies,
political groupings – every component of society – responded with blankets,
transport, fuel, medicines, materials, equipment, removal machinery and labour.
Private and public vehicles and boats, offices, halls, schools, places of worship and
homes all became immediately available. In the Maldives, communities backed by
island and atoll authorities used boats to rescue those from islands that were
uninhabitable, housing them with host families or in community buildings.
Affected families on islands where there was partial damage were similarly re￾housed. Food was provided from local shops until external help arrived between
three and five days later (TEC Capacities Report, 2006).
Despite the importance of the local response the very definition of a disaster is
that needs exceed local capacities (Box 3.1). Outside assistance is necessary from
the provincial, national, or international levels, depending on the scale of the
disaster.
3.2.2 National institutional responses31
An influx from provincial and national capitals and beyond followed the immediate
local response. Roads were gradually opened and hospitals accessed. Technicians
pumped floodwaters, restored electricity and reconnected pipes, using
rudimentary tools and materials as well as ingenuity. For most victims, however,
this was achieved too late. Few if any international agencies could say they
managed to save significant numbers of lives. One actor, Médecins Sans Frontières
(MSF), recognised this reality honestly and early:
The reasons why MSF has lowered… its effort is [that] when MSF arrived in the
worst affected regions within 72 hours, the local relief effort was already well
underway. Capable national medical staff [had] covered many of the emergency
needs. Another reason is the absence of major epidemics or life-threatening
diseases except for tetanus. (Indonesia Relief, 2005b)
Both national and international responses were slowed by the time it took to form
a full picture of the extent of damage. This was particularly the case with Aceh,
where the destruction cut normal communications links. The Indonesian
government activated the ad hoc National Disaster Management Board
(BAKORNAS) on the afternoon of 26 December and the Vice-President was sent to
Aceh where all district disaster management secretariats and most other
government offices were severely effected. It was only on arrival in Aceh on 27
December that the Vice-President and his advisers fully understood the extent of
the damage. This led to the request for foreign assistance and the decision to allow
international agencies access to Aceh.
The Indonesia National Army (TNI) and BRIMOB (paramilitary police), present in
large numbers because of martial law, coordinated most of the search and
31 See the TEC Capacities Report on how capacities were used after the disaster.
45
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
recovery work in Banda Aceh. They were aided in the recovery and burial work by
Muslim youth groups from all over Indonesia and with relief assistance from
military forces from (eventually) 17 countries.32
In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami the Sri Lankan government
reintroduced emergency regulations that increased the military’s role in the relief
phase. The armed forces of more nations assisted in the first phase of the relief
operations in Sri Lanka than in Indonesia, although the militarisation of relief
delivery was neither as extensive nor as visible as in Indonesia. The Presidential
Secretariat initially coordinated the relief effort, and created the Centre for
National Operations with staff from the public and private sectors to act as a de
facto National Disaster Management Authority (TEC Capacities Report, 2006).
In the Maldives, with no previous experience of a national disaster, the
government immediately established an ad hoc Ministerial Task Force which, in
turn, set up a National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) to coordinate relief.
The Thai national response began with enabling the existing Civil Defence Act.
This allowed senior government staff to be delegated to affected districts, re￾directed existing government budgets for relief efforts, and brought the response
of different line ministries under the central coordination of the Ministry of the
Interior. The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation’s Civil Defence
Committee managed international and domestic call centres and a public donation
centre and mobilised personnel and equipment, while the Ad Hoc Tsunami
Disaster Task Force (under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) coordinated foreign
assistance (TEC Capacities Report, 2006).
3.2.3 Support for affected tourists
The numbers of tourists among the dead, missing and injured both increased
Western media interest and sparked emergency procedures in the tourists’ home
countries. It also most likely fed into the enormously generous global public
response. Insistent and vocal demands from the media and relatives put pressure
on governments to act fast and visibly, both in response to their own nationals’
needs and through aid for affected areas.
Foreign ministries and embassies mobilised, some more effectively than others.E10
Hotlines and task forces were set up, and emergency funds made available.
Search and forensic identification teams were dispatched, many continuing their
tasks for months. Donor state actors who would normally be dedicated uniquely
to the aid process were also tasked in relation to their own nationals, such as the
search for and identification and transport of mortal remains. Bitter public
frustration and acerbic media criticism of perceived weaknesses in accounting for,
repatriating and supporting their own nationals rapidly surfaced in some
countries.E11 In others the process was better managed (Grünewald et al, 2006).
32 It should also be noted that while the Singaporean (from 28 December), US, UK (from 2
January) and some other military were quick off the mark, the main Australian contingent came
ashore only on 15 January. It was three weeks before the Russian field hospital arrived and four
weeks before the Japanese deployed on 23 January. All these military forces were not, therefore,
involved in immediate relief assistance.
46
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
33 Full details on the sources can be found in Annex G on data and sources.
See sources p155.
0 50 100 150
UK costs for citizens affected by the tsunami compared with UK tsunami aid, US$m
Aid disbursements to September 2005
Aid commitments
Aid pledges
Consular costs to end 2005
Figure 3.3. Comparison of UK aid and UK expenditure on consular services
See sources p159.
Table 3.1. Numbers killed and missing from outside the affected
countries33
Killed Missing Total
ASIA-PACIFIC
Australia 26 26
China 3 7 10
Hong Kong 38 2 40
Japan 37 7 44
Philippines 8 8
New Zealand 5 5
Singapore 9 9
South Korea 17 3 20
Taiwan 3 3
Sub-total 146 19 165
AMERICAS
Argentina 2 2
Brazil 2 2
Canada 15 5 20
Chile 1 1
Colombia 1 1
Mexico 2 1 3
United States 18 13 31
Sub-total 41 19 60
AFRICA
South Africa 14 14
ALL AREAS
Grand Total 2,111 105 2,216
Killed Missing Total
EUROPE
Austria 74 74
Belgium 11 11
Croatia 1 1
Czech Rep. 7 1 8
Denmark 45 1 46
Estonia 3 3
Finland 171 7 178
France 95 95
Germany 537 15 552
Great Britain 149 1 150
Greece 2 3 5
Ireland 4 4
Italy 40 40
Luxembourg 2 2
Netherlands 36 36
Norway 84 84
Poland 4 5 9
Portugal 4 4 8
Romania 0
Russia 2 7 9
Sweden 527 16 543
Switzerland 106 5 111
Turkey 1 1
Sub-total 1,904 66 1,970
MIDDLE EAST
Israel 4 3 7
47
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Looking after tourists has been very expensive. The total cost for the consular
operation for the UK was estimated at £42.5mn (US$77.5mn at the average
exchange rate for the period). Most of this (94 per cent) was for the UK police who
provided the emergency call service for families and then provided victim
identification services (National Audit Office and Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, 2005). Given that there were only 150 UK fatalities, this gives a total cost of
just over half-a-million dollars per UK fatality. By contrast, UK disbursementsE12
for tsunami relief to the end of September 2005 were US$130mn (Figure 3.3), with
total commitments running at US$149mn – just under twice the cost of the
consular operation (OECD/DAC, 2006b).
3.3 Stabilisation and relief
3.3.1 Assessing and informing
Estimation of fatalities, damage, losses and needs was very approximate in the
early stages. Initial assessments (and even later assessments) drew significantly
on media reports. The Christmas holiday season slowed reactions in some
countries. Gradually, international agencies responded. Teams were dispatched
from affected country or regional centres, or from head offices. Wherever
international agencies had a pre-tsunami presence the assessment of needs was
more comprehensive (TEC Needs Assessment Study, 2006), the response faster
(TEC Capacities Study, 2006) and more effective (TEC Coordination Study, 2006).
Many agencies and governments posted situation reports on their websites. In
Indonesia the government relief agency, BAKORNAS, produced 43 situation
reports between 26 December 2004 and the end of February 2005. The
government of India emitted 13 situation reports, credited with being timely and
effective. Daily situation reports were provided by the government of Sri Lanka
(TEC Needs Assessment Study, 2006). The United Nations Disaster Assessment
and Coordination (UNDAC) team report was one of the earliest formal
assessments, together with the UN Synthesized District Report in Sri Lanka.
Despite the wide range of such reports they were not very good guides for action:
‘Too often, situation reports and assessments served the interest or mandate of
the assessing agency more than those of the potential beneficiaries’ (TEC Needs
Assessment Report, 2006, p12). Assessments carried out by agencies for their own
programmes were used by agencies for their own decision making. The same was
not true of collective assessments. Despite some examples of successful and
influential assessments, the assessments overall did not fulfil their primary
function of guiding decision making.34
34 The TEC Needs Assessment Report (2006) provides evaluation ratings for the influence that
different types of assessments had on decision making.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Assessments suffered from a number of weaknesses. Emergency needs
assessments by international actors were not geographically comprehensive. The
most geographically comprehensive assessments came later, supported by the
IFIs. Broad coverage reports included the UN Synthesized District Report in Sri
Lanka and the World Food Programme (WFP) Emergency Needs Assessment in Sri
Lanka and Indonesia (TEC Needs Assessment Report, 2006). Despite these good
examples, the UN’s constricting security rules and inadequate support hampered
the UN in many locations. While INGOs could contract helicopters quite quickly, it
was nearly four weeks before UNHAS had helicopters in Aceh.E13
Nor were reports comprehensive across aid sectors. Assessments prioritised
some sectors such as health and shelter over others such as water, sanitation and
livelihood recovery. Difficulties of access to some areas led to the most accessible
getting more aid than the less accessible. Centrally coordinated assessments
applying agreed criteria and methods, and covering most areas and most affected
people, were developed in none of the affected countries.
The most common and glaring deficiency in assessments was the non￾involvement of affected communities in either the collection or validation of
assessment data. This is a persistent problem that has been observed in many
natural disasters. Assessments were not shared with local communities or
officials after completion.E14 The lack of such feedback to communities was one of
the factors in the gap between the international perception of needs and the
perception by local communities and officials.
Agreed standards of assessment quality and common approaches were lacking
throughout the response. Common, countrywide information standards,
definitions, criteria and software (for collection, analysis, storage and
dissemination) were not established. An uncoordinated, duplicative scramble for
often ill-defined, rarely-to-be-shared35 data, resulted. Assessors used multiple
assessment forms of variable quality, methods and expertise, covering some areas
repeatedly and others not at all.
Under these circumstances it is hardly surprising that assessors failed to produce
an accurate description of needs, the capacities available to meet them, and the
priority gaps to be filled.36 The result was a mixed bag of usable and useful
knowledge, accompanied by unusable and useless information. Time was thus
wasted by those who collected information and, more importantly, by those who
patiently informed them (TEC Needs Assessment Report, 2006).
Reliable databanks were slow to be developed. At no time in any country was a
single, reliable, common census register or database of the affected population
established during the emergency phase.37 UN, governmental and INGO databases
were fragmented and duplicative. High quality and timely analysis to support
35 One example of good practice was the sharing of early livelihood assessments by Save the
Children in India and Sri Lanka. However, such sharing was the exception rather than the rule.
36 Even though assessments did not identify gaps, the rising tide of assistance filled most gaps in
any case.
37 The TEC Coordination Report (2006) recommends that the creation of a comprehensive
beneficiary database should be an early priority in the initial phase of the emergency response.
49
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
decisions was rarely available. Over- and under-estimation of affected persons
resulted, in part, from the variety of definitions of who was a potential beneficiary
(in, for example, Sri Lanka). In other cases figures were adapted to suit
programmatic agendas.
Local coping processes were largely ignored in needs assessment (TEC Needs
Assessment Report, 2006). International agencies failed to recognise, map and
measure local capacities (TEC Capacities Report, 2006). Assessments of specific
groups were also lacking or poorly prepared. For example, contrary to international
policies, reliable vulnerabilities and gender data were rarely collected.
Notwithstanding, decisions were made – some considered, and some more
precipitous. Funding was allocated in what the EU’s aid commissioner Louis Michel
condemned as a donor ‘beauty contest’, with world leaders vying to announce
spectacular aid pledges regardless of the actual needs or capacities of affected
countries (AFP, 2005b).E15 However, the largest flow of funds was from private
sources, with funding based presumably on media coverage and agency appeals.
3.3.2 Basic needs
The response moved rapidly from life-saving search and rescue and first aid to
protecting, relieving and comforting. Again, the affected populations provided
most and first.
It is probable that the opinions of affected people have rarely, if ever, been so
canvassed as they were in this disaster.38 In the past it has been less common for
affected populations to be asked for their opinions about the aid they have
received. This constant surveying of the views of the affected population may be
one of the most significant innovations of the tsunami response. The majority of
these surveys have not been carried out by implementing agencies seeking to
38 Three of the TEC studies (Capacities, LRRD and the Funding Response Local Study Overview)
carried out their own affected population surveys in at least two countries, and one of these
included questions raised by the other two studies. Other evaluations have also conducted
beneficiary studies. Many freestanding surveys have also been conducted (for example: Anderson,
2006; Dercon, 2006; Fritz Institute, 2005a; 2005b; 2005c; IOM, 2005a; 2005b; IPS, 2005;
Lindgren et al, 2005; Mattock, 2005; TNS and UNICEF, 2005; UNORC, 2006b; Wall, 2005).
See sources p160.
293,740 BPDE (Badan Pengelola Data Elektronik) Aceh Province: 08 Sep 2005
70,308 BPS. District totals from provisional census totals as of 24 Oct 2005
192,055 SPAN. Number for Aug and Sep 2005 when fieldwork carried out.
For the Districts surveyed in the UN’s IDP Survey
252,179 BPDE (Badan Pengelola Data Elektronik) Aceh Province: 08 Sep 2005
59,328 BPS provisional census data of 24 Oct 2005
39,292 Garansi’s IDP census released in Dec 2005
Table 3.2. Varying estimates of the number of IDPs with host families in
Aceh
50
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
know how well they have done, but by third parties, for academic study or for
external evaluation. For example, the Sri Lanka ‘claim-holder’40 survey conducted
by the TEC Capacities Report (in which 1,055 respondents were asked about how
well their necessities had been provided for) indicates that nearly 30 per cent
responded ‘Good’. Asked how well their needs were provided for during the first
week after the tsunami, however, the ‘Good’ answers rose to almost 45 per cent.
The national response was supplemented by a flood of international aid.
Appreciation was given for outside aid and the generosity shown by outside
helpers. A United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) survey (TNS and UNICEF,
2005, p48) found that 92 per cent of respondents in Aceh considered that aid
agencies had made the most significant contribution in the first year after the
tsunami.E16
Box 3.3. Host families
Host families provided the majority of the accommodation for internally
displaced persons (IDPs) in Indonesia in the first six months. Data on host
families are difficult to capture, as IDPs are dispersed and may regard
themselves as staying with relatives rather than being displaced. The lack of
hard information about host families is highlighted by the various official
estimates of the numbers of IDPs with host families, as shown in Table 3.2.
Host families play a part in almost all emergencies, but while there is a great
deal of literature on camps for the displaced there is very little on host
families. This reflects the undervaluing of local capacities by the international
aid community. One of the factors that made it difficult to identify the number
of IDPs is the mobility of the affected population, again emphasising that
affected persons are moving to take advantage of whatever resources they
have access to, rather than simply sitting in one place and waiting for
assistance.
One example of good practice was the small Swiss Development Cooperation
(SDC) project to support families hosting IDPs in Banda Aceh.39 Generally, little
assistance is targeted to IDPs staying with host families or at host families
themselves. The TEC Coordination Indonesia Case Study (2006, p17) noted
that, ‘Where the international response was largely driven by high-visibility
material inputs, little attention was given, for instance, to supporting host
families’. The same report identified this as being a persistent problem of the
aid system: there was much debate about how to target IDPs living with host
families, but a perennial lack of technical expertise among INGOs (and WFP
for food aid) in this respect.
39 A similar SDC cash for host families project in Sri Lanka apparently had to be abandoned
because it was not seen as being culturally appropriate there.
40 Adapted from the term ‘claimant’, claim holder means somebody who holds the right
(‘entitlement’) to make a claim (eg, to aid commitments or benefits) against a ‘duty bearer’ (eg, a
state or an aid agency).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Relatively timely, effective and competent aid, based on good quality technical
expertise, methods and resources was provided, if neither uniformly nor
continuously. Camps and sanitation facilities were established relatively rapidly
and health services were set up. Cases of severe malnutrition due to the tsunami
were not recorded (though such cases have been relatively rare in similar natural
disasters). Though water and sanitation proved a challenge in some places, major
water shortages or risks rarely existed. Community services and educational
materials, facilities and staff were made available.
Inappropriate aid was just as evident, however: ‘There were numerous instances
of duplication, as well as of the distribution of inappropriate goods’ (TEC LRRD Sri
Lanka Case Study, 2006, p9); ‘The women became very emotional when
explaining about the indignity of receiving old, inappropriate clothing as part of the
early relief’ (TEC LRRD Indonesia Case Study, 2006, p88).E17
There were some gaps and overlaps in the aid provided: ‘Despite the large
amounts of funding raised for the Tsunami response, important gaps in crucial
humanitarian sectors persist’ (TEC Funding Response/Government Funding/EC
Report, 2006, p7). However, there were far more reports about overlaps than
about gaps: ‘Overlaps and lack of coordination, like the cases mentioned in the
section on the provision of housing … can also be encountered in other sectors’
(TEC Funding Response/Local Response/Indonesia Report, 2006, p18).
Duplication and overlaps were a constant background to the relief effort, and
consumed valuable staff time: ‘The meeting was initiated by Oxfam out of concern
for numerous overlaps in livelihood activities in the district’ and ‘The overlap
between Canadian Red Cross (CRC) and Caritas Czech in Setiabakti has been
resolved’ (UNORC, 2006a, p2). The World Bank attributed some of the overlap to
the popularity of some high-visibility sectors: ‘Some donors prefer reconstructing
primary schools due to higher visibility and long-lasting nature of the support, but
overlapping is a problem’ (World Bank, 2005a, p75).
Easily accessible areas, not surprisingly, received most aid, and fastest.
Populations of some other areas remained unattended for more than a week41
while others received more than they required. As noted in the TEC Needs
Assessment Report (2006, p43):
Representatives of local government tell a very different story. Often
themselves victims and beneficiaries, when questioned about the needs of the
affected population the first reaction was one of profuse appreciation to the
overall international community. Then, after a brief pause, the tone would
change slightly, leaning toward criticism. One agent, when asked about needs
being met, said ‘of course the needs were met... even he who had no needs had
his needs met’.
Aid was sometimes provided regardless of actual needs (Government of Indonesia
and United Nations, 2005). As in most natural disasters, diseases were not a major
41 For example, parts of eastern Sri Lanka, parts of the west coast of Indonesia. Both national and
international NGOs were slow to reach parts of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands due to obstacles
raised by the Indian Government.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Box 3.4. Inappropriate aid
Inappropriate aid is a feature of all large emergencies. The media recorded
some dramatic examples of inappropriate aid in the tsunami response
including Viagra and ski jackets (The Guardian, 2005) and even Father
Christmas costumes (AFP, 2005c) as well as the usual expired drugs:
‘Indonesia Health Ministry on Wednesday destroyed some 75 metric tons of
expired medicines which had been part of humanitarian aid’ (Indonesia Relief,
2005c). Tinned pork was sent to staunchly Muslim Aceh (Schulze, 2005, p14).42
Expired food was also a problem: ‘expired food aid was being sorted out and
estimated will need another 4 trucks. Among the food destroyed is food that
already expired since 2003’ (Indonesia Relief, 2005a).
Much of the inappropriate aid may be due to ignorance, perhaps explaining
the mountain of clothing, including heavy sweaters, sent to southern India
(IFRC, 2005b). Some may have been due to a lack of concern with quality:
‘Nobody cared whether the second-hand clothes were culturally inappropriate
or of good enough quality. The presence of high-heeled shoes and female
swimming costumes in some relief packs went unquestioned’ (Fraser, 2005).
Inappropriate aid is not just worthless to the recipients; it has a negative
value. It occupies storage and transport space at the very time when this is
needed for real aid. It then requires special handling to dispose of – all an
additional burden on a response.
It is clear that inappropriate aid was a serious problem in the tsunami
response, whereas it was a minor issue in the response to the Bam
earthquake one year earlier (Chomilier et al, 2004, p24). In Indonesia,
unsolicited and inappropriate goods caused the Secretary General of the
Indonesian Red Cross to send a harsh letter to other RC Societies complaining
of the failure to adhere to guidelines on such donations. The issue was also
prevalent in India and Sri Lanka: ‘More than 60% of NGOs in Sri Lanka and
40% of NGOs in India reported that the receipt of unsolicited supplies had
been high’ (Fritz Institute, 2005b, p3).
It is not possible to quantify this problem, as even those agencies that
normally deal with donated goods in kind keep no special records of the level
of inappropriate assistance. As the proportion and significance of
inappropriate aid is unknown, so too is the proportion of appropriate aid. The
absence of tracking of inappropriate and appropriate aid is a telling weakness
among all actors in their accountability to affected populations and donors.
42 The issue was overcome through a fatwa declaring all aid food halal regardless of contents
(AFP, 2005e).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
threat. That did not inhibit governments, the media and agencies alike from
repeatedly raising the threat of diseases, or from delivering expensive,
unnecessary field hospitals and medical teams – which in the case of India were
not accepted (TEC Needs Assessment Report, 2006).E18
Box 3.5. Disasters and disease
One of the recurring myths of natural disasters is that outbreaks of disease
inevitably follow disasters (Noji and Toole, 1997, p367). Clasen and Smith’s
review (2005) of the drinking water response to the tsunami quotes Blake’s
(1989) survey of 40 years of natural disasters which found that such
outbreaks were rare, and Toole’s (1997) more recent reprise which found only
two outbreaks of waterborne disease and four other outbreaks of any kind in
a review of 38 natural disasters between 1970 and 1992.
The theoretical risk certainly exists, as Alexander (1993) demonstrates with
the aid of Blake’s tables, but a recent review of over 600 geophysical disasters
since 1985 found only three instances where such disasters led to epidemics
(Floret et al, 2006). This is hardly surprising as such disasters often lack the
aggregation of populations which Topley’s (1942) work suggests to be a factor
in the biology of epidemics.
As well as inappropriate aid and problems of gaps and duplication, there were also
problems with: poor quality plastic sheeting; badly constructed, under-ventilated
and under-sized ‘family’ tents; services (such as trauma counselling) provided by
under-qualified, inexperienced ‘experts’; and dabbling by agencies outside their
area of expertise. ‘The high number of NGOs failing to deliver on their
commitments or providing poor quality services (including housing, provision of
boats, psychosocial assistance) caused resentment locally’ (TEC Needs
Assessment Report, 2006, p46).
One key issue highlighted by different surveys was the importance placed by
affected communities on how they were treated: ‘Survey results from both India
and Sri Lanka strongly indicate that relief processes (the manner in which relief is
distributed) and content (the timeliness and substantive adequacy of assistance)
are both of high importance to aid beneficiaries’ (Fritz Institute, 2005a, p4). One
issue for communities was the lack of information about what agencies were
planning: ‘Lack of access to information is causing discontent within
communities, even spilling over into anger and resentment against implementing
agencies who are late in fulfilling promised infrastructure, livelihood and other
programmes’ (Eye on Aceh, 2006, p39).
The TEC LRRD Report picked up on this issue of the failure to inform
communities and the risk that this brought for future development: ‘[S]ome…
interventions may actually undermine future development… A lack of information
to affected populations about reconstruction plans greatly limits their capacity to
proceed with their own LRRD projects… Information is power, and the people
affected by the tsunami do not have much of either. This failure has led to distrust
toward aid providers and the government’ (TEC LRRD Report, 2006, p10).
54
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Effective supplies management, logistics and distribution proved troublesome. The
sheer quantities involved overwhelmed many international agencies and national,
provincial and local actors. In the absence of comprehensive lists of either
supplies or affected people, distribution was often haphazard. Despite the heavy
logistics elements of the response, the field-proven SUMA Logistics Support
System developed by six UN agencies was not used.
Logistics operations in the tsunami response featured: choked airports;43
abandoned heaps of clothing (IFRC, 2005b); vehicles and containers blocking sea￾ports and customs areas (Jakarta Post, 2006); choked warehouses;44 expensive
materials and equipment deteriorating in the sun and rain (Belawan, 2005);
inadequate supplies software and too few data-entry clerks; poor logistics
reporting; and losses, theft or marketing of aid (Gunawan, 2005). While many of
these may have been ‘freak events’ they indicate the varied quality of supplies
management.
Despite major demands elsewhere for staffing (in Afghanistan, Iraq and sub￾Saharan Africa, for instance), most agencies were able to deploy personnel,
including a number of experienced managers, in a relatively short time. Some
personnel were shifted from other emergencies. Staffing inadequacies were also
evident, however. They included: excessive turnover, partly due to short-term
contracting but also attrition (health-induced, for example, leading to gaps due to
inadequate back-up staff); insufficient competent staff (Aglionby, 2005a), especially
in programme management and specialised positions; and a predominance of
inappropriate ‘Western’ profiles, with poor language skills and an inadequate
understanding of context and culture.45
Some aspects of the response generated enormous amounts of publicity, but the
reality is that it was a week before the international community began to operate
in significant strength in Aceh and three weeks before the international relief
effort was going at full speed.E19 The response in Sri Lanka was faster because
access was easier, but even there: ‘Larger national non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) were less nimble in getting out to villages, often arriving
after a week or later’ (Center for Peace Building International, 2006, p1).
Despite the weaknesses and delays in the response, the relief phase passed
rapidly and reasonably effectively thanks largely to local inputs. Alleviation of
transient poverty (temporary, tsunami-related destitution as opposed to longer
term, chronic poverty) was quite successful. ‘Progress has been rapid in
alleviating much of the transient poverty that was created by the tsunami’ (TEC
LRRD Report, 2006, p81). Emergency conditions and related suffering were rapidly
stabilised. The move from relief to intermediate solutions was also generally rapid.
“‘Much has been achieved this year” a statement from UN and other agencies said,
“[A]lmost 250,000 internally displaced people had been moved from emergency
camps to some 54,000 transitional shelters”.’ (BBC, 2005c).
43 The Australian Minister of Defence had to cancel his visit to Aceh on 8 January as the airport
was too congested with 150 aid flights per day (Indonesia Relief, 2005b).
44 Sri Lanka decided to release aid to those not affected rather than let it rot (AFP, 2005f).
45 One agency, for instance, flew over 100 expatriates to Sri Lanka, many inexperienced in the
region (TEC Capacities Report, 2006).
55
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p160.
In some cases cash payments facilitated people’s move to intermediate
livelihoods. Cash was provided in a number of locations, through both cash for
work and cash entitlements or grants. Cash for work was criticised in some cases
as destroying traditional group-work mechanisms. The same criticism does not
apply to cash grants which were almost universally welcomed. These were
generally well received as flexible, easily managed mechanisms for people to
choose their own priorities.
3.3.3 Proliferation of international organisations
The number of international agencies involved in the response grew unabated.
Well-resourced agencies and very small ones, competent and incompetent, well￾prepared and unprepared, secular and faith-based, reputable and disreputable,
household names and unknown, ambitious and humble, opportunistic and
committed, governmental and non-governmental, national and international,
bilateral and multilateral, well-established and just-formed – they all turned up. In
one location in India: ‘[A]t least 150 NGOs/Donors registered… and almost an
equal number were working unregistered in Nagapattinam District alone. All of
them dip into the same basket of livelihood options… creating oversupply,
depressing both the market for trained labor and products’ (Alexander, 2006, p33).
Trying to build a picture of the number of international NGOs is difficult as reports
do not necessarily distinguish them from national NGOs. As well as traditional
NGOs there were people who came to help with their own money, or with donations
from friends and relatives. In Sri Lanka especially, several organisations were set up
by tourists who wanted to help.E20 In the case of Banda Aceh, in addition to the
cumulative number of registered agencies (Figure 3.4), there may have been as
many as 200 small international agencies that stayed only a few weeks.
With the exception of India, Thailand and inland parts of Aceh, governments gave
relatively free access to international agencies. In Aceh this access was conditional
and there were confusing signals from the government about whether agencies
would have to leave after three months. Uncertainty about which agencies would
be allowed to continue working after the first three months paralysed some
agency planning.E21 Little or no regulation and monitoring was applied nationally
Table 3.3. Timeline for selected elements of international assistance in Aceh
Date Since tsunami Event
2 Jan 05 7 days US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln arrives off the
coast of North Sumatra
7 Jan 05 12 days US Marine expeditionary group arrives off Aceh
11 Jan 05 16 days Danish Portable Hospital opens
13 Jan 05 18 days Australian Navy Ship arrives of Banda Aceh but
find nowhere to unload
15 Jan 05 20 days Australian Engineers get their equipment ashore
16 Jan 05 21 days ICRC hospital opens at Aceh airport
56
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p155.
or locally. An absence of relevant national legislation and capacity was a
contributing factor. The quality of the work that agencies did varied greatly. Newer,
inexperienced agencies were more commonly associated with inappropriate aid.
Proliferation was evident everywhere. For example, there were 22 medical NGOs
working in the health sector in one part of the west coast of Aceh (IFRC, 2005b),
95 international organisations working on shelter in Aceh in December 2005,46 and
more than 60 agencies claiming to be working in Aceh’s education sector in
December 2005 (World Bank, 2005a).
The Red Cross Movement response was enormous, as was the total funding it
received (see Section 3.6 below). There are 183 National Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies in the world. Approximately half of these contributed to the
response with cash, goods or teams. When responding to an emergency they are
supposed to work through the National Society of the affected country and/or the
IFRC. Of the affected countries, only the Maldives had no National RC Society. The
capacities of the RC Movement in the affected countries varied, with the
Indonesian Red Cross being highly regarded.
The Indonesian and Sri Lankan National Societies soon had problems with
unwanted and inappropriate donations from other National Societies, despite the
RC Movement protocol that supplies should be sent only in response to specific
requests (Herson, 2005). Some National RC Societies took the opportunity to begin
their first international operations, using the vast funds they had raised.47 The
results of these operations showed that some National Societies did not have the
expertise for international operations. Dercon (2006) notes that a group of 25
agencies who had built only 500 houses from a total commitment to build 50,000,
included 10 Red Cross organisations which between them committed to building
21,000 houses in Aceh.
46 ‘Someone Else’s Utopia’, by Caroline Baum, Sydney Morning Herald, First Edition, 8 December
2005.
47 The Irish RC received over euro31mn from the Irish public and began operations in Sri Lanka.
The Irish RC had little or no international operational experience, but did have a strategic plan to
become operational. It has since also started operations in Niger.
80
40
0
120
160
200
Figure 3.4. Number of registered INGOs in Banda Aceh
26 Dec 2004 26 Mar 2005 24 Jun 2005 22 Sep 2004 21 Dec 2005 21 Mar2006
Note Based on news reports from Reuters, DP Note A, AFP, The Times, etc
(430 local NGOs are also registered). Very small INGOs that arrived with
a single donation or INGOs in other parts of Aceh are not included.
57
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Box 3.6. The costs of proliferation
Irrespective of its origin, proliferation has important implications for the
quality and cost of a response.
• Increased load on the affected populations, local authorities and
coordination structures, which try to understand, and navigate
between, the agencies and attend to their demands for information or
services. ‘Affected individuals felt “assessed to death”, too frequently
interviewed and yet not truly consulted’ (TEC Needs Assessment Report,
2006, p48). The authorities don’t know who’s who and need to talk to all
agencies in the hope of finding serious partners, rather than being in a
position to pre-select: ‘[T]here were simply too many actors involved, at
least in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. This posed huge additional challenges
for governments at all levels, as well as for OCHA. In Aceh scarce
management resources that should have been focused on reconstruction
have had to go into coordination’ (TEC Funding Report, 2006, p33).
• Increased costs due to replicated offices and overheads, as well as
the ways in which non-traditional actors, such as the military and
commercial entities, may use methods and resources that are not cost￾effective.
• Duplication and confusion of efforts, including assessments. ‘The
duplication between UN and Red Cross initiatives is counterproductive.
Over the first three weeks, 17 bilateral assessment teams reportedly
arrived in Aceh’ (TEC Needs Assessment Report, 2006, p56). The same
report found that: ‘The timeliness and quality of needs assessment by
Red Cross and NGOs varied from outstanding to poor. With a few
exceptions, those assessments were not widely shared with others.’
• Competition between agencies for projects, ‘clients’, facilities,
materials, staff and publicity. ‘High levels of funding led to heightened
competition both for partners and for areas in which to work’ (LRRD
Policy Study, 2006). The results were costly and damaging. Such
competition has a corrosive impact on accountability,E22 apparent in the
‘accountability reports’ issued by individual agencies on the anniversary
of the tsunami that focused more on brand promotion than on
accountability (Cosgrave, 2006).
• Increased risks of inappropriate aid, due to the time pressure that
competition and the rush for publicity introduce: ‘[M]any of the items
that were distributed were either inappropriate or unfamiliar to
beneficiaries. Several agencies gave the same items to the same people,
and even in October 2005, there were warehouses with large quantities
of relief items that had not yet been distributed’ (TEC LRRD Sri Lanka
Case Study, 2006, p70).
• Increased risk to the quality of the response and reputation of
the humanitarian community through the actions of inexperienced or
irresponsible agencies. The presence of new and inexperienced NGOs
‘that do not apply international humanitarian principles risks undermin￾ing community based approaches and the reputation of NGOs in general’
(TEC Funding Response/NGO Funding/Ireland Report, 2006, p15).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Some National Red Cross Societies went first to the Federation, and if the
Federation did not want what they had they then went to the National Society. If
that failed they would try to interest the respective government in what they had
to offer.
Typically, approximately 80 per cent of resources, capacity and activities were
concentrated among about 20 per cent of the aid agencies (TEC Coordination
Report, 2006). The greatest amount of funding to INGOS came mostly from the
public directly and did not pass though government or UN agencies. INGOs were
sometimes better prepared, fundedE23 and informed than the UN, to the point that
in some instances they supported functions traditionally associated with the UN.48
Within the UN there were differences between agencies like WFP or OCHA which
have a role in emergency response, and the UN development agencies.E24 Among
the UN agencies, UNDAC was a key actor. UNDAC deployed promptly and issued
the first cross-sectoral, albeit geographically limited, assessments (TEC Needs
Assessment Report, 2006). Its role was unclear and impact questionable, however:
• The combination of assessment and coordination within UNDAC’s ToRE25
complicated its role.
• The number, knowledge, and ‘skill sets’ of the UNDAC experts, and the
support provided to them reflected neither the magnitude of the tsunami
relief effort nor the specifics of certain countries.
• Certain donors and UN actors (who promote or fund UNDAC) either failed to
use its services or duplicated them by deploying their own assessment
teams.49
• The criteria for mobilising UNDAC teams (for instance to Thailand) are
unclear.50
• The value added by UNDAC was not evident to important actors.E26
The TEC Needs Assessment Report (2006, p53) found that: ‘UNDAC neglected the
actual analysis and compilation of information on needs… most NGO and many
UN interlocutors found UNDAC “very weak in the field”.’ The TEC Coordination
Report (2006, p36) added: ‘In all countries, questions arose over the utility of
UNDAC as a “common service” for assessment and coordination… The UNDAC
team was under-equipped with even the basics for communication, there was no
public information or civil–military liaison officer on the team, and no clear
administrative procedures for operating in an environment where quick purchase
decisions were required’.
48 Such as facilitating logistical capacity for the UN.
49 The UK sent an assessment team to Sri Lanka. This team collaborated with the UN and
undertook a joint assessment of Ampara District.
50 The team had been requested by the UN’s Resident Coordinator and not by the Government of
Thailand. The TEC Coordination Report (2006, p36) notes that: ‘The role of UNDAC in a middle
income country such as Thailand is questionable, especially where the team that did not request
its services does not comprise sectoral specialists drawn from the skilled national resource base.’
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s participation in the
response (mainly in shelter) is a major step for the refugee agency. It made history
by appealing for and receiving large amounts of fundingE27 to respond to a natural
disaster, despite its unique mandate to provide international protection for
refugees. The agency’s withdrawal from (as a result of pressure from the
Indonesian government) and subsequent return to Aceh underlined the
complexity of working in areas of armed conflict. On its return UNHCR had a far
more modest target for providing shelter than it had before its withdrawal.
UNHCR reduced its plan to help build houses in Aceh from 35,000 to only 1,000
units (Indonesia Relief, 2005e).51 Other UN agencies also had their shortcomings.
For instance:
[T]he quality of the (WHO) assessment of needs for urgent medical care was
below expectations. Despite the rapidly emerging evidence of an excessive and,
at times inappropriate, medical response in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and to a
lesser extent in other countries, there has been no effort to ascertain the
number of serious injuries, to register the incoming medical teams or hospitals
and their capacities, or to monitor their effectiveness or, for that matter, to
register the mortality occurring after the tsunami. (TEC Needs Assessment
Report, 2006, p101)
On Monday, UNICEF inaugurated the use of a temporary school building to
mark the new school year... The agency has committed to build 200 temporary
schools, and promised to complete as many of them as possible before the new
school year started. According to its contractor, IOM (International
Organization for Migration), only 3 temporary school buildings (are) completed.
(Indonesia Relief, 2005f)
In Indonesia in January 2005, WFP documented a laudable triangulation of
three methods to estimate the number of affected people. Although all three
defensible methods came up with roughly 700,000 people needing food,
allowance was made for one million people to feed for six months in terms
of budgeting in the WFP appeal. UN officials in September 2005 claimed that
while programmes ongoing in April 2005 were at their new maximum
(feeding over 550,000), attempts were still being made to reach those 1
million hungry people. (TEC Needs Assessment Report, 2006, p31)
Military resources – national, regional and from other countries – played a
‘prominent role’ (IFRC, 2005b, p86) and were ‘pivotal’ in filling capacity gaps (TEC
Coordination Report, 2006). Their role was particularly critical in Aceh. Annex F
lists the main logistics contributions from different countries.
Military capacity at times dwarfed that of the humanitarian sector. This is hardly
surprising when one considers that international humanitarian spending is
typically less than 1 per cent of global military spending, and that all Overseas
Development Assistance (ODA) is only about 10 per cent of global military
spending (Figure 3.5).
51 This was apparently a reflection of a change from providing temporary shelter to permanent
housing.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p156.
The US spends as much on the military as does the rest of the world put together
(SIPRI, 2005), and its contribution to the relief effort was on a similar scale. The US
relief operation was, for example, its largest operation in the region since the
Vietnam War, bigger even than Operation Sea Angel (GlobalSecurity.org, undated)
in the follow-up to the 1991 storm surge in Bangladesh.
The commitment of the US administration to the relief effort could be seen in the
sending of one of its first-line Carrier Strike ForcesE28 to the region, and the
diversion of a Marine expeditionary force bound for the Persian Gulf. A further
indication of commitment was the US agreement to operate unarmed when on
Indonesian soil – an unusual concession.
NGO–military relations, however, bordered on the hostile. The TNI was very
suspicious of NGOs as spies and supporters of Acehnese independence. NGOs
accused the TNI of distributing food unfairly (this was unfounded; Schulze, 2005,
p9). NGOs were also critical of the US intervention as being intended to assuage
Muslim opinion,E29 and of the Australian one as being intended to rebuild relations
with Indonesia after the damage done by the secession of East Timor. For their
part, the international military saw NGOs as ineffective and self-promoting
(Schulze, 2005, p9).
Despite this mutual suspicion, there were a significant number of joint military–
civilian endeavours including the assessment missions flown from the USS
Abraham Lincoln, the manning of the USS Mercy with civilian volunteers, and the
transport of 60 NGO personnel from Singapore aboard a helicopter landing ship.
The involvement of foreign military was relatively short-lived: the main US effort
wound down at the end of January and the majority of the other forces left Aceh
by the 26 March deadline set by the Defence Minister.52
Though competition for visibility was a feature of their work, the way in which the
foreign military contingents related and worked to the command structures of the
host nations – in particular, in recognising that the host nation is responsible for
0
400
800
US$ billions at 2004 values
Figure 3.5. Global spending on the military and on development 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2003
2004
200
600
1000
0
400
800
200
600
1000
2000
2001
2002
Note Data from OECD/DAC and SIPRI.
Military expenditure Development aid Relief aid
52 The one exception was the Malaysians, who had been told that the 26 March deadline did not
apply to fellow ASEAN nations, but were subsequently asked to leave in April.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
its population and leads efforts on its own soil – was a good example of
coordinated action (TEC Coordination Report, 2006). While military capacities
were necessary53 and generally effective, a number of important drawbacks exist.
To start with, they can be hugely expensive. Military services can cost four to eight
times that of similar commercial services (Borton et al, 1996, p61).E30 The US
aircraft carrier used in the response probably cost US$3mn dollars a day.E31 Apart
from cost, there were other problems with the military involvement. Contextual
awareness was not always strong among foreign military personnel,54 and there
were accusations that the different militaries gave priority to home-country VIP
visits over aid (Schulze, 2005, p10). Proliferation among the military took the form
of many very similar logistics packages being offered by different countries.
Private companies also assisted in the tsunami response. Much went unrecorded
by the international aid system (such as by ReliefWeb), for example the
contributions of Rolls Royce, Coca Cola and the Indian multinational Tata Group.55
While their aid was generally welcomed and useful, questions arise regarding
their expertise, experience and cost-effectiveness. For instance, the Hong Kong
and Shanghai Banking Corporation spent $500,000 on a clinic built from five
recycled shipping containers in a project managed by Rolls Royce at Calang.56
Also, Rolls Royce was in charge of health services and clinics in one location.57 In
any ‘normal’ circumstances such specialised and potentially life-impacting tasks
would be restricted to agencies with specialist knowledge and skills.
The local business community also played a key role in recovery. In Sri Lanka,
local chambers of commerce worked to promote local recovery in Hambantota
and Ampara.
3.3.4 International coordination
One innovation in this response was the appointment of a very high-profile UN
special envoy, former US President Bill Clinton. This choice may have been
motivated by a desire to have an envoy who could shake loose the donor’s purse
strings (Clinton, 2006). Even though this proved unnecessary, the appointment of
such a high-profile figure proved successful when the focus changed to promoting
the effectiveness of the response, as the Special Envoy had the political clout to
persuade governments to participate in coordination forums such as the special
envoy’s Global Consortium on Tsunami Recovery.E32 Overall, the Special Envoy’s
53 As the logistics capacity the military brings is not available as quickly from civilian contractors.
54 This was illustrated by the US military mistakenly handing an aid shipment over to GAM rather
than to the TNI. They became aware of this mistake only when they showed pictures of the
handover to the Indonesian military (Xinhua News Agency, 2005).
55 Asia Media reports (http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/tsunami/1yearlater/india.asp) about the
Tata Relief Committee (TRC): ‘The Tata Group’s huge presence in South India has also made it a
key player in relief efforts’. A Tata Group media release of 4 January 2005 adds: ‘The TRC has
undertaken relief and rehabilitation work in the tsunami affected area with the help of a 55
member team pooled from different Tata Group companies’ (http://www.tata.com/tata sons/
releases/20050104.htm).
56 This gives a building cost of approximately US$3,500/m2 for a product that, because it will
rust, is far inferior to a structure of bricks and mortar.
57 Responsibilities included not only rebuilding the clinic and accommodation, but also equipping
it with drugs (OCHA: Indonesia Earthquake and Tsunami: Situation Report 37). Agencies typically
had to operate clinics for a few months before the Ministry of Health could take over.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
role was much appreciated by senior UN and government officials interviewed
during the TEC evaluation. UN officials were also very positive about the
appointment of Margareta Wahlstrom as UN Special Representative for the
Tsunami (TEC Coordination Report, 2006).
The establishment of a local Interagency Standing Committee (IASC) in Banda
Aceh became a focal point for interagency coordination for those who attended.
Principles, standards and policy in, for example, the construction of temporary
living centres (TLCs) was promoted through this body (TEC Coordination Report,
2006). In Sri Lanka, the UN decided to engage the government at both local and
provincial level rather than creating a new coordination structure.58
The large number of actors both significantly increased the costs of coordination
(as there were so many more agencies to coordinate with) and reduced the
effectiveness of coordination (as there were large numbers of agencies falling
outside any coordination mechanism). In general, large private funding permitted
INGOs and the RC Movement an unusual degree of flexibility and independence
from formal coordination structures. The need and (in some cases) the will for
INGOs to coordinate was consequently reduced.
Some of the NGOs – both INGOs and domestic NGOs who received external funds
– controlled significant funds: ‘[W]ith their own funding secure, they face few
incentives to improve coordination’ (Jayasuriya, Steele et al, 2005, p18). Many of
these organisations were ‘cash rich’ and keen to start their individual activities
with limited need and incentive to coordinate with local government or with other
actors (World Bank, 2005a).
Agencies have argued that this was in part due to the weak coordination provided
via formal mechanisms. Weaknesses in coordination existed, including
coordination of the transition from relief to recovery. This compounded problems
caused by proliferation, though in Somalia, where there were relatively few
organisations, coordination was still reported to have been weak (Vaux et al, 2005,
p26).
The reasons for this weak coordination were complex:
• The UN’s coordination role is one of coordination without having direct
authority over the other actors. Sometimes the authority for coordination
flows from the personality of the head of mission, in other cases it comes
from the need of partners to get access to common services such as air
transport or security advice. In the tsunami response the number of actors to
be coordinated combined with deep pockets meant that they had no interest
in common services, which made coordination a herculean task.
• Support and funding for coordination were often in short supply. While funds
for coordination were made available in the Flash Appeal, neither immediate
start-up nor subsequent (recovery phase) funds were guaranteed. More
importantly, weak and inadequate administrative systems and support led to
slow responses.
58 There had not been any local IASC equivalent in Sri Lanka prior to the tsunami.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
• The lack of continuity, skills and experience among some senior UN
coordinators posed problems (for example, poor meeting management skills).
Their lack of personal authority denied OCHA the authority to coordinate.
• The fact that the UN Resident Coordinator (RC) and Humanitarian
Coordinator (HC) were the same person meant that humanitarian
coordination took a back seat to other issues.
• Coordinators were criticised for not taking a firm line with purveyors of
inappropriate aid (such as the large number of field hospitals) and with the
authorities on issues meriting joint-agency advocacy (be they mere
bottlenecks, such as customs clearances, or, more fundamentally, allegations
of human rights and other abuses).
• INGOs did not appoint special liaison officers to deal with the large number of
other agencies and the need to share information with them.
Further, NGOs were insufficiently represented in many coordination bodies and
coordinated poorly among themselves. The IASC, despite being replicated at field
level, did not sufficiently reflect, nor speak for, the huge diversity of NGOs,
including national NGOs. A recurring complaint from the deputy HCs was that
INGOs did not bring consistent consensus on important issues being discussed. In
April, the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) proposed an NGO
Platform for Aceh that would become a focal point (and Secretariat) for NGO
coordination in the recovery phase. Gaining consensus around issues was next to
impossible because the members of the INGO community did not agree among
themselves on who had the right to speak on their behalf. It appears that ICVA
membership was neither able to agree the terms of reference for an NGO liaison
officer, nor to the establishment of some kind of NGO liaison office in Aceh (TEC
Coordination Report, 2006).
The earthquake of 28 March 2006, which badly affected the islands of Nias and
Simeulue, diverted resources and attention away from the tsunami response just
as the emergency phase ended and may have slowed the development of more
effective coordination. Several observers noted that the Nias and Simeulue
response was better coordinated than the initial tsunami response, possibly
because fewer agencies responded and there was a far smaller media presence
compared with the initial weeks of the tsunami response.
Coordination structures also presented problems. As a rule they were fragmented
into sectoral groups which, it is argued, inhibited integrated planning within any
specific geographical area.
Recently one of the larger NGOs constructed a number of houses in an area
where the community, working with another NGO, had developed a site plan
that located a road in the area where the houses where built. Lack of
coordination among donors working in the same area also ultimately weakens
local, community-based organisations. (BRR and World Bank, 2005)
This example also shows a failure by the two NGOs to coordinate effectively with
local authorities. Apart from inefficiencies in the response, poor coordination,
especially in the early stages, led to poor ‘lateral accountability’ among
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
implementing agencies. Opportunities to share assessments, valuable reports and
lessons identified were lost.
Another aspect of coordination that presents both efficiencies and weaknesses is
that of UN Humanitarian Common Services (HCSs).E33 Some of the services were
found to have been effective and efficient. A recurring problem was that certain
services (and the so-called ‘matrix’ approach adopted by the HCS) were either not
used or not known. The relationship of services and the host agencies (eg, WFP)
was unclear in terms of management, planning and budgeting. Finally, the HCS
could have been of greater benefit to promote among operational partners
common agreements on issues such as procurement, staff hire and rental charges.
Coordination within donors’ own administrative institutions showed advances on
previous crises (such as the 1991 Iraq, 1991–95 former Yugoslavia, and 1994–95
Rwanda crises). In many cases the humanitarian and development ‘wings’ of a
donor agency worked in very close cooperation. These included cross-functional
(relief-development, political and even administrative) taskforces (Grünewald et al,
2006). That said, coordination among donors, especially in the initial ‘funding
bidding match’, was notably poor in contrast to their commitments expressed
through the Good Humanitarian Donorship principles (GHD).59
There remains a persistent preference among donors for highlighting their own
individual contributions, and many operational agencies spend a disproportionate
amount of time writing separate reports covering individual contributions.
However, greater effort is needed, especially in the case of UN reports, to move
beyond general statements of performance to providing sufficient detail to satisfy
the monitoring requirements of donors (TEC Coordination Report, 2006).
3.3.5 Costs and efficiency
A question often posed by the donating public is: ‘How much money actually got
to the people?’ As Section 3.6 on funding shows, it is impossible to answer this on
the basis of the information available. Even the implication that all funds must be
given directly to people in order to benefit them is flawed. Investments in
administration and logistics are unavoidable, and the issue of surge capacity is a
continuing problem for aid agencies.E34 Additionally, better cost-efficiency may
mean reduced beneficiary choice60 (World Bank, 2005a). It is nonetheless
important to look at cost-efficiency.
Apart from gaps in reporting and differences in accounting definitions and
practices, few agencies have published transparently, in local languages and in
easily accessible formats, their detailed budgets and expenditures. It is usually
very difficult to get information on salaries,61 allowances, consultancy fees,
59 ‘[C]oordination among humanitarian donors lies at the heart of GHD’ (TEC Coordination Report,
2006, p26), eg General Principles 5, regarding collective obligation, and 10, regarding UN
leadership and coordination (Good Humanitarian Donorship, 2003, p1).
60 Having a range of options is inherently more expensive for the provider that offering everyone a
single standard option.
61 However, due to US tax law and Form 990, US NGOs have to publish details on their five
highest paid staff members other than board officers (all of whose salary details have to be given).
This is a positive example of the impact of regulation on transparency.
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international travel and capital costs. Oxfam, widely regarded as one of the leaders
among the INGOs, spent 16.6 per cent of its total budget on programme
management and planning, with another 2.6 per cent on advocacy and learning – a
total of US$16.2mn in the first 12 months (Oxfam International, 2005). While large,
these costs are typical of the real cost of managing complex programmes well.E35
Hundreds of agencies established and maintained staff and offices in affected
areas and in national and regional cities. Most were generously equipped and
staffed. As noted above, many costly assessments were duplicated and many
different agencies were present in the same locations.62 Repeated administrative
costs and overheads are also incurred (often without clarity), as funds pass down
the layers of sub-contracts.
The proliferation of agencies also renders information and coordination services
more expensive.63 Data about numerous agencies must be collected, stored and
updated. Coordination staff, space and services must be provided on a scale in
accordance with the number of actors. Coordination during the tsunami was
simultaneously more expensive in terms of staff time, and less effective in terms
of results.
62 Permata Hati Hospital got assistance from no less than 40 NGOs (Serambi Indonesia, 2005).
63 One hundred agencies may not sound like much, but this is over 16,000 bilateral relations
between the agencies, and over one and a half billion potential clusters of five agencies.
64 One of the authors worked for an INGO where the approximate figure for opening a new office
was generally assumed to be US$250,000 in the early 1990s.
65 Estimated at about 5 per cent of an INGO’s cost in Sri Lanka.
Box 3.7. What does it cost to open an aid office for one year?
International agencies are not transparent about their operating costs, so
direct information is not available. An INGO office would typically need two
international managers with no project responsibility (typically the
representative and the finance and administration manager). The other costs
would include: renting an office and accommodation; buying or renting
vehicles; buying computers, phones, radios and satellite phones; employing
guards, drivers and other support personnel; and paying for flights. All of this
suggests a minimum cost of some US$200,000 to US$250,000 for a cost￾conscious INGO64 with modest pay rates. Given that there were 180 INGOs in
Banda Aceh in 2005, the total cost of all these offices was probably US$35mn
to US$45mn.
First, it is not suggested that all the work should have been done by one
super-agency, so not all these offices are duplicated. Second, this high cost has
to be set against the overall level of NGO spending in Aceh – probably of the
order of two-thirds of a billion dollars in the first year.E36 However the work
could have been done by fewer agencies, or by the same number of agencies
working together in consortia for joint implementation. It should be noted that
the cost of running a local partner NGO office is a small fraction of the cost of
running an INGO office.65
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The presence of multiple agencies drew multiple, expensive visiting delegations
and missions. International missions are unavoidable for international agencies
and donors. One assumes that some had a positive impact on affected people’s
lives, through subsequent decision making. The productive outcome of many of
these visits, however, remains a mystery, certainly to locals and in some cases to
field staff of the agencies concerned. While local transport and lodging might be
regarded as a field-level investment (for either fundraising or planning purposes,
albeit badly targeted), the cost in time, effort and services to local people and
administrations is incalculable.
3.4 Building back better: capacities
for recovery
3.4.1 Achievements
Local recovery began straight after the tsunami and earthquake – although the
process will go on for years, and probably decades.66 A year later, recovery
activities had multiplied throughout the region, with mixed results. Notable areas
of activity include: construction and the production of boats and nets; agriculture
and fishing (including with support from cash grants) (TEC LRRD Report, 2006);
small and medium enterprises (SMEs) providing food, recreation and tourism
services; production of pickles, coir and jute bags; fish drying and marketing;
outboard motor and vehicle repair, service stations; carpentry, plumbing,
computing and electrical services.
It is undeniable that the quick response by NGOs and donors, despite some
concerns about the quality of the assets provided and sustainability of marine
resources, has helped a majority of active fishermen as both an important
psychosocial intervention as well as doubling up during the short term, enabling
them at least a minimal income stream and thus protecting their dignity and self￾respect (Alexander, 2006). Another significant success has been that damage and
loss assessments were more systematic and comprehensive, and better resourced
and coordinated, than were assessments of humanitarian needs.67
About 100,000 new homes have been built or are under construction today
across the tsunami-affected region. Thousands more are in the pipeline. Some
400 permanent schools are under construction and, with the work on
66 Recovery phases after hurricanes in Central America, earthquakes in Colombia, India, and Iran,
and recurrent flooding in Bangladesh all indicate that it will be a long, uneven process. Apart from
human fatalities and physical destruction, losses to livelihoods were devastating. (See Section 2,
The Disaster, above in this report.)
67 These were not a main focus of the TEC evaluations, which concentrated on humanitarian
actors. They are seen as possible models for comprehensive relief phase assessments, as
recommended in the TEC Needs Assessment Report.
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temporary facilities, children went back to school more quickly than I thought
they would. Tourist numbers are on the rebound in Thailand and in the
Maldives. In Sri Lanka, over 70 per cent of households are reported to have
regained a steady income. I am still frustrated that close to 50,000 people
remain in tents in Aceh, but I am pleased that the temporary shelter
construction has been moving much more rapidly. (AlertNet: Highlights of
Former President Clinton’s speech on disaster reduction, 30 March 2006)
In all countries children were back in school very quickly and health facilities and
services were partly restored and, in several cases, much improved. More than 80
per cent of damaged fish markets (in Sri Lanka), boats and fishing equipment were
rehabilitated (TEC Coordination Report, 2006). By month six in Aceh, some
500,000 people had a solid roof over their heads (albeit a majority in host families,
with some 70,000 still in tents). More than 1,000 new houses were being built each
month, and the pace of housing accelerated to 5,000/month in October 2005. In
Aceh, the reconstruction effort provided an opportunity to strengthen the peace
between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) by bringing entire
communities together to plan for their future (TEC Coordination Report, 2006).
Although the tsunami devastated the livelihoods of many it did not result in mass,
entrenched unemployment68 and so a potential livelihoods crisis was clearly
diverted. This was due to three factors:
1 the industrious efforts of the disaster-affected people (TEC LRRD Report,
2006);
2 the job opportunities created by the response, for example in the
construction industry;
3 the use of cash in the relief and recovery efforts.69
The international presence in Aceh probably had a positive effect on the peace
process there. While hard to quantify, local sources say that the international
presence gave them confidence that the peace agreement would be observed.
Some connected the international presence to the progress between the
Indonesian government and the GAM in achieving a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU). One person said, ‘The international presence creates a
pitch for peace’ (‘pitch’, as in a playing field.) Others noted that the MoU was ‘in
part possible because of the international presence’ and that ‘the international
presence supports peace’ (Anderson, 2006, p13).
Civil figures were more positive than international actors, expressing
support for international engagement. This fits with a commonly expressed
Acehnese perspective that international involvement in Aceh’s political
problems will help resolve tensions between the region and the Jakarta￾based Government. The following positive impacts were mentioned:
68 In Sri Lanka an International Labour Organisation survey (ILO, 2005) already in April reported
that 60 per cent of those who had lost their employment due to the tsunami were back at work.
69 Cash for work programmes were often quite limited in duration; however, several governments
made direct cash payments to those affected by the tsunami, in addition to cash grants from
agencies.
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• An economic boost which, if it continues, could become a ‘peace
dividend’.
• An international presence, which limits TNI abuses in particular.
• Greater accountability and reduced levels of corruption.
• More openness and increased confidence in government.
• Promotion of international experience, and encouragement of all
parties towards peace.
• The international presence means domestic civil society can do
more. (Burke and Afnan, 2005).
However, Schulze (2005, p23) notes that good progress on a settlement had
already been made prior to the tsunami, and that:
It is often assumed that there was a direct cause and effect relationship
between the tsunami and the Helsinki peace process – that the sheer
magnitude of this natural disaster ‘made’ the warring factions see sense and
‘instilled’ in them the desire to end the conflict. In the case of Aceh that view is
overly simplistic and neglects the dynamics and processes already underway
which paved the way for a return to the negotiating table.
The outcome in Sri Lanka has been far gloomier. Here, the conclusion of a series
of workshops on the impact of the tsunami was that:
In the short-run, the tsunami and aid promoted a pause in the civil war. In the
long-run, the tensions leading to war have been made worse… Most of the
post-tsunami response made no changes to the conflict or its resolution, while
grievances by the war-affected communities have increased. (Center for Peace
Building International, 2006, p6)
However, it should be clear that whatever, if any, impact the international
response to the tsunami has had on these two conflicts, this effect was
serendipitous rather than planned. In general, international agencies paid little
explicit attention to conflict-sensitive programming in either Aceh or Sri Lanka.70
3.4.2 Disenchantment among the affected
population
Surveys71 record a general satisfaction among affected populations for the
assistance received during the initial stages of the tsunami response. The general
satisfaction with the relief phase soon changed, however, as people’s expectations
moved from relief-item distribution to recovery opportunities and solutions. For
the recovery process, surveys show growing frustration with the speed, direction
and ownership, and not just with international programmes. For example, the
70 Eye on Aceh noted that many of the programmes examined by their study ‘appeared to lack a
conflict sensitive perspective’ (Eye on Aceh, 2006).
71 TEC and other surveys, such as those conducted by UNICEF (Lindgren et al, 2005; TNS and
UNICEF, 2005).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
claim-holder survey in Sri Lanka indicated that affected communities felt that their
local leaders had failed them in ensuring equity and inclusion. The Fritz Institute
found that ‘85% of the affected families surveyed ranked international NGOs
highest in terms of quality, maintenance of dignity, and fairness in distribution of
aid’ (Fritz Institute, 2005c, p7).
One UNICEF survey in Indonesia found that, while 66 per cent of respondents
believed that national and local governments were responsible for ensuring that
the relief and recovery efforts were a success, 92 per cent considered that aid
agencies (mostly international ones) had made the greatest contribution to date.
The agency regarded as having made the most significant contribution overall was
the Indonesian Red Cross, mentioned twice as often as the second-placed agency
(Lindgren et al, 2005, p19).
The TEC Capacities survey of affected populations found that, at the five-month
mark, a little over 5 per cent of respondents answered ‘Good’ and 20 per cent
‘Somewhat Satisfied’ to a question about how well their needs had been met. This
contrasts with the more favourable opinions regarding the relief phase. While
expectations may have risen once people saw the aid potentially available, the
slow progress in livelihoods recovery and physical reconstruction has frustrated
many, with only one-fifth of the displaced in permanent accommodation 12
months after the tsunami (Oxfam, 2005b, p2).
UNICEF’s survey in Indonesia found that 91 per cent of respondents said that the
response was taking much longer than they had expected (Lindgren et al, 2005,
p19). The same survey found that fewer than half of respondents in Aceh had
seen a significant improvement in shelter compared with the first three months
after the tsunami (Lindgren et al, 2005, p41). Dercon (2006, pp1–2) reported that in
mid-February 2006, 15,000 people were still living in tents in Aceh. WFP was also
still providing emergency food relief in tandem with major reconstruction projects.
Surveys show that people’s main concern after the initial days was to get on with
their lives, and to recover as fast as possible. If not aid, they at least wanted – and
deserved – reliable information about recovery plans, resources and methods to
allow them take their own decisions. But evidence of misunderstandings, poor
communication and false hopes emerge from interviews in affected areas and
from media reports.E37 Many agencies controlled more funds than they could
reasonably use. This resulted in promises, real or perceived, that were simply
impossible to fulfil:
Early promises were made that tens of thousands of houses would be built in a
few months time… construction of transitional housing has been delayed and
insufficient, especially in Aceh. Disaster affected people have shown a
readiness to be patient in waiting for permanent housing, but they have been
angered by false promises and the failure to plan for an inevitably protracted
transitional period. This state of affairs is a reflection of how agencies’ struggle
for ‘turf’, by making grand promises, has superseded accountability to the
affected populations. (TEC LRRD Report, 2006, p10)
Some 25 agencies and donors have committed themselves to providing 50,000
housing units, and have started building only 500 collectively. This group includes
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Box 3.8. Impact on women 
The most significant impact of the tsunami on women was in terms of
fatalities, as the tsunami killed 40,000 to 45,000 more women than men.E38 The
TEC claim-holder survey in Sri Lanka indicated that women were less satisfied
than their male counterparts with the tsunami response in all phases, feeling
that international agencies did less than they should have done to protect
women, especially in camps. There were, however, some notable exceptions.
Examples of good practice include the United Nations Development Fund for
Women’s (UNIFEM) work in Aceh fostering women’s leadership, posting
gender advisers in the Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction
Agency (BRR), and forming a working group, in collaboration with the United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), to monitor Shari’a law and to develop a
code on violence against women.
Governments have not always recognised or advanced the property rights
of women. CBOs with a focus on women criticised inflexibility in
relocation, housing and livelihood strategies. The following are some
examples:
• Widows could not opt to rebuild their houses near relatives under the
’house for a house’ policy, which provided for rebuilding on the prior
location of the house or in a designated location.
• Women remained at a disadvantage in accessing livelihood and other
recovery programmes.
• In the Maldives, women with small businesses often had no official
registration and because they could not prove that they had lost their
livelihoods, they did not qualify for assistance.
• Women on a cash-for-work project in the Maldives were initially told to
stop work because they were said to be slower than men. (The INGO
responsible intervened in this case, and women were employed on
other activities.)
• Many of the livelihood projects offered to women, such as mat-weaving
and snack-making, were criticised by female claim-holders as too small
to providea living.
International agencies recognised many of these problems but the
pressure to spend was so great that much money went to easily dispensed
items, such as fishing boats for men, without corrective action to support
women’s status. (TEC Capacities Report, 2006, p33)
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about 10 members of the Red Cross Movement (planning 21,000 units), KfW/GTZ
and ADB, but also INGOs such as World Vision. Some of them are working where
access is difficult, but organisational bottlenecks and lack of expertise are often
the more serious reasons for delay (Dercon, 2006).
One of the most frequent themes raised by local people had to do with the
‘promises’ of NGOs. Many said that the NGOs make many promises that they do
not keep. One man told the story of having been promised credit three separate
times but, so far, ‘the only thing I have gotten is a bucket!’ One said, ‘I am very sad
about the lack of follow-through on promises.’ Another said, ‘We would prefer to
eat poison than promises.’ Others referred to a popular song that has the lyric
‘Promises, promises, all we are left with is promises’ as the way they see the work
of NGOs (Anderson, 2006, p11).
[B]eginning early October, Oxfam staff held meetings with the community in
Blang Oi, and promised 330 Type 36 houses. The community of Blang Oi had
been promised housing on two previous occasions, by the Indonesian NGO
Jenggala (recently renamed YPKI) who promised 100 houses, but built only 20
of such poor standard that nobody would live in them, and by World Vision
who did not even reach the stage of laying the foundations… In total, 273
people registered, and the list was submitted to Oxfam for the MoU to be
drafted – a process that would, according to Oxfam staff, take only 24 hours…
The local organising committee was only slightly surprised when, mid￾December, they received news that ‘Oxfam, with its limited budget next year,
will not be able to meet all of Blang Oi’s housing needs. (Eye on Aceh, 2006)
However, it should be clear that affected populations understood almost any
enquiry by NGOs to be an undertaking to do something about the issue raised. In
particular it is becoming clear that community consultations, while extremely
helpful, are not enough as a method of keeping communities informed. It is very
easy for misunderstandings to occur when exchanges are purely verbal, especially
when one party is an international working through a translator. Instances abound
of communities feeling that they have been made promises that have not been
fulfilled – whether or not the NGOs working with them consider that they have
even made such promises (Wall, 2005).
The local media served an active part in highlighting problems in the supply of aid
by both agencies and local government. For example, this is shown by an analysis
of coverage in the Ceylon Daily News (Table 3.4).E39
3.4.3 Moving to recovery
One of the most remarkable achievements of the tsunami response has been the
avoidance of the traditional funding gap between the relief phase and recovery. In
the tsunami response, agencies had access to so much money that recovery
projects started early. This is a major improvement over responses in many other
disasters.72 Despite this achievement, the perceived pressure to spend, competi￾tion for ‘beneficiaries’ and lack of expertise have resulted in shoddy results:
72 While the funding gap was avoided the problems of the relief recovery transition were not.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p160.
• poor market research leading to inappropriate business models;73
• environmental damage to forestry, topsoil (Alexander, 2006) and fish stocks;
• poor access to credit;
• faulty or badly planned boat production;
• poor-quality reconstruction;
• inflation-inducing profligacy;
• poor anticipation of skills shortages and inadequate training, leading to
outsiders meeting the demand for labour;74
• poor targeting, leading to waste and social tensions (such as non-fishermen
receiving boats, sometimes more than one, while ‘real’ fishermen have been
left empty-handed – TEC LRRD Report, 2006);
• fragmented programming resulting in houses without connection to water
and sanitation, and schools where few or no children now exist, and fishing
boats and nets where there is neither cold storage nor potential buyers.
Topic Number of instances
Inappropriate Aid 86
Corruption 57
Individual grievance 31
Accounts of psychological trauma 28
Reports of protests or violence 22
Gender issues 20
Waste of resources 18
Lack of consultation with communities 17
Mistakes due to ignorance 13
Military related issues 9
Table 3.4. Press coverage of the tsunami in Sri Lanka
Note Tsunami response related reporting in the Ceylon Daily News
in the first three months after the tsunami.
Source TEC Capacities Sri Lanka Country Report, 2006. uS
73 Such as the telephone booth project for tsunami affected families, just as phone call prices in
India plummeted (Alexander, 2006).
74 ‘These [construction programmes] turned [out] to be largely, external, contractor driven
operations. In the case of housing, workers were imported from within the district, within the state
and some [from] as far away as Orissa and Gujarat. A leading Christian relief agency even justified
this import[ation of labour] on the grounds that these workers besides possessing house building
experience in major disaster settings were given “an opportunity to demonstrate solidarity”!’
(Alexander, 2006, p31).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
An estimated 40 per cent of the small boats distributed in Aceh are expected to be
unusable within 12 to 18 months (BRR and World Bank, 2005, p113). Poor quality
boat construction has created dangers for fishermen and has led to many boats
having already been abandoned in both countries. Poor quality assets have
included ‘fake’ rice seeds (TEC LRRD Report, 2006). Similarly, the application of
community-focused methods where no community exists (but, rather, collectives
of disparate individuals and families lacking common interests, backgrounds and
community cohesion) were ill-advised.
Complex livelihoods require complex solutions. Recovery and development are
inescapably political processes. Meaningful commitments to and linkages with
national, provincial and local development initiatives have been weak. Despite the
scale of resources at their disposal NGOs have still concentrated on micro rather
than macro interventions. Major employment investments have rarely been made
by NGOs despite having large funds available. For example, in Sri Lanka there are
many complaints that no assistance has been available for the larger, ‘multi-day’
boats that exploit different fish resources and provide employment and tax
revenues (TEC LRRD Report, 2006). The replacement or upgrading of
infrastructure such as roads and services has rarely been considered.
While ‘build back better’ became a slogan, many actors lacked the capacity to
address complex poverty-related issues such as vulnerability reduction, asset
creation rather than merely asset replacement, infrastructural development (even
Box 3.9. Relief and recovery
Recovery poses a particular problem for relief agencies. Relief is intended to
save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain human dignity during and in the
aftermath of human-made crises and natural disasters. Recovery is post￾disaster development, typically with a goal of restoring a population to at least
its pre-disaster situation. Development is very contested, with little agreement
on what it is, or how to achieve it. Developmental approaches clearly differ
from relief ones. The tsunami response cannot be a magic bullet for recovery
from decades of conflict and under-development. Humanitarian and recovery
approaches, principles and standards differ, and so they probably should. One
result of this, though, is that the responses by humanitarian actors have not
always facilitated recovery.
Humanitarian actors take, by definition, short- or medium-term approaches.
Recovery is a longer term endeavour. For example, it was mid-April before the
recovery Master Plan or Blueprint was approved for Aceh.E40 While some
agencies (such as the IFRC) have committed themselves to multi-year plans,
not all did so. Despite recommendations, the DEC board has, for instance,
decided against increasing the DEC funding period from three to five years.E41
The need for time is as linked to gradual development processes as it is to
political and administrative realities. The saga of the ‘buffer-zones’, and the
related patience-sapping imposition, errors and confusion, are a case in point.
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on a small, local scale), seizing the opportunity for peace-building, gender-sensitive
policy change (including land titling and inheritance) and avoiding reinforcing local
elites. Many agencies simply did not have a sufficient understanding of the
dynamics of local poverty, or the skills to address it. Relief standards, such as
SphereE42 and the Red Cross Code of Conduct, were never intended for complex
economic, social and political recovery processes. The general, or ‘common’
Sphere standardsE43 are perhaps more relevant to recovery than the sector-specific
standards. Ironically, while the latter were often met by the more professional
agencies the former were often not met.
Participation in and support to national and local recovery implies an
understanding of and subtle involvement in local and national debates and
processes. Inevitably this involves political decisions. Humanitarian actors,
working to humanitarian principles,75 generally eschew this type of low-level
political engagement. International agencies and donors have shown a poor
understanding of the complexity of recovery and development, including the inter￾relationships among economics, politics, social structures and culture. As the TEC
LRRD Report (2006) termed it, their ‘arrogance and ignorance’76 have resulted in
false starts, waste and inappropriate aid.
Context insensitive, quick-fix, one-size-fits-all emergency approaches, based on
principles of independence and impartiality, have complicated recovery as much
as they have facilitated it (TEC LRRD Report, 2006). Recovery requires integrated
planning with long timeframes. Linkages among international agencies have also
been weak. While the tsunami response saw increasing cooperation between
members of some brand networks,77 there are relatively few examples of broader
consortia, trust funds or joint implementation, despite the proliferation of
agencies.
3.4.4 Inequities and accountability
Overall, with such generous funding available, most affected people seem to have
received some assistance. Many received more than they ever expected and have
been able to sell the surplus (TEC Donor Response/Local Response/Indonesia
Report, 2006). However, this does not necessarily mean that assistance has been
impartial or equitable. Inequalities in aid were evident: globally between
emergencies (eg, Darfur and Congo versus the tsunami); regionally among
tsunami-affected countries (eg, the Maldives versus Indonesia and Sri Lanka);
nationally (one zone to another, including between conflict and non-conflict areas);
sectorally (between fishing and other sectors); geographically (between more
accessible areas and the less accessible); and socially (between the poorest and
better off, owners and renters, and ordinary people and leaders).
75 Such as the Red Cross Code of Conduct, which includes principles of independence and
impartiality.
76 In India, another report found that: ‘Most NGOs and donors are aware of the tourism options
[for recovery] but do not know how to go about it and have not linked this with their housing
programs’ (Alexander, 2006, p18).
77 Such as Oxfam International or the Caritas network.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
For example, in India fishing communities tended to be more organised and
therefore more successful at accessing aid. On the other hand a focus on asset
replacement has meant that poor labourers or those who dealt in fish, who had no
assets to replace, were left out. TEC studies found that in general the needs of
vulnerable groups (women, the elderly and children) tended to be overlooked or
were not met at the pace or scale expected (TEC Funding Response/Local
Response/Overview, 2006). More generally the need to push out money led to the
duplication of goods and services for some, and the abandonment of others.
Disparate shelter solutions were offered by different NGOs in the same community.
In terms of the rich often receiving more assistance than the poor, this was
evident in government compensation programmes; in aid to property owners
versus renters; to and through community leaders versus ordinary people; and
where fishers (and non-fishers) received boats while employees, casual labourers,
other self-employed and ‘fishwives’ were provided with few or no assets or even
credit to compensate for their losses. Important inequities were also evident, and
persist, between war-affected IDPs in both Sri Lanka and Aceh and people affected
by the tsunami. In Sri Lanka at least, these differences have been seen as fuelling
the sense of grievance of war-affected populations (Center for Peace Building
International, 2006, p6).
Accountability and complaints mechanisms were initially established in only a few
locations. In the Maldives, OCHA supported IDP information and complaints
committees. In Sri Lanka, Medair set up a complaints handling mechanism for
their large shelter project. In Indonesia, Transparency International and a local
anti-corruption movement have been in place for some months, while in Sri
Lanka, Aid Watch and two citizens’ commissions had just begun at the time of the
evaluation. In Thailand the mass media have been used to highlight issues of
accountability and corruption (TEC Capacities Report, 2006).
Despite these mechanisms, accountability and complaints mechanisms overall
were not commensurate with the scale of the funding. They were largely ineffective
in addressing the worst cases of inappropriate aid, wastefulness and negligence
among internationally, nationally and locally managed recovery programmes.
However, there is evidence that accountability has improved with time and
agencies are now paying more attention to the views of affected populations.
3.4.5 Accountability and support to affected people
As shown throughout this section, local and national capacities to save lives,
alleviate suffering, maintain human dignity and move toward recovery have been
impressive. India and Thailand decided to manage without massive international
aid.78 Despite their requests for international assistance, other affected states
were neither ‘failed’ nor among the world’s most impoverished. This conclusion
stands, even considering the weaknesses, gaps, abuses, violation of rights and
78 Some aid was provided, however, through international organisations already active in those
countries (eg through UN agencies, the RC Movement and large NGOs involved in development
programmes).
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Box 3.10. Local capacities and humanitarian standards
Most established aid agencies subscribe to standards and codes that enshrine
respect for, involvement of, and investment in, local capacities.
We shall attempt to build disaster response on local capacities… All people
and communities – even in disaster – possess capacities as well as
vulnerabilities. Where possible, we will strengthen these capacities by
employing local staff, purchasing local materials and trading with local
companies. (Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response and ICRC,
1994 [Red Cross Code of Conduct, principle 6])
Disaster-affected populations must not be seen as helpless victims, and
this includes members of vulnerable groups. They possess, and acquire
skills and capacities and have structures to cope with and respond to a
disaster situation that need to be recognized and supported. (Sphere
Project, 2004, p9)
perceived corruption of national and local authorities and representatives
(especially in conflict zones), as recorded in interviews with disaster-affected
people (Anderson, 2006).
International agencies made positive contributions at a local level in a number of
ways. The raising of awareness about, and provision of expert guidance on, the
rights and entitlements of IDPs is an example (TEC Capacities Maldives Country
Report, 2006). Working in partnership is another. International actors were more
effective and efficient when they built on sustained prior partnerships with local
actors. In Aceh, Oxfam’s NGO support network is a noteworthy example (TEC
Capacities Report, 2006).
In the Maldives, the Care Society, in association with an international agency,
formed a partnership with 25 island community-based organisations (CBOs) to
implement a joint tsunami response programme. This added to the momentum
that led to the nation’s first Civil Society Conference and concluded with the
drafting of a Civil Society Charter for the first time in the country’s history. Again,
though few gender-sensitive approaches were observed in the housing and
livelihood recovery programmes, both international agencies and local NGOs with
a specific women’s mandate have developed interesting pilot initiatives. These can
serve as models for improved women’s involvement in the reconstruction phase
(TEC Capacities Indonesia Country Report, 2006).
Notwithstanding such practices, the elaborate LRRD policies developed by many
agencies were rarely applied. The ‘LRRD gap’ has been more between
international agencies and local people and institutions than among international
agencies of differing cultures, policies and mandates. With, or despite, outside
assistance, people have proceeded with their own recovery. Linkages between
relief and development are better found in people’s own recovery activities, in
sectors most relevant to them, than in over-arching aid-agency plans and
policies. Shelter and livelihoods recovery were the sectors of greatest relevance
to most people.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Despite the principles quoted in Box 3.10, local and national capacities have been
undervalued, poorly supported and often ignored by international agencies (TEC
Capacities Report, 2006). While international aid has benefited victims of the
tsunami (which they recognise) it has also been demanding of local people. The
impact of the ‘aid tsunami’ on affected communities has, on balance, not been
overwhelmingly positive. For example:
• Considerable time was given (generally uncomplainingly) by affected people
for assessments that frequently did not result in their preferences being
turned into action.
• Authorities received endless demands for demographic data, maps, water
and sanitation plans, etc, again without any counterpart commitment to
benefit the respective peoples or administrations.
• Meetings, interviews and ‘events’ and special arrangements for visiting
delegations, VIPs, senior managers, politicians, special representatives, the
media, monitors, auditors and evaluators absorbed time, space, transport,
fuel and even food.79
• Although some international agencies (notably in the Maldives) were
successful in seconding international staff to support public sector
institutions (TEC Capacities Report, 2006), high salaries in international
agencies resulted in a brain-drain of national and local talent.
• Funds passed through international agencies to national and local actors
without any tangible value being added. A cascade of sub-contracts may have
existed for a single donation, incurring repeated administrative costs. While
the ‘ownership’ of the funds remains with the international agency,
knowledge and skills are provided by nationals and locals.
• The constant turnover of international staff created difficulties for local
officials and communities in terms of maintaining relationships and getting
earlier promises implemented.
Agency preferences, interests and brands dominated their interventions. Few if
any agencies attempted to discover (or map) national or local response capacities –
this despite, in many cases, pre-tsunami presence in the respective countries.
Agency reports rarely noted local and national achievements and local support to
international efforts. Local contributions and remittances remained largely
invisible to the international system.E44
English was assumed to be the standard language of coordination and reporting,
thus marginalising and disenfranchising national and local officials, media
representatives and ordinary people.80 Authorities and the public alike were
involved more as adjuncts to international decision making than as protagonists
79 These visits sometimes interrupted the aid effort, as was the case when Jeb Bush and Colin
Powell’s visit to Banda Aceh closed the airport to incoming relief flights for 4 hours in early
January (Aglionby, 2005b).
80 However, having a single language for coordination and reporting does bring benefits for the
international organisations.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
81 Jakarta Times, 26 December 2006 (Thang D Nguyen’s column).
82 The Disasters Emergency Committee in the UK, for example, has never released the full
version of its tsunami evaluation report. The IFRC has published only the Synthesis Studies for
their Real Time Evaluations but not the constituent country reports.
(through, for instance, no more than cursory consultations). Local recruitment
was also often based more on English-language skills than on technical skills or
other specific knowledge.
The issues of accountability and quality are closely linked. A lack of accountability
creates a situation in which poor quality projects can persist. There have been
quite a few instances of civil society organisations being discredited on counts of
poor quality of intervention, lack of transparency in financial dealings and not
being accountable to the community. The tensions and competition observed
among civil society organisations has also affected the quality, delivery and
efficacy of aid. Given that there is widespread awareness and information about
standards in humanitarian aid (for instance, the Sphere standards), it is
unfortunate that issues related to quality, participation and accountability still
continue to plague disaster response interventions (Srinivasan et al, 2005).
Reliable and timely information on programme criteria and content, planned
activities, beneficiary rights and entitlements, budgets, expenditure, staffing, office
location and accessibility and the expected duration of an agency’s presence was
rarely shared, despite having great potential impact on people’s lives. National
authorities, such as the Indonesian BRR, recognise that they do not demand such
detailed reporting nor exercise tight monitoring of international agencies,81
although there is recent evidence that this may be changing (Reuters, 2006).
National and local leadership and quality control of international efforts were
rarely fostered by the agencies. Despite this, national and local ownership and
leadership is recovering. Varied government structures have been created to
manage the response and, to a lesser degree, prepare for future disasters.
National and local leadership is reasserting itself, evident in demands for
fulfilment of agency commitments and for better reporting and accountability.
But still transparency and accountability to both funding publics and affected
people play second fiddle to agency brand promotion. One year on, a range of
media, governmental, parliamentary and agency reports were released. Some
were critical. Most, if not all, agency reports were self-laudatory or insubstantial,
however. At best, only minor failures, or those that can be easily explained away,
were noted. Some reports were not even officially released82 to the publics by
whom they were funded and in whose name funds were solicited. A voice from
the region sums up a reader’s frustration:
It is now fashionable for NGOs and donor agencies to claim or project that they
are totally transparent, accountable and very much a ‘learning organization’,
carrying out numerous ‘learning’ reviews and moderating workshops…
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
designed to discover what worked and what did not and why? Yet [among]
One-Year-After reports, only a handful are… prepared to actually… publicly
admit… at least some… minimal… failings[.] What bombards us instead are
‘sanitized’ reports containing usually a lot of hype, (empty) rhetoric combined
with (often misleading and meaningless?) statistics of aid delivery. Such
deliberate policies of concealment create an overall (mistaken?) impression that
their programs are unmitigated successes, free of controversies. (Alexander,
2006, p7)
While there have been some positive developments on accountability, such as
Oxfam publicly acknowledging a minor problem with fraud in one programme
(Oxfam, 2006), overall accountability was weak. Despite the problems with aid
identified in this report, no sanctions were applied, and few agencies had Oxfam’s
courage to deal openly with fraud or errors.
3.5 Disaster risk reduction
The ‘build back better’ motto has been used frequently, but applied with varying
results. While standards and laws have been set regarding the location and quality
of reconstruction, disaster risk reduction (DRR) has been generally poor. Early
warning initiatives have been mostly focused on high technology approaches
(such as ocean gauges, transmitters and communications systems). Comparatively
little has been achieved regarding more painstaking community-based reduction
of disaster risk – such as supporting communities to identify local risks and
developing collective mechanisms to reduce vulnerabilities and warn against and
respond to disasters.
International preparedness is similarly limited. National and local partnerships for
disaster preparedness are only rarely set up prior to disasters. Guidance
materials, training and tools emphasise managerial, material and technical
preparedness instead of preparedness to support response, map local capacities
and develop strategic alliances during disasters.
DRR has been set as a global priority, in accordance with the Hyogo principles for
action (see Box 3.11 below). In the tsunami response, an opportunity to build back
less vulnerable societies has so far been missed. This is despite international
policies and commitments to sustainable risk reduction.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
83 See www.unisdr.org.
84 This is less than the US$9bn pledged to Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the US$8.2bn pledged to
Afghanistan for 2004 2007 and the US$9.4bn committed to Iraq in 2004. Iraq received nearly
US$15bn of ODA as debt relief in 2005. DAC donor disbursements to the tsunami in 2005 were
just less than half of disbursements to Iraq in the same year. The UN appeal for the tsunami was
the third largest on record. The UN appeals for Sudan (2005) and Iraq (2003) were both larger.
3.6 Funding flows
3.6.1 Funding scale and speed
The financial response to the tsunami was the largest international response to a
natural disaster on record. At least US$13.5bn has been pledged or donated for
emergency relief and reconstruction: 44 per cent from governments and 41 per
cent from private sources, with the remainder from IFIs (these figures are based
on the countries studied in the TEC Funding Response study). The general public
provided the vast majority of the US$5.5bn in private donations. In Japan,
corporations accounted for twice as much as private individuals.
The total figure of US$13.5bn excludes: private donations in countries not covered
by the TEC funding studies; private remittances and projects; private donations in
the affected countries; cash and in-kind donations from within affected
communities; and spending pledges by the governments of the affected countries.
Although there is a risk of some double counting, the total amount pledged and
donated from all sources is likely to have been well in excess of US$13.5bn.
At US$8bn, however, the official response was not the largest ever.84 DAC donors
pledged $5.3bn (Table 3.5). As at 30 September 2005, US$3.7mn (69 per cent) of
the pledged amount had been translated into firm commitments.E45
Box 3.11. Hyogo principles for action
The Hyogo Framework for Action83 is a negotiated outcome of the World
Conference on Disaster Reduction held in 2005 in Kobe, Japan. The
Framework was adopted by 168 governments as a blueprint for DRR targeting
the following five priorities for action:
1 Ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national and a local priority with a
strong institutional basis for implementation.
2 Identify, assess and monitor disaster risks and enhance early warning.
3 Use knowledge, innovation and education to build a culture of safety and
resilience at all levels.
4 Reduce the underlying risk factors.
5 Strengthen disaster preparedness for effective response at all levels.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
An unprecedented number of countries contributed to the response: 99
governments (77 non-DAC) and two intergovernmental organisations. Many
governments had never made a recorded contribution to a disaster before. An
unprecedented number of RC national societies also raised funds: 100 from a total
of 183 member societies worldwide.85 The response was similar among INGOs.
Probably the largest ever number of implementing agencies in an emergency were
involved in the tsunami response. At least 202 NGOs received private donations.
As described elsewhere in this report, some lacked previous experience.
The response was not only large but also fast. In the UK the world record for
online donations was broken, with over £10mn (some $17.2mn) donated to the
DEC website in 24 hours. While this speed of donation was partly down to
increased use of the internet for collecting donations, phone-in donations also
broke records. While government pledges were initially modest, the huge public
and media reaction encouraged a rapid and generous official response.
3.6.2 General public financial response
The private response was unprecedented. The minimum of US$5.5bn given by the
general public to NGOs and UN agencies exceeded the total pledged by all DAC
donors.86 On average, the general public donated 77 per cent of NGO income,
85 Funding timeliness was a record for the RC Movement: 19 per cent of the IFRC appeal
was received in the last week of December 2004, and 58 per cent by the end of January
2005.
86 Unverified contributions may amount to another US$2bn.
See sources p160.
Table 3.5. Funding for the tsunami response
Source of funding Amount Totals
International Flows US$m US$m
Pledged by OECD/DAC Governments 5,324
Pledged by non DAC Governments 593
Pledged by Governments 5,917
Private donations to NGOs 3,214
Private donations to the UN (mostly Unicef) 494
Private donations to the Red Cross 1,783
Total private donations (for countries covered by TEC studies) 5,491
Pledged by Multilateral development banks 2,095
Total of International Flows 13,503
National Flows
Affected country governments (at least) 3,400
Private donations in affected countries (at least) 190
Private donations from countries outside TEC studies (at most) 1,953
Contribution by affected populations not measured
Additional remittance flows not measured
82
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p156.
compared with 13 per cent from corporations. Private individuals were also
the largest source of funds (78 per cent) for the RC Movement (US$1.7bn
from the general public; US$82mn from corporations).
Private donations were concentrated on a relatively small number of
agencies. While 202 NGOs received at least US$3.2bn from private sources
– with 45 receiving more than US$10 million each – 50 per cent of the
private donations (US$1.7bn) went to just 10 NGOs. Another 20 per cent
was shared by the Red Cross Movement and UNICEF. Importantly, NGOs
and the RC Movement were the primary beneficiaries of private funding,
getting 91 per cent of all such funding.
The large amounts of private funds had at least two consequences. First,
the money had to be spent, and relatively fast (most was collected in what
were termed emergency or disaster appeals or campaigns). Second, the
generous funding liberated receiving organisations from any dependence
on the purse strings of official donors. The combination of these two factors
enhanced the independent action of NGOs and the RC Movement. Arguably,
this in turn reduced their need to coordinate with multilateral and bilateral
actors. In 2003, 15 per cent of humanitarian funding came from private
sources. In 2005 this increased to 40 per cent. The massive increase in
private funding associated with the tsunami has made non-government
agencies, including the RC Movement, much more important and numerous
actors in the response.
3.6.3 Official funding
Although official funding was overtaken by private giving, it was still a very
important part of the response. It was the main source of funds for UN
agencies, and UN relief agencies attracted the bulk of this funding. Some
institutional donors earmarked funds by sector. An analysis of the sectoral
earmarking for seven donors (Figure 3.10) shows a concentration on
traditional humanitarian sectors such as food and non-food, and health. In
many emergencies, food makes up 50 per cent of the total assistance; by
contrast, in the case of the tsunami, food accounted for only a few per cent
of the total.
3.6.4 Funding balance
The allocation of funds was unbalanced and not according to need.
International pledges and donations exceeded the estimated total economic
impact of the tsunami (US$9.3bn).87 This is especially so if local responses
are included.88 Contrary to GHD principles, donor pledging was largely
Source OECD/DAC
statement of 12
December 2005. Data to
30 September 2005.
0 20 100
Spain
EU
France
Austria
Netherlands
Australia
Italy
US
Canada
Sweden
Finland
Denmark
Portugal
Belgium
Luxembourg
Switzerland
Norway
New Zealand
United Kingdom
Ireland
Japan
Greece
Germany
40 60 80
% of pledge committed
% of pledge disbursed
Figure 3.6. DAC Donor
commitments and
disbursements against pledges
87 ‘Socio Economic Impacts of the Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004’, ADPC.
88 The Funding Response/Local Response Overview includes figures of US$2.5bn for
India and US$1.7bn for Thailand. Some of this will be international funding (ie,
double counted).
83
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p157.
0 50% 100%
Private
Official
Figure 3.8. Funding channel by donor type
Key: NGO UN RC Affected governments and others
Box 3.12. Why was the public so generous?
Why was the public so generous in the tsunami response? Two of the TEC
studies looked at funding from the public in Spain and Germany, and these
identified some reasons for the support. In Spain those donating for the
tsunami response gave their reasons, in order of decreasing importance, as:
always donate after such an event (64.2 per cent); the media coverage (28.7
per cent); Christmas spirit (17.3 per cent); presence of tourists (8.7 per cent);
familiarity with the affected area (2.4 per cent) (TEC Funding Response/
General Public/Spain Report, 2006).
In Germany the reasons given for the level of donations included: the scale of
the disaster; that people were emotionally affected by the disaster; it was not
human-made, and the victims were innocent; people could really help rather
than just waiting; donors had been to some of the affected countries as
tourists; the media spotlight and the ease of giving; political leaders and
celebrities supported fundraising campaigns; quick response from the aid
organisations; peer pressure – everyone was giving, including friends,
families, and colleagues – making it almost impossible not to donate (TEC
Funding Response/General Public/Germany Report, 2006).
See sources p156.
200
100
0
300
400
500
600
26 Dec 04 2 Jan 05 9 Jan 05 16 Jan 05 23 Jan 05 30 Jan 05 6 Feb 05 13 Feb 05 20 Feb 05
US$ millions
Figure 3.7. Tsunami fundraising in the UK
84
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p157.
0 50% 100%
Key: OCHA WFP UNICEF WHO UNDP Others
Canada
Denmark
ECHO
Germany
Ireland
Japan
Spain
Sweden
UK
US
Figure 3.9. Institutional donor support for UN and intergovernmental
organisations by state donors
Source TEC F S uorce unding Response/Government Funding Synthesis Report, 2006.
Note Other organisations include UNHCR, FAO, IOM, UNDSS, UNEP, UNFPA, Note
ILO, ISDR, UNESCO, UNIFEM, Habitat, as well as the non UN IOM and IDLO.
driven by concerns for public visibility and other political factors. Bilateral or
regional interest, proximity and previous presence were defining factors.
Identified needs were not a priority.
One way in which politics intruded on pledging can be seen from how the
generous public response put pressure on official donors to follow suit. In
Canada, a pledge to match public donations made by 11 January 2005 cost the
Canadian Taxpayer over US$171mn (TEC Funding Response/Government
See sources p157.
0 50% 100%
345678901 345678901
3456 901
345678901
1
34 7 901
345678901
1
1
1
345678901
12345678901 01234567890 01234567890
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2345678901 01234567890
12345678901 12345678901
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2345678901
Food and
non-food
Health Water &
sanita￾tion
Key: Shelter Coordi￾nation
Multi￾sector
Initial
rehabili￾tation
Prepar￾edness
Others
45678901234567 901212345678901234567 901212345678901234567
7
7
5678901234567 01212345678901234567
45678901234567
45678901234567
45678901234567 5678901234567
US 9012345678901234567890121234 9012345678901234567890121234
4
4
9012345678901234567890121234
0123456 1234567890123 0123456 1234567890123
0123456 3
0123456 3
0123456 3
123456 1234567890123
0123456 0123456 0123456
0123456 0123456 123456
UK 23456 23456
23456
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123456 3
123456 3
123456 3
23456 4567890121234567890123
23456 123456
123456
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23456
Ireland 5
5
5
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5
7890123456789 5678901234567 45678901234567
7
7
7890123456789 45678901234567
7890123456789 7890123456789
9
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7890123456789 Germany
56789 56789
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2345678901 78901 12345678901 78901
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12345678901 78901
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1
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12345678901 ECHO 4567890 4567890
4567890
4567890
78901234567890 78901234567890
0
0
78901234567890 Denmark 01234567890121234567890 01234567890121234567890
0
0
01234567890121234567890
678901212345678901234567 678901212345678901234567
7
7
678901212345678901234567 Australia
Figure 3.10. Sectoral allocations by some institutional donors
85
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p157.
Funding/Canada Report, 2006). This was more than had been budgeted for, and
led to the Canadian government using tsunami recovery funds to fill the gap. In
the UK, Prime Minister Tony Blair said on 5 January 2005 that the British
government would: ‘far and away more than match the generosity of the British
people’ (BBC, 2005b). In the event, the UK government sensibly abandoned this
implicit promise and gave, in direct aid, less than one quarter of what the public
gave (Beeston, 2005).
Though recovery needs were significantly greater than emergency needs,89
institutional donor funding was distributed in roughly equal measure between the
two. About half the tsunami pledges made in January 2005 were for emergency
assistance, a quarter for recovery in 2005 and a quarter for recovery in 2006–
2010. This balance may reflect bureaucratic constraints within some donor
administrations on the labelling of funding as relief or recovery. Individual
institutional donors varied widely in the proportions of their funding for relief and
for recovery (Figure 3.11).
Funding was not provided according to agency quality and capacity to implement.
Most government donors tied the bulk of their NGO support to domestic NGOs for
domestic reasons, regardless of whether these were the best placed channels for
this or not. Additionally, some official donors responded to the lack of spending
opportunities through NGOs by increasing their funding of UN agencies, despite
criticism of the slow reaction and poor performance of some of these agencies. Of
all government funding, 34 per cent went to UN agencies.
The funding for the tsunami far exceeded that for many past or current
humanitarian crises, irrespective of assessed needs in the affected countries. Only
one donor – the Netherlands – reallocated unspent humanitarian aid pledged for
the tsunami to crises in Africa. Volumes of aid per affected person in the tsunami
response are of a completely different order of magnitude from those of previous
disasters (TEC Funding Response Report, 2006).
Source TEC F u unding Response/Government Funding Synthesis Report, 2006.
10
0
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100%
Mostly reconstruction Mostly relief
Tsunami reconstruction aid Tsunami relief aid
US (USAID)
Spain
Germany
Sweden
EC
Denmark (pledges)
Australia
UK
Netherlands
Japan
Canada (CIDA)
Ireland
Figure 3.11. Balance between reconstruction and relief for different donors
89 Comparing damage and loss assessments with humanitarian assessments.
86
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
One NGO – Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – acknowledged on 3 January that it
had received sufficient funds for its tsunami operations, and later reduced its
budget. (The flow of money did not stop, however, and MSF has since sought
permission from its donors to divert almost 60 per cent of the funds it collected to
the victims of other emergencies, illustrating the need for more flexible
fundraising practicesE46). In this example of good practice, MSF ran its Niger
programme from reallocated tsunami donations.
Unlike the vast majority of international agencies, only two other NGOs signalled
early on that they had raised enough funding relative to their capacity to spend it
effectively and efficiently – Concern Worldwide in mid-January and CARE
International at the end of January 2005. Both agencies engage in relief and
development. Agencies that declared publicly that they needed no more money
were criticised by other agencies for jeopardising the general flow of funds.
Comparisons on aid volumes per affected person need to be treated with care, as
‘affected person’ is not a consistent standard. In the tsunami disaster, for instance,
roughly 2 million people have been killed, injured or made homeless. But according
to the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), at the
time of the tsunami about 10.4 million people lived within one kilometre of the
affected coastal area and 18.9 million lived within two kilometres. For areas known
to have major impacts where the relief effort was concentrated, the population
estimates are 1.9 million and 3.7 million respectively. Assessments of affected
people in other disasters are similarly varied, so comparisons are only indicative.
If all the tsunami commitments90 were shared out equally among the 1.9 million
people directly affected, each person would receive roughly US$7,100. Funding for
people affected by other disasters has been much lower – in some cases as little as
US$3 per capita (Table 3.6). While there is no evidence from the TEC funding
studies that funding of other emergencies has declined as a result of the tsunami
response,E47 the tsunami response has reduced the human resources available for
other emergencies.
3.6.5 Country allocation and proportionality
By contrast funding has, broadly speaking, been allocated to countries in
proportion to their needs. Funding has gone almost exclusively to the four worst
affected countries: Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and the Maldives. Indonesia has
received 37 per cent of all commitments (including the regional/unspecified) but 50
per cent of the commitments that were allocable by country. It suffered 48 per cent
of the economic impact, and 55 per cent of the human impact (number of people
affected). Comparing the impact percentages to total commitments suggests that
Indonesia has been under-aided and Sri Lanka over-aided.91
90 These are only indicative figures, however. Much of the tsunami money is for long term
national reconstruction.
91 Country allocations by the UN and RC/RC Movement are broadly similar to the DAC
commitments. Between a third and a half of funds have been allocated to Indonesia, and
approximately a quarter to a third to Sri Lanka.
87
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
See sources p160.
See sources p158.
0%
10%
20%
30%
Indonesia
Figure 3.12. Allocation of funding by country Sri Lanka Unspecified India Maldives Thailand Myanmar
Somalia
Seychelles
Malaysia
0%
10%
20%
30%
37.2% 23.5% 22.7% 13.2% 2.5% 0.7% 0.1% 0.1% 0.04% 0.01%
Source TEC Funding Response Report, 2006.
92 This compares with 14 per cent outside the Appeal for Sudan 2005 and 41 per cent outside
the Appeal for Iraq in 2003.
93 For example, sufficiently accurate and comprehensive assessments had not been available at
that stage.
Crisis per capita US$
Tsunami 1.9mn directly affected 7,100
Tsunami: 3.7mn living in affected areas 3,650
Somalia (Drought 2005) 0.7 to 1.1mn affected 114–117
Eritrea (2005) 2.2mn affected 50
Bangladesh floods (36mn affected, 1.2mn homes damaged or destroyed) 3
Table 3.6. Per-capita international funding for different disasters
3.6.6 Appeals
Most of the initial appeals were relatively fully funded. The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and IFRC appeals were both within a few per
cent of full funding. The UN Flash Appeal was 86 per cent funded. Some UN
agencies (such as UNICEF) received more than they requested in the Appeal, and
82 per cent ($4.7bn) of the funding for the tsunami recorded by the Financial
Tracking System (FTS) in October 2005 was given outside the Appeal92 (that is, for
activities and agencies that were not part of the Appeal).
The UN Appeal was not an accurate statement of all priority humanitarian needs
identified by all relevant UN agencies and major NGOs. Pressure for a speedy
appeal encouraged UN agencies to maximise their requirement well before
reconstruction needs or levels of non-Appeal funding were known. The original
UN Appeal amount of US$1.28bn was a largely arbitrary calculation.93 The UN
Appeal did its job in the narrow sense of providing funds for the main UN
agencies. It was a less useful tool for the 37 other agencies participating, which
received only 11 per cent of the total. And it was not useful, in the opinion of most
donors, in defining priorities or framing the response. (Although not covered by
the funding studies, it is likely that IFI funding decisions were more soundly based
on needs assessments.)
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
It is worth noting, however, that funding via official channels was subject to a
number of significant blockages in Indonesia in 2005. These included delays in
releasing budget funds – for example, BRR got its budget for 2005 only in July,
while provincial and district-level governments got their funds only in May. The
bulk of the budget allotment for tsunami reconstruction (US$700mn) was
approved only in June (World Bank, 2005b).
3.6.7 Flexibility and earmarking
Over half of the funds for the UN Appeal were given as un-earmarked money (that
is, not allocated to a specific sector or agency). For the IFRC, a comparatively small
proportion of funds (less than 10 per cent) were earmarked. Donations from the
general public to NGOs are un-earmarked and reporting less rigorous than for
funding from institutional donors. This general lack of earmarking meant that
agencies could be far more flexible in the use of funds than is normally the case.
Some aid was, however, still tied. This probably slowed commitment and
disbursement for donor countries with the highest proportion of tied aid (including
tied goods and services, not all of which were appropriate or of good quality). Also,
tied aid limited the ability of national coordinators to re-direct flows to under￾funded activities.
3.6.8 Financial tracking and reporting
For the first time the DAC surveyed donor pledges, commitments and
disbursements, and figures were reported rapidly. This was a very positive
innovation, being the first time that pledges have been monitored. Government
donors have been generally transparent in the reporting of commitments.94 The
Asian Development Bank and the World Bank have also, for example, been explicit
about how much funding has been a reallocation from previous loans.95
Trying to sort the wheat from the chaff is always a problem. The TEC Funding
Response Report identified apparent pledges by DAC donors totalling
US$5,888mn; however, the official DAC figure is only US$5,324mn. Donors are
not always transparent about their funding. The British government in late 2005
said that it had contributed £275mn to the tsunami response. However, an
analysis of the detailed figures paints a less generous picture (Beeston, 2005).
A major weakness of the funding system is the difficulty of tracing a contribution
through to the actual beneficiary. Tracking stops at the disbursement to an
implementing agency or a second-level donor. Very little is known about what
94 Reporting is not clear enough, however, to say whether tsunami funding represents additional
commitments related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, on this occasion the
DAC has monitored both pledges and commitments and there is every indication that the tsunami
funding is largely additional.
95 A fifth of IFI reported finance from their own funds (that is excluding funds that they administer
such as the trust funds) has come from transfers from other activities within tsunami affected
countries (TEC Funding Response Report, 2006).
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funds are received by a government, community or individual. Whether a pledge
has been delivered, and what proportion of the original commitment has resulted
in the delivery of a benefit, is thus hard or even impossible to say.
Nor are the costs of each transaction clear. Only OCHA recorded on the Financial
Tracking System (FTS) the 3 per cent overhead it was required to charge. A variety
of definitions and charges are made by different agencies. The OCHA FTS relies
on voluntary reporting by governments, agencies and NGOs. Coverage is neither
complete nor consistent.96 For example, only 15 of the UK NGOs studied97 (5 per
cent) participated in the FTS. Thus the FTS objective of improving decisions on
resource allocation by indicating to what extent populations in crisis receive
humanitarian aid, and in what proportion to need, could not possibly be achieved.
Financial reporting standards among UN agencies, the RC Movement and
international NGOs leave the humanitarian system open to criticism. For example,
by September 2005, only 20 per cent of NGOs acting in response to the tsunami
reviewed in the TEC Funding Response/Government Funding/Germany Report
(2006) had reported in detail on their donations and the tsunami-related activities.
3.6.9 Global aid flows
Globally, humanitarian aid has expanded as a percentage of official development
assistance (ODA) over the last 15 years. After falling in the early 1990s, ODA
began to rise in the late 1990s, and saw the steepest ever rise in 2005 (mostly due
to the Gleneagles agreement on debt relief).E48 Humanitarian aid has been
increasing, both in absolute terms and as a proportion of overall ODA, but often
falls back after major emergencies.
The impact on development aid of the increased percentage in humanitarian aid is
not clear. All international aid flows globally are, however, chronically low.98 In
addition, much aid is in fact loans; essentially mortgages on future development.99
96 UN report, p3.
97 Of those covered by the UK NGO study.
98 See Cosgrave, 2006.
99 Preferential access to loans and preferential conditions and costs can be regarded as aid;
however, the grant component is often calculated using a discount rate of 10 per cent a high rate
that artificially inflates the grant element of loans.
See sources p160.
Table 3.7. UK official funding for the tsunami
Type of funding £m of total $m
Direct tsunami funding 75 27% 132
Estimate of tax relief on private donations 50 18% 88
Long term development projects in region 65 24% 114
UK’s share of EU spending 40 15% 70
Debt relief for Sri Lanka over the next decade 45 16% 79
275 100% 483
Note Conversion rate of 1.75529 US$/GB£ for 12 December 2005. o
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Aid is pitifully small compared to both needs and other investments and
consumption including, for example, agricultural subsidies, ice-cream, cosmetics,
pet food and, of course, the arms industry. For the first time, in 2005, annual
international spending on relief was more than 1 per cent of global military
spending for the same year. The three-fold increase in ODA shown in figure 3.13
should be compared with the 13-fold increase in the global economy over the
same period.
See sources p158.
0%
4%
8%
12%
Figure 3.13. Net relief disbursements as a percentage of all net ODA
disbursement
0
40
80
120
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Relief funding as a percentage
of all ODA (bars)
ODA in 2004 US$ billions
(line)
Source OECD/DAC DAC Online Table 1, consulted 4 June
2006 (2005 data is provisional).
4.1 Ownership and 91
accountability
4.1.1 Role and achievements of local people
Despite popular misconceptions,100 disaster-affected people are far from
helpless: ‘communities effectively coped on their own in the first days after
the disaster’ (TEC Capacities Report, 2006, p68). Practically all life-saving
actions and initial emergency support were provided by local people, often
assisted by the wider national public. They showed strength and resilience
in getting on with their own recovery efforts. They have also, albeit slowly,
demonstrated a growing sense of ownership of aid efforts.101 The crucial
role of host families is an example. Moreover, despite weaknesses noted
below, ‘In general, the relief and recovery effort benefited from … well￾developed (though not always well-functioning) national institutions and
legal frameworks’ (TEC Coordination Report, 2006, p39).
‘Ownership’ is defined as the right of possession of, or power or control
over, whatever is ‘owned’.102 In industrialised countries, affected states and
communities control responses to natural disasters. Supporting national
and local ‘ownership’ is a core principle of international development which
Conclusions
4
Chapter four
100 See ‘Myths and Realities in Disaster Situations’ http://www.who.int/hac/techguidance/
ems/myths/en/.
101 Examples from Aceh include angry local people’s ‘rejection of promised aid’ by a large
INGO due to perceived poor performance, and increasingly firm equirements from
authorities for detailed reporting by international organisations on their programmes.
102 Definitions from the Webster and Encarta dictionaries.
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is also embedded in both the Sphere Minimum Standards and the Red Cross Code
of Conduct: ‘We recognise that it is first through their own efforts that the basic
needs of people affected by calamity or armed conflict are met, and we
acknowledge the primary role and responsibility of the state to provide assistance
when people’s capacity to cope has been exceeded’ (Sphere Project, 2004, p18):
‘Effective relief and lasting rehabilitation can best be achieved where the intended
beneficiaries are involved in the design, management and implementation of the
assistance programme’ (Red Cross Code of Conduct Principle 6 [Steering
Committee for Humanitarian Response and ICRC, 1994]).
4.1.2 Good practices despite constraints
The TEC studies identified a number of constraints faced by international
agencies, many related to national and local capacities. For instance, the ‘Maldives
had very little capacity in disaster preparedness and mitigation’ (TEC Coordination
Report/Maldives Case Study, 2006, p24). Other constraints include: ill-advised,
confusing or bureaucratic official policies and procedures; politicised and
centralised decision making, regarding, for instance, beneficiary targeting; and
concerns about corruption and distrust of local leaders. Political and armed
conflicts, as in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, raise dilemmas around independence of
humanitarian action.
Other constraints are rooted within international agencies themselves, and include
the quantity and quality of international personnel, inappropriate methods and
tools, and weak or lack of willingness to engage in coordination. The lack of
significant, predictable, non-earmarked, multi-year funding for developing
appropriate international response capacities is a major drawback.
Despite these impediments, international agencies have illustrated that local and
national ownership of aid programmes can be supported through patient,
discerning, context-sensitive approaches. These include: the use of cash grants;
participatory, complaints and polling103 mechanisms; joint activities; respect for
national reconstruction standards; capacity building; staff secondments; training
of national staff members; and detailed reporting to authorities.
4.1.3 Information and accountability
Information is power. It helps affected people to design their own coping and
recovery strategies and to make informed decisions and choices. Access to usable,
easily accessible information is a major step for people and communities to define
and demand accountability, based on their own standards, regarding entitlements,
involvement and delivery. It also enables them to organise in the face of unfulfilled
promises, poor performance, negligence, abuse or corruption. Finally, it counters
selective reporting (‘spin’) and competitive public relations which are ever more
prevalent among international response actors.
103 As conducted by UNICEF, for instance, regarding children’s opinions of the tsunami response
(TNS and UNICEF, 2005).
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TEC studies found that international organisations have frequently failed in the
modest objective of adequately informing affected people. The TEC LRRD Report
(2006) notes: ‘A tragic combination of arrogance and ignorance has characterised
how much of the aid community… misled people[.]’ (p83); ‘Poor information flow
is undoubtedly the biggest source of dissatisfaction, anger and frustration among
affected people.’ (p73); ‘[S]ome… interventions… may actually undermine future
development[.] A lack of information to affected populations about reconstruction
plans greatly limits their capacity to proceed with their own LRRD projects’ (p10).
‘At the time the evaluation was conducted, the public accountability of the
international efforts toward intended beneficiaries appeared virtually non-existent.
An indicator of this is the difficulty the evaluation team encountered in obtaining
project documents, budgets and progress reports’ (p69).
4.1.4 Overall: a missed opportunity
There is no doubting the complexity of the tasks, contexts and constraints facing
locals, nationals and internationals alike. Exceptional international funding,
however, provided the opportunity for an exceptional international response,
including respect for the principle of local and national ownership. As noted
above, some international agencies managed well; but many did not. Institutional
imperatives of international humanitarian agencies, such as the urgency to spend
money visibly, worked against making the best use of local and national capacities.
Local contexts, institutions and contributions were frequently neglected. Affected
people’s will and capacity to move from reliance on handouts to rebuilding their
lives were inadequately exploited in the relief and early recovery phases of the
international response. They were marginalised, even undermined, by an
overwhelming flood of international agencies controlling immense resources.
These include supply-driven, unsolicited and inappropriate aid, and inappropriate
housing designs and livelihood solutions. Such aid has led to inequities, gender￾and conflict-insensitive programmes, indignities, cultural offence and waste. It is
rarely tracked accurately by international agencies. The myth that ‘any kind of
international assistance is needed, and now’ is fuelled through poor
understanding among the media and donor public. Other examples include:
brushing aside or misleading authorities, communities and local organisations;
inadequate support to host families; displacement of able local staff by poorly
prepared internationals; dominance of English as a ‘lingua franca’;
‘misrecognition’ of local capacities; applying more demanding conditions to
national and local ‘partners’ than those accepted by international organisations;
‘poaching’ staff from national and local entities; and poor-quality beneficiary
participation.
Treating affected countries as ‘failed states’ was a common error (TEC Needs
Assessment Report, 2006, p46). On balance, the TEC studies do not find that many
international agencies lived up to their own principles and standards regarding
respect for local and national ownership, noting:
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• A ‘tendency of assessors to disregard local coping capacity as if none of the
needs were or would be met by national or local actors’ (TEC Needs
Assessment Report, 2006, p10).
• ‘[L]ocal ownership… was undermined and some local capacities were
rendered more vulnerable’ (TEC Capacities Report, 2006, p9).
• ‘The evaluation learned of many instances of minimal contact with
governments and a lackadaisical approach to providing timely information to
appropriate authorities’ (TEC Coordination Report, 2006, p39).
• ‘There was… no correlation between... (international) staff numbers and
(international) efforts to enhance the coordination capabilities of respective
governments’ (TEC Coordination Report, 2006, p42; referring to the
Maldives).
• ‘The local response in the first few days was critical, as was the role of locally
raised funding from governments and the public, and from international
remittances. These are all unrecorded, and therefore unacknowledged, by
international systems’ (TEC Funding Report, 2006, p43).
As Chambers (1997) might ask: ‘So, whose emergency was it?’
4.2 Funding
Governments, multilateral bodies and INGOs may all play a donor role whenever
they channel funds from the real donors – the ordinary contributing and tax￾paying public, including remittance-contributing diasporas. Unless specified
otherwise, however, the term ‘donor’ is used in this section to refer to ‘official
donors’ – that is, governmental or intergovernmental institutions that specialise in
channelling official aid funds. This section should be read in conjunction with
Section 4.5 on aid quality, which addresses issues around accountability to
disaster-affected and donor publics.
4.2.1 Scale, speed and strengths
‘This has been the most generous and immediately funded international
humanitarian response ever’ (TEC Funding Response Report, 2006, p8):
US$13.5bn has been pledged or donated internationally for emergency relief and
reconstruction. More than US$5.5bn of international resources for the tsunami
came directly from the general public in developed countries. Unfortunately, the
international system for tracking funding flows does not register the very
substantial contributions made by the people and governments in the affected
countries.
The TEC studies represent a unique joint undertaking in terms of tracking and
estimating funds in response to a major disaster (involving some 30 country-
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specific studies – see the Annexes for details).104 Funding broke many records.
Unusually, NGOs and the RC Movement often had more funding than donor
administrations or multilateral agencies. The budgetary constraints normally
associated with humanitarian action (Sphere Project, 2004) did not exist. A unique
opportunity was provided to respond in accordance with international standards.
Notwithstanding, TEC Needs Assessment Report summed up the impact of
generous funding on implementing agencies as follows:
Generous funding not only exceeded the absorption capacity of an
overstretched humanitarian industry and deprived it of its customary excuse
for built-in systemic shortcomings, but also led to the proliferation of new
actors with insufficient experience (and therefore competence), as well as to
established actors venturing into activities outside their normal area of
expertise. Finally, the relative excess of funding was a disincentive to assess, to
coordinate and to apply the results of the few collective assessments. (TEC
Needs Assessment Report, 2006, p11)
The actions by the few international agencies that tried to ‘turn off the fundraising
tap’ when limits were reached (and the ire that such decisions engendered among
organisations eager to continue fundraising) are notable.
The tsunami response has again demonstrated that non-financial assistance,
whether it be goods-in-kind or tied aid, is less effective and efficient than cash
assistance.105 Official donor flexibility was notable; as a rule, aid was untied and
often paid in full ‘up front’.106 Reporting of pledges and commitments and the
timeliness of official donations was improved in comparison to other crises. In
some cases, once the enormous scale of global funding became apparent, funds
were shifted to other programmes.107 A number of donors gave reassurances that
the extraordinary funding represented additional resources, and was not a
substitute for other official aid. Finally, despite weaknesses in transparency noted
elsewhere in this report, many donors and international agencies commissioned
early audits and evaluations.
4.2.2 Imbalances in allocation and programming
Imbalances, non-needs-driven motivations (including supporting NGOs based in a
donor’s own country, regardless of any comparative advantage), poor end-user
‘traceability’ and monitoring were evident, however. Donors failed to live up to
many of their own donorship principles. Commitments108 have been made to
104 In addition to the TEC studies on funding, past studies are also enlightening, such as the
OCHA 2003 study on humanitarian financing (by Randolph Kent).
105 Studies have consistently found that tied aid is worth 25 per cent less than the equivalent
amount of untied aid (World Bank, 1998). The same may be true of assistance in goods in kind
rather than cash.
106 However, the OCHA Financial Tracking Systems shows that of a total of US$2.5bn emergency
aid pledges made by government donors, some 21 per cent (US$0.55bn) remains uncommitted
nearly 18 months after the tsunami.
107 Such as DFID’s reallocation of some 10 per cent of its original pledges to its disaster risk
reduction programme (National Audit Office, 2006).
108 A group of 17 donors has developed 23 Good Humanitarian Donorship principles and good
practices (GHD, 2003). These are being adopted by the OECD/DAC.
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‘allocate humanitarian funding in proportion to needs and on the basis of needs
assessments’ (GHD, 2003). A senior official of a donor department signatory to the
GHD initiative put it honestly: ‘When the tsunami hit, GHD went out the window’,
alluding to the political and media pressures brought to bear on official funding
decisions.
The TEC Funding Response Report (2006, p38) comes to a similar conclusion:
‘Allocation and programming, particularly in the first weeks and months of 2005,
were driven by politics and funds not by assessment and need.’ The TEC Needs
Assessment Report showed that most early funding decisions were made
irrespective of assessments. Slow, overlapping, poorly shared and imprecise
assessments were a constraint for donors, which often left them with difficult
choices. Though they commit to supporting the UN in its ‘vital and unique role in
providing leadership and coordination’,109 as the TEC Needs Assessment Report
shows, some major donors by-passed UN mechanisms, such as UNDAC, by
deploying their own assessments.
Imbalances in funding (both private and official) existed among agencies and
activities. Most private funding went to a dozen or so main actors.110 Also,
allocation of funds did not reflect the reality that recovery needs are by far the
most important. Some donors strongly favoured recovery or reconstruction,
however, while others funded mainly emergency needs. Finally, funding was not
based on systematic measurement of the relative effectiveness and efficiency of
different agencies and their programmes. The limited availability of agencies with
the will and capacity to absorb the scale of funding available was also a constraint.
4.2.3 Accountability and transparency in funding
Inadequate transparency in reporting funds was also an issue. The TEC Funding
Response Report (2006, p36) notes that ‘accountability and transparency may be
improving, but the standards of financial reporting among UN agencies, the RC
Movement and international NGOs leave the humanitarian system vulnerable to
criticism’. The lack of system-wide definitions and standards for reporting is a
major constraint. ‘Cascading’ layers of contracts among international, national and
local organisations is a further complication. Additionally, each donor has unique
proposal and reporting formats which makes donor reporting costly, complicates
tracking and adds little value.
More importantly, locally donated funds, resources and services and international
remittances go unrecorded, and therefore unacknowledged, by international
109 GHD paragraph 10: ‘Support and promote the central and unique role of the United Nations
in providing leadership and co ordination of international humanitarian action, the special role of
the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the vital role of the United Nations, the
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and non governmental organisations in
implementing humanitarian action’ (GHD, 2003).
110 Overall, 70 per cent of private donations (an estimated US$3.9bn) went to just 12 agencies:
the RC Movement, UNICEF and the 10 largest INGOs.
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systems.111 Finally, the flow of financial information locally to affected populations
in their own languages was weak. Even when language was not an impediment,
complications existed: ‘Almost all the organisations shared the notion that records
of financial flows should be made available but when asked by the study team to
provide this data they were not prepared [to] share it’ (TEC Funding Response
Report, 2006, p36, quoting the Local Response Overview Report).
4.2.4 Impartiality and global funding
The tsunami response demonstrated that the current international appeals system
delivers variable amounts of funding bearing little correlation with real needs on a
global level. Funding for emergencies continues to be arbitrary, with WFP in the
Sudan being forced to cut rations by half112 while donors generously fund
programmes in Iraq or Afghanistan. This lack of adherence to core funding
principles almost three years after the adoption of the GHD principles is amazing.
It illustrates the urgent need for external monitoring and control of donor
accountability and performance. Self-regulation is clearly not working. While
tsunami funding may not have reduced funding for other emergencies, if more of
it had been reallocated it would have increased funding for other emergencies.
This implies a responsibility for official donors and agencies collecting private
funds to act in a principled fashion in the face of imbalanced funding. They should
either ‘turn-off the funding tap’, or reallocate funds to other operations. In most
cases this was not done.
4.3 International relief capacity
4.3.1 Interwoven capacities
Apart from local capacities, all other national and international disaster response
capacities normally experience some delay in mobilising resources. The required
capacity of the international humanitarian response community and the level of
disaster preparedness in affected countries are two sides of the same coin. The
greater the level of affected-country disaster preparedness, the lower the need is for
international response, and the more effectively and efficiently it can be applied. For
example, ‘The engagement of international actors with local capacities was most
effective and efficient when it was built on sustained prior partnerships with the
local actors’ (TEC Capacities Report, 2006, p11). This section examines three priority
aspects of international response capacity: staffing, coordination and assessment.
111 This gap is not specific to the tsunami: ‘There is a vast parallel universe of Islamic charities
and funds for humanitarian assistance provided by Arab and other Islamic countries, remittances
from diasporas and contributions from local entities in crisis countries that are not recorded in the
official statistics of humanitarian assistance’ (Donini, 2004).
112 ‘[R]educing the daily rations to as little as 1,050 kilocalories half the minimum daily
requirement of 2,100 kilocalories per person while UNICEF is reporting increased malnutrition’
(WFP, 2006).
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4.3.2 Staffing
The tsunami response demonstrated that the capacity of the international disaster
response system to respond to sudden increases in demand (so-called surge
capacity) is very limited. Agencies’ investment in their own capacity is limited by
both the uneven pattern of funding for emergencies, and by the low priority given
to such investment within many agencies.113 ‘The normal level of funding available
for emergencies is much lower than that available [in the tsunami response], so
the “baseline” of staff resources is low’ (TEC Coordination Report, 2006, p42).
Agencies have only relatively small numbers of appropriately experienced
personnel who can operate in an emergency at an international level. The lack of a
predictable career structure encourages high turnover in the sector. ‘Pressure for
quick results… led to recruitment of inexperienced staff’ (TEC Capacities Report,
2006, p36). This may solve the numerical problem but it brings other problems.
TEC studies found that the tsunami response highlighted major weaknesses in
international staff profiles (TEC Capacities Report, 2006), staff quality (TEC LRRD
Sri Lanka Case Study and TEC Coordination Report, 2006), and continuity (TEC
Coordination Report, 2006). This is not surprising as these issues are highlighted
year after year in, for instance, the ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action.
The last decade has seen initiatives within the sector to address some of these
issues,114 including improved surge capacity in agencies115 with the introduction of
standby rosters and preparatory training.116 The numbers trained are still
relatively small, however, and relatively few of those trained are from developing
countries.117 Schemes to improve emergency response capacity118 are still limited
compared to need. Investment in capacity development is at the discretion of
agencies themselves.119
International agencies often met the need for competent national staff by
recruiting from local organisations. ‘The evaluation found some evidence of staff
“poaching” from local NGOs by international agencies’ (TEC Coordination Report,
113 There are exceptions: MSF and Oxfam’s emergency response capacity is the result of
continuing investment in the surge capacity by both of these agencies.
114 Initiatives include People In Aid and their Code of Good Practice, the Emergency Personnel
Network annual seminars, and recent work on staff retention. However such initiatives have so far
had only limited impact.
115 For example World Vision’s regional emergency response structure, CARE’s Emergency
Response Team, as well as the expansion of Oxfam’s long established Humanitarian Support
Personnel system.
116 Most relief workers have no training whatsoever for their relief role, other than learning on the
job. This applies not only at the field worker level but also at the Humanitarian Coordinator level, a
lack highlighted by the recent Humanitarian Response Review. Training initiatives in the sector
include practical training from RedR, diploma level training from Bioforce, academic preparation
from the ECHO funded NOHA programme, and a handful of postgraduate degree programmes.
However, these initiatives mostly target personnel from developed counties and together train only
a small proportion of those involved in aid work.
117 Visa requirements present constraints for developing country personnel coming for training in
other developing countries or in developed countries, and, worse, slow their deployment to
disaster affected counties.
118 For example, the Emergency Capacity Building project of the Interagency Working Group and
UN and RC emergency response capacity enhancement.
119 The United Nations has generally taken the view that personnel are hired for the skills they
already possess before taking up a post.
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2006, p11). The TEC Capacities Report (2006, p35) found that: ‘local agencies were
sometimes undermined by poaching of their staff by international agencies’.
Poaching can have a major negative impact on local authorities and NGOs. It may,
however, place knowledgeable individuals in positions of influence over large
resources held by international actors. It may also contribute to the development
of the poached personnel. The questions here are whether poached individuals
are placed in management positions or serve only as support staff;120 and what
impact the loss of capacity for the local partner has on the response and recovery.
4.3.3 Coordination of international capacities
Effective coordination has a cost in time and resources. It is necessary, however, if
the mix of national and international actors (civil and military) and their different
capacities are to work together in a synergistic rather than counter-productive
way. While the appointment of a high-profile Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery
was seen as positive, there were still problems with coordination at field level. The
TEC reports give numerous examples of poor coordination, and the reasons for it
are presented in Section 3. Three key issues stand out: the number and diversity
of actors make coordination simultaneously more expensive and less effective; the
large amounts of funding (especially private) reduced organisations’ incentives to
coordinate; and the competitive atmosphere associated with this funding reduced,
in some cases, their interest in coordination.
A number of related issues merit mention.
• The military played a key role in the disaster response. The international
humanitarian system has a very limited standby capacity (even through
contractors), such as for airlifting. It looks likely that the military, despite its
high cost, will continue to play a role in global international disaster
response. There is, however, little joint planning and training between the
military and traditional humanitarian actors – and coordination between them
remains weak.
• There was little distinction between coordination at the operational level (who
does what) and coordination at the policy level (on joint advocacy).
• In Aceh, for example, coordination was still based around large meetings. The
number of participants and weaknesses in meeting-management skills
frequently rendered such meetings ineffective.
• There is no agreed representative mechanism for NGOs. NGO joint bodies
are members of the IASC, but they have no authority to make binding
commitments for their members.121 ‘A recurring complaint from senior
120 United Nations agencies in particular have been noted for recruiting managerial level staff
from national agencies and then using them as support staff.
121 INGO joint bodies, like InterAction, ICVA or the Steering Committee for Humanitarian
Response (SCHR), cannot themselves make commitments that are binding on their members. The
lack of any NGO representative body with such delegated authority means that each NGO usually
speaks only for itself, making coordination difficult.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
coordinators was that INGOs did not bring consistent consensus on
important issues being discussed, mainly because the NGO community were
not in agreement about who had the right to speak on their behalf’ (TEC
Coordination Report, 2006, p9). The level of funding held directly by NGOs
made this particularly important.
4.3.4 Assessment
Most of the multiple assessments were conducted for agencies’ own
requirements. They rarely influenced collective decision takers. ‘Overall, the
international response was insufficiently evidence-based’ (TEC Needs Assessment
Report, 2006, p13). The media influenced donor policy and effectively took the
place of more formal assessments. Joint assessment, at least between the UN, the
RC Movement and the authorities would have made sense. With few exceptions,
UN agencies are at a disadvantage as UN security rules and finance procedures
often inhibit rapid deployment. The TEC Needs Assessment Report (2006, p14)
suggested that ‘UN procurement and recruitment procedures must be improved to
secure immediate human resources and logistic support. If not possible,
outsourcing should be considered.’
Finally, better national and local preparedness would have made a big difference.
Almost all the assessments prepared by the international community were based
on data culled from national and local sources.
The weakness at national levels, especially in Indonesia, was in the validation,
compilation and dissemination of these raw data. A modest external
investment in building national capacity would have gone a long way toward
providing a consolidated picture of needs – the ‘big picture’ that, in the opinion
of many donors and decision makers, was sorely missing. (TEC Needs
Assessment Report, 2006, p13)
The same report (p12) also found that:
Humanitarian agencies have much to learn from the successful approach
adopted by the IFIs: expedient cooperation among all partners (above all, the
national governments), significant influx of expertise and visibility, and use of
teams of analysts to reconcile and compile the various sources of information.
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4.4 International recovery capacity122
As explained in the Introduction, recovery is not a strict chronological phase. It is
context- and location-specific, rather than time-bound. It is defined by actions and
aspirations, especially those of affected people, in the move away from
emergency conditions. These generally arise within days, sometimes hours, of a
disaster event, and simultaneously with relief efforts. Disaster-affected
populations, while still concerned about basic needs, soon concentrate on longer
term concerns such as permanent housing, schooling and how to re-establish
their livelihoods. Communities and authorities rapidly move their focus from
rescuing survivors and providing relief to re-establishing basic services,
infrastructure and economic activities.
4.4.1 Recovery and humanitarian action123
‘The tsunami had an immense impact on development processes, conflicts,
patterns of risk and poverty in the affected areas. So did the subsequent relief and
development efforts’ (TEC LRRD Report, 2006, p21). Recovery is about moving
toward development – a complex phenomenon described by Chambers as ‘good
change’ (Chambers, 1997). Recovery is facilitated by appropriate LRRD. ‘In
practice, it is very difficult to distinguish between “reconstruction” and
“development” interventions, especially in the case of the tsunami where
reconstruction will take many years’ (TEC LRRD Policy Study, 2006, p17).
Despite its affinity with development, recovery is placed firmly among the
objectives of humanitarian actors: ‘Donors will provide humanitarian assistance in
ways that are supportive of recovery and long-term development, striving to
ensure support, where appropriate, to the maintenance and return of sustainable
livelihoods and transitions from humanitarian relief to recovery and development
activities’ (GHD, 2003). The Red Cross Code of Conduct adds: ‘we will strive to
implement relief programmes which actively reduce the beneficiaries’ vulnerability
to future disasters… and help create sustainable lifestyles’ (Steering Committee for
Humanitarian Response and ICRC, 1994).
4.4.2 Achievements and constraints
Relief provided affected populations with the security that they needed to begin
planning what to do next. Large amounts of un-earmarked funding allowed initial
recovery activities to commence almost immediately. The gap between relief and
122 Note that while large scale infrastructural reconstruction and the role of national authorities
and IFIs are key to the success of recovery, they are not a primary focus of TEC studies. Also, This
section is linked with Section 4.1 above on Ownership and Accountability.
123 Note that this section makes frequent reference to ‘rehabilitation’ rather than ‘recovery’, as it
is based on the TEC LRRD Report. That report uses the terms rehabilitation, recovery and
reconstruction interchangeably.
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rehabilitation that commonly appears in disaster response was avoided. ‘The aid
community ensured that affected populations obtained the means to live with a
modicum of dignity during the early rehabilitation phase’ (TEC LRRD Report, 2006,
p9). The use of pre-existing development programmes limited ‘the distorting
impacts of (international) relief interventions’ (TEC LRRD Policy Study, 2006, p36),
and the joint assessment of damage and economic impact produced baseline data
still serving as a reference for recovery.
International agencies must grapple with factors outside their control or outside
their areas of competence and also which depend on many actors. These include
issues of land rights and availability, national policies and poverty trajectories, and
environmental considerations. Pre-existing development challenges posed
structural, social and capacity constraints for international organisations in their
LRRD efforts (see also Section 4.1.2 above). Affected governments have at times
demonstrated weak leadership, vacillating on and promulgating different or
damaging policies at different levels of government. They have been slow and
have imposed restrictions. For example, it took several months for a recovery
Master Plan or Blueprint to be approved in Aceh.124 The saga of the ‘buffer zones’,
where residential reconstruction was forbidden within a set distance from the
shore, but later permitted, is another case in point. Also, the absence of clear, pre￾determined national codes for registering and monitoring ‘micro-level’ initiatives
(such as those by concerned tourists), means that we cannot learn from them.
Shelter reconstruction, poverty alleviation, risk reduction and livelihood recovery
are slow and highly complex undertakings. A shortage of ‘recovery’ expertise was
an important drawback, as was a fragmented approach. The latter was due in part
to the proliferation of international agencies and a shortage of operational
consortia and international–national–local pooled-funding partnerships which
could have reduced fragmentation.
4.4.3 Relief approaches and recovery: an
uncomfortable mix
It is too early to judge the ultimate success of tsunami recovery efforts as recovery
will take years, possibly decades.125 Indications of initial performance are available,
however. While good practices and achievements have been evident, short-term
approaches applied in isolation from development realities have frequently proven
inappropriate. This is echoed in a recent DAC publication: ‘Short-term strategies
for relief are no longer viewed as an end in themselves, but part of a process of
system and capacity development’ (OECD/DAC, 2005, p96). Underlying dynamics
of poverty are central to recovery. The humanitarian response addressed transient
poverty but it did not and cannot solve problems of chronic poverty, though it may
124 It was designed by the Ministry of Planning (BAPPENAS) with support from the World Bank,
to integrate and coordinate local, national and international response initiatives. The blueprint was
approved on 16 April 2005 (Government of Indonesia, 2005).
125 As already noted, a follow up TEC LRRD study will be conducted in 2007 to begin to assess
the efficacy of recovery.
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make a modest contribution.126 According to the TEC evaluations, many agencies
involved in the early tsunami response lacked the qualities to make such a
contribution. ‘The incentives of the aid industry need to change in order to
encourage agencies to “get out of the way” when critical tasks require skills and
endurance that exceed what they can actually muster for field-level operations’
(TEC LRRD Report, 2006, p10).
4.4.4 The key: context sensitivity
Affected populations have attempted to move from living on relief to rebuilding
their lives. This is the driving force for recovery. International agencies require an
understanding of how their inputs contribute to ongoing national and local
recovery processes. Generally, however, they have been identified as hindering
people’s own recovery efforts through poor understanding of local contexts and
dynamics (including in addressing populations affected by the armed conflicts).
Important instances of waste, duplication, mistakes and exclusion resulted.
Weaknesses were evident in areas of priority for affected people such as shelter,
livelihoods recovery and chronic poverty alleviation. The concentration on the
distribution of assets, especially boats, was particularly problematic. The failure to
understand or support diversified and sustainable livelihoods, community
development, the development role of income and tax generation, and resource
management beyond own-account fishing and farming was notable. Stereotyping
of options for women, small-farmers and small entrepreneurs was frequent. One￾size-fits-all options were too often the preferred solution. Addressing poor and
affected peoples’ attempts to sustain their livelihoods through participation in
labour markets and the service sector were generally ignored by comparison.
Other ‘blind spots’ mentioned in the TEC studies include the failure to consider
wider perspectives on fisheries, tourism and aquaculture.
Again, short-term approaches were an obstacle. The statement by an INGO
country director that ‘You’ve got too many people running around with no
knowledge of the local context’127 is echoed in TEC studies: ‘[H]igh staff turnover
hampered the ability of international agencies to build institutional memory, in
terms of both contextual knowledge and relationships’ (TEC Capacities Report,
2006, p68). The TEC reports maintain that only a small proportion of international
personnel demonstrated a deep understanding of what kinds of interventions
might eventually prove sustainable with respect to livelihoods, market relations,
community development and natural resource management.
The link between rehabilitation efforts and wider development trends has not
been sufficiently thought through. LRRD is not about a transition from
international relief projects to international development projects. It is a transition
126 Some surveys found that some of the poor were materially better off after the disaster than
before, but there is no indication as to how sustainable this change might be.
127 Quote attributed to Bud Crandall, then Indonesia Country Director for CARE, in: ‘Tsunami: as
Relief Groups Tackle the Immense Task of Rebuilding, they’re Running up against a Suspicion of
Do gooders that’s been Growing at a Worrying Pace’ (Foroohar et al, 2005).
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whereby recovery comes to be led by the affected people themselves. Such a shift
away from dominance by the international community has been slow to take hold.
International agencies tended to ignore and ‘mis-recognise’ local capacities in the
early stages, and only later looked for local organisations to help with recovery. By
that stage, many existing capacities had been weakened, marginalised and
alienated (see, eg, TEC Capacities Report).
4.4.5 Disaster risk reduction (DRR)
Support to national preparedness is foreseen in most humanitarian policies. For
instance, donors commit to: ‘Strengthen the capacity of affected countries and
local communities to prevent, prepare for, mitigate and respond to humanitarian
crises’ (GHD, 2003, p1). The tsunami response has rarely enhanced local
preparedness in terms of significantly reducing structural vulnerabilities. Despite
advances in early warning systems,128 DRR ‘has not been of the magnitude
suggested by calls for mainstreaming made in the first months after the tsunami’
(TEC LRRD Report, 2006, p70).
Reasons for this are complex and are examined in the TEC LRRD Report. Among
them is the fact that ‘the contention surrounding the buffer zones… severely
undermined the will to pursue disaster risk management through land-use
planning and resettlement’ (TEC LRRD Report, 2006, p71). In general, risk analysis
has been weak, concentrating more on obvious hazards and vulnerabilities while
missing more complex aspects – be they geotechnical, socioeconomic or cultural.
Crucially, how people conceptualise and respond to risk in organising their own
recovery has been, so far, inadequately addressed. Also, apart from steps such as
addressing deforestation in relation to building materials, or de-salination and
replanting flooded zones, environmental aspects of DRR (and ‘building back
better’) have been under-addressed.
4.4.6 Inequalities and armed conflict
Affected people and communities are not homogenous entities. Both Sri Lanka and
Aceh have suffered from chronic armed conflicts. Marginalisation at a micro-level
is also evident. Affected people in Acehnese villages, for example, complain bitterly
that NGOs deal only with village officials and that poorer people are marginalised.
Many communities express a distrust of their leadership.129 ‘The international
response… in some cases has unintentionally exacerbated inequalities and
tensions’ (TEC Capacities Report, 2006, p38). With few exceptions, at best the
international response restored the ‘status quo ante’. At worst it strengthened
those who were better off and/or more articulate (such as fishermen who
possessed boats) while marginalising those who had few assets, notably women.
128 The absence of a tsunami early warning system proved costly. Steps have since been taken to
establish an Indian Ocean regional tsunami early warning system through, for instance,
international coordination meetings and technical missions (involving actors such as UNESCO IOC
and ISDR).
129 Both TEC and other surveys, such as those conducted by UNICEF (Lindgren et al, 2005; TNS
and UNICEF, 2005) and the Listening Project (Anderson, 2006).
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The tsunami and the tsunami response have had an impact on the armed conflicts
in Sri Lanka and Indonesia (Aceh). While the TEC studies provide a variety of
perspectives, the impact of the international presence on the peace and
governance situation in Aceh is deemed to have been positive. This is irrespective
of whether or not this was explicitly planned and commensurate with the funding
available to international organisations to achieve positive change. However, the
predominant factor in these conflicts was, and continues to be, the ongoing
political and military processes. Overall, the international response has probably
had a limited impact, at best. Demonstrably, in the case of Sri Lanka, the impact
has not been positive.
4.5 Quality
4.5.1 What is quality?
Aid is intended to meet the needs of affected or target populations. The quality of
any external aid effort can be thought of as the extent of the overlap between that
effort and a population’s needs (all or targeted). This concept of quality
encompasses all of the traditional evaluation criteria with the exception of
efficiency.130 Quality and capacity are closely linked. The quality of an agency’s
performance depends in large part on the quality of its personnel and systems.
Similarly, the quality of an overall response depends on the quality of all its
different components. Poor performance by some agencies can detract from the
aggregate quality of all.
4.5.2 Quality is an enduring problem in the sector
All major relief responses have raised questions about the quality of the response.
Concerns about operations in the Balkans preceded quality initiatives such as the
draft Red Cross Code of Conduct. The Rwanda crisis spurred the ratification of the
Code by many agencies, and other initiatives such as the Sphere project, the
Humanitarian Ombudsman project (which led to Humanitarian Accountability
Partnership-International; HAP-I), ALNAP, the GHD principles, and People in Aid,
among others.
130 The five standard DAC Evaluation Criteria are efficiency, effectiveness, impact, relevance and
sustainability. For humanitarian assistance these criteria can be elaborated (appropriateness, and
connectedness) with some additional sub criteria added, such as coverage, coherence and
coordination (OECD/DAC, 1999). All of these factors, with the exception of efficiency, are a
reflection of how well the aid operation fits the current unmet needs of the affected population
(effectiveness, impact, relevance, appropriateness, coherence, coverage and coordination) or their
implied future needs (sustainability and connectedness).
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Yet despite these initiatives, some of the very same problems that plagued
Rwanda and Kosovo, and the response to Hurricane Mitch, were also seen in the
tsunami response. Their identification can be traced back to the Ethiopian
famine of 1984 and beyond. They have been described year after year in the
ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action and in numerous agency’s own
evaluations and lesson-learning publications. For example, the Joint Evaluation
in Rwanda concluded that:
While voluntary adoption and implementation of the Code of Conduct and
standards is clearly preferable to edicts imposed on NGOs from outside, the
Rwanda experience indicates that it will not be enough to rely on voluntary
adoption alone… Some form of regulation or enforcement is needed to ensure
improvements in performance by NGOs. (Borton et al, 1996, pp161–162)
The TEC tsunami evaluations again highlight this point – that the lack of
enforcement mechanisms for good practice mean that the same problems keep
reappearing in emergency responses.
Box 4.1. Types of regulation
Regulation is the ‘act of controlling or directing according to rule’ (WordWeb
Dictionary). Compliance with regulation is usually supported by the threat of
sanctions. Regulation can take two basic forms: external regulation, where an
external actor is responsible for regulating a sector; and self-regulation, where
the actors in a sector regulate the sector themselves.
There are two main options for self regulation, inter-agency regulation and
intra-agency regulation. Inter-agency regulation is where a group of agencies
agree to an inter-agency mechanism to guarantee compliance. This might be
compared to the self-regulation used by professional groups such as doctors
or lawyers in some countries. With such a mechanism the collective of
agencies would apply sanctions to errant members. However, experience of
other professional groups suggests that such groups are very reluctant to
apply sanctions to members.
This is different from the type of regulation implicit in many of the quality
initiatives of the last 15 years. For these the model is what can be called intra￾agency self-regulation, with each agency being responsible for ensuring its
own compliance with, for example, the Red Cross Code of Conduct or the
Sphere guidelines. Clearly, intra-agency regulation means that there is no
external oversight, not even by peers, and there can be no effective sanctions.
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4.5.3 Quality and proliferation
There is general agreement that there were far too many agencies present in
Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The low entry barrier to the system permits the entry of
inexperienced and incompetent actors.131 New NGOs emerge all the time. There
are almost no mergers in the sector, and few consortia that implement as one
entity. Once they have reached a certain size, agencies usually only go out of
business due to poor financial management and rarely if ever due to poor field
performance.
While the problem of proliferation of international agencies was worst in the NGO
sector, this is also an issue for the UN and the Red Cross, but in a different way.
‘Mandate-stretch’ saw an increase in the number of UN actors becoming involved
in natural disaster response.132 For the RC Movement the issue is not so much
about proliferation of RC actors as the number of RC national societies that set up
their own operational programmes in the response, some of which had little or no
operational experience. Other actors are also increasingly present in disaster
response. As relief budgets grow, we see the rise of humanitarian actors whose
primary institutional motivation is not humanitarian. These include:
• military forces, whose mandate is to implement government policy as given
to them via the military chain of command;
• commercial enterprises, whose primary motivation is maximising profit
(while providing services that encourage the further purchase of those
services), or generating a favourable public image, again with increased
longer term profits as the goal.
Proliferation was also a problem for the military, with many different international
military contingents offering essentially the same packages of assistance (airlift).
In addition to proliferation, poor performance could be traced back to capacity
constraints, poor understanding of recovery, and the fact that agencies were
sometimes operating outside their area of competence. Another factor was that,
due to the large number of surveys of the affected population there is far more
information than usual about how the affected population viewed the response.
The link between quality and capacity was made very clearly by Oxfam in its
report into a fraud in Aceh that led to a temporary suspension of parts of its
programme: ‘The investigation found that while Oxfam’s policies and procedures
are of the highest standard, weak management and monitoring systems in certain
areas, aggravated by high staff turnover and difficulties with recruitment, created
the possibility for fraud to occur’ (Oxfam, 2006).
131 Experienced agencies are not immune from low quality work, but the risks are higher with
inexperienced actors.
132 For example, UNHCR went beyond its mandate of refugee protection to become involved in
shelter for those displaced by the tsunami.
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4.5.4 Why does quality continue to be such an
issue?
The failure of the various quality initiatives to make a major impact on enduring
weaknesses can be attributed to a number of factors. These include resource
constraints and the ‘drivers for quality’. The former are addressed in Section 4.2
above. Here, the discussion will concentrate on what drives the quality of aid
interventions.
The quality delivered by a normal business is driven by its customers. If the
customers don’t think that they are getting good enough quality for the price that
they are paying, they switch to another supplier (where they have multiple
suppliers) or use political pressure to press for improved quality (in the case of
services controlled by a monopoly or by the state, such as the National Health
Service in the UK). The same model of quality control does not operate in the aid
sector. The tsunami evaluations show that the affected populations, far from
controlling what agencies were doing, were often unaware of what the
international agencies were planning.
As shown in Figure 4.1, the donor public does not get good information on the
quality of the response by any particular agency. Figure 4.1 shows three main
routes for information flow from the affected population. The first and most
voluminous of these is communication by the agency itself. Such communications
are often more focused on maintaining brand image and retaining supporters than
on providing a fair and balanced view of the agency’s work. They tend to
concentrate on successes and ignore or gloss over failures.133 The media do not
adequatley fill the information gap, as media coverage tends to concentrate on
single dramatic instances rather than a balanced review of overall quality.
The most detailed information on agency performance may be obtained from
agency evaluation reports, but:
• only some agencies (generally the better ones) undertake evaluations of their
work;
• evaluators may not consult with the affected population;
• evaluators may not be sufficiently expert or, more importantly, independent
to provide an honest and balanced overview of what an agency has done;
• evaluations may not be published at all, or only in a low-key way, so that this
information is only easily accessible internally, or within the sector.
The biggest potential driver for quality should be feedback to the donor public on
the quality of an agency’s operations. But the donor public simply does not get
enough good information and can generally judge an agency’s performance only
on the basis of the materials produced by the agency’s own communications
department.
133 As a visit to most international agencies’ websites readily demonstrates.
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Figure 4.1. Information flow from affected population to the donor public
AFFECTED
POPULATION
DONOR PUBLIC
AND TAX PAYER
International agencies
serve as channels for
the flow of assistance
from the donor public
to the affected
population
Agency communication
departments want to avoid
reporting bad news in case it
damages their brand
Field managers want to
portray their work positively
The affected population is
often not asked about how
useful the agency’s
intervention has been
Largely anodyne reports often
with success stories only
AGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Evaluation
teams of
variable
independence
and skills
Reporter may
talk to affected
population
Evaluation report
may be published
MEDIA
EVALUATIONS
Evaluation
team may
conduct
beneficiary
survey
Media stories
usually either
very positive or
very negative
Available information from
the affected population
Those within agencies trying to promote accountability and transparency have to
struggle against increasingly powerful press and communications departments
which have argued that releasing information about agency problems and
shortcomings could lead to unfavourable publicity and damage to the agency’s
brand. This lack of external pressure for change is one of the critical reasons why
performance has improved so little in the last 10 years (including the performance
of donors). Change in any organisation is difficult, as it runs counter to the
organisational status quo. Without external pressure for change, it is difficult for
champions of change within organisations to push improvements forward.
110 These lessons and recommendations relate to natural disasters. They
should be read in conjunction with the recommendations in the TEC
studies from which they are synthesised. In line with the focus of the
studies they are mostly directed to international agencies, including official
donors. Annex E contains detailed recommendations presented by category
of international agency. Additional recommendations, some relating to
individual countries, are contained in the TEC studies. The Section is
organised under the following four sub-headings:
1 A fundamental re-orientation
2 Accountability and support to affected people and authorities
3 Strengthening international disaster response capacities and quality
4 Strengthening international disaster response funding
5.1 A fundamental re-orientation
Recommendation 1
The international humanitarian community needs a fundamental
reorientation from supplying aid to supporting and facilitating
communities’ own relief and recovery priorities.
‘A fundamental re-orientation of the humanitarian sector is required to
recognise that the ownership of humanitarian assistance rests with the
claim-holders – i.e. that local capacities are the starting point, that long-term
sustainable risk reduction is the aim, and that the role of other players is to
Lessons and recommendations
5
Chapter five
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support. Only when vulnerable people take control of their environment will they
escape from vulnerability. Otherwise they will simply be dependent on fickle
Western public responses and the reliability or otherwise of international aid.’
(TEC Capacities Study, 2006, p44)
This evaluation calls for sector-wide discussions to close the gap between
international practices and international policies that contain the principle of local
and national ownership of disaster response. This will require ‘a fundamental re￾orientation’ from the emphasis on delivery of goods and services to support and
facilitation of local and national capacities. International agencies should focus on
affected people’s priorities rather than on their own institutional or bureaucratic
preoccupations. Two elements are essential:
1 support to pre-disaster capacity preparedness and risk reduction
programmes;
2 appropriate international response approaches during disasters.
Both elements necessitate a commitment to devolve decision making to affected
people as far as possible. Given that policies already exist, including the GHD
principles, the Sphere standards, and the Red Cross Code of Conduct, discussions
should focus on: aid methods, tools and standards; staffing practices and profiles;
administrative and funding procedures; and a long-term strategy to educate the
public and media in donor countries about the realities of disasters and the
rightful ownership of responses by affected peoples and their states. A number of
implications are examined below.
5.2 Accountability and support to
affected people and authorities
5.2.1 Accountability to affected people
The degree of success in meeting affected people’s needs (including the need for a
supportive, enabling environment) should be the primary indicator for all
accountabilities. Arguably, information is the most powerful tool not just for
accountability, but also for coping and recovery strategies. There is a need to
develop an aid principle based on the right ‘to seek, receive and impart
information’.134 This would establish freedom of information regarding all disaster
response efforts, including international activities. It would imply a responsibility
to inform affected people in an accessible language – not just about performance
134 Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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standards, programmes and concerns or complaints mechanisms, but about all
significant aspects of programming, including budgets. International agencies
should make their systems and practices suitable for maximum participation by
local people, starting with information management. This requires appropriate
assessment, planning, intervention and communication methods, tools and skills.
The following list of practical steps could be developed into ‘good practice’
guidance materials.
Transparency can be improved through a commitment by response actors to
proactive transparency, not just passive publication of operational data, accounts
and reports. This would imply active diffusion and public analysis of information
about agencies’ operations, financial performance and accountability. This would
include detailed explanations of aims; methods; beneficiary entitlements and lists;
key partners and intermediaries; sources and amounts of funding; expenditure
and aid distribution sites; and timetables. It would require the systematic sharing
with and validation by local leaders and communities of assessments and project
proposals, soliciting or reporting on funds for aiding those same communities.
Information should include aid agencies’ medium- and longer term intentions, if
any, regarding disaster recovery. Budgets and accounts should be presented in lay￾person’s terms, explaining what the money was spent on, where, through and for
whom and when. Senior staff profiles and salaries should also be made available.
Transparency could also be improved through:
• Methods such as mass communication campaigns, including the use of radio
and television, internet and printed media targeted especially at local
populations. The distribution of low-cost pocket radios could, for instance,
complement targeted local radio information slots.
• Adopting as an aid standard that a language accessible to local people is used
for communicating with them and for coordination at the local level. This
would, naturally, require greater emphasis on hiring appropriately skilled
staff, both international and local.
• Systematic targeting of information at marginalised groups, be they socially,
ethnically or gender based. Strategies should be developed to ensure that, for
example, women have full access to information.
• Improving and adapting assessment processes so that they involve local
people as much as possible and address local concerns as rapidly as possible.
Based on the above, policies, standards and indicators regarding transparency and
accountability should be developed to support the over-arching principle of ‘the
right to know and the responsibility to inform’. (Information standards should be
considered in, for example, any international regulatory system – see Section
5.3.4). These might address: the proportion of relevant information that is made
available in local languages and how fast (what key aid data have been published
locally and how soon after initial assessments); the range, effectiveness, frequency
and quality of dissemination events and methods; the proportion of staff members
who can communicate effectively in local languages; and the accuracy and
regularity of updating information. Such standards should be adapted for use in
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measuring accountability to donor publics and peer agencies. Adherence to such
standards could be a requirement for international agencies’ accreditation and/or
certification.
Just as agencies develop accountability manuals and training for themselves, such
tools are even more necessary for communities to facilitate them in their demands
for accountability and good performance, rather than waiting for agencies to act
voluntarily. For example, response agencies should promote and strengthen self￾managed watchdog movements and public audits. Signboards, complaints hotlines,
opinion surveys, suggestion boxes, focus groups and opinion polls are insufficient
in isolation. They need to be augmented by intensive community capacity-mapping
and reinforcing, including facilitation by people who can link communities with
decision makers and vice versa. The facilitators, in turn, require independence (for
example, in terms of their resources and decision making) in order to play this
bridging role effectively. The facilitators need to have sufficient understanding of
the context to avoid the ‘capture’ of the interface with the community by local
elites. Finally, more research should be undertaken on which accountability
interventions tend to work well, which do not and why.
5.2.2 Support to local capacities
Support should aim to empower affected people to articulate claims, demand
accountability and make their own choices. Agencies should recognise that
appropriate approaches are less to do with over-arching policies than with
methodologies135 and capacities, especially skills, knowledge, attitudes and tools.
For instance, tools and skills for systematically mapping local capacities and
contexts should be developed. These should include tools for estimating the value
of local contributions and remittances in emergencies, and the opportunity costs
of international operations.136
During disasters, the control of resources should be vested in local actors through
culturally sensitive and context-specific approaches. These include: cash
payments; locally managed trust-fund mechanisms; better-supported national staff
in management positions; and more and better support to host families. This also
requires institutional reinforcement and partnership strategies (with, for example,
cooperatives, associations and federations)137 to strengthen local relief and
recovery. International agency partnership procedures should be adapted, leading
135 The following simple methodology should be adopted by international organisations: mapping
the external environment (including an analysis of disaster impact on and needs and capacities of
local actors); mapping the internal environment (including an analysis of the international
organisation’s own mandate, capacity to respond and that of its partners); and developing an
appropriate response strategy (including the scope and scale of interventions, implementation
methodology, management arrangements, programme approach and risk management).
136 The opportunity cost of resources being channelled through international agencies rather than
through national and local actors in terms of the demands placed on local people and the
differences between international and local organisation ‘operational’ costs, such as salaries and
benefits.
137 Through, for example, providing funds, technical assistance and perhaps materials, in
accordance with their own identified priorities.
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to, for example: longer time periods for grants; more flexible reporting and
overhead requirements; agreements to address poaching138 of staff; and
commitments to capacity recognition and building instead of mere sub￾contracting.
Aid should be provided according to need rather than limited to a narrow disaster￾affected population. Increased attention should be given to social inequalities,
exclusion and hierarchies in disaster responses. International agencies’ planning
should be based on the assumption that aid is likely to reinforce inequalities
within the community unless corrective action is taken. Identification and
inclusion of the most marginalised should be treated as a fundamental principle.
For instance, women claim-holders should be represented in all decision-making
bodies affecting them.
All actors should strive to reduce disaster risks and increase disaster response
capacities at community, national, and international levels, within the framework
of local development processes and plans. Generous, patient and multi-year
investments and technical support are required in, for instance: spatial planning;
community-based risk education and risk identification; vulnerability reduction
measures; institutional support; contingency planning; and legal reforms. Support
should extend to a wide range of local civil-society organisations including poorer,
marginalised and specific groups (such as women’s associations).
Finally, international agencies should improve global disaster risk reduction by
systematising learning from successful indigenous and other local experience and
practices. Research is needed to capture replicable examples.
5.2.3 Accountability to host authorities
International agencies need to respect the role and responsibility of affected states
as the primary authorities – be they national, provincial, local – in responding to
natural disasters and ensuring risk reduction. Similarly, states in high-risk regions
have a responsibility as the primary duty-bearers in risk-reduction activities and
natural disaster response. States should set standards and procedures for inviting,
receiving and regulating international assistance. These should include speedy
initial assessments (on a joint national–international basis) to determine the degree
to which national and local capacities have been overwhelmed, and thus the need
for external aid. Procedures and standards governing international agency
admission, registration, accountability, performance, reporting and information
sharing should be established. Contingency planning may identify probable
response gaps and allow for negotiation of pre-disaster Memorandums of
Understanding or protocols with probable responding agencies.
138 Options include: time limited staff development secondments from local organisations to
international and vice versa; limiting the recruitment of experienced staff from local organisations
to situations where the staff member is placed in an equivalent or more senior position than he or
she previously held; and/or payment of a ‘transfer fee’ to the local agency to compensate them for
their investment in developing the staff member’s capacities (for example, an amount equal to
three months gross salary at the new level).
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International agencies should respect and promote national coordination of all
response activities. International coordination should be conducted as a
component of national coordination. The membership, language(s), location,
accessibility, priorities, authority and capacities of international coordination
mechanisms should be determined accordingly. The UN should play its mandated
coordination role in improving linkages and coherence between the different
disaster response actors by developing a coordination model that supports
national coordination efforts, by ensuring that the complementary international
effort is itself coherent. This could involve the establishment, in line with the
recommendations of the UN’s Humanitarian Response Review (HRR), of a
coordination system for international disaster response actors built around the
IASC model.
This coordination system should mesh fully with national coordination initiatives.
The mechanism should coordinate the deployment of international agencies in
accordance with identified needs and gaps. States should be supported, especially
by the UN, to develop expertise to ensure that agencies are allocated and carry out
tasks appropriate to their capacities and funding. Where appropriate, and with the
support of multilateral agencies, states should establish, and international
agencies should be prepared to work through, common mechanisms, such as
consortia and trust funds. (Further lessons and recommendations are provided in
the next section on Strengthening International Response Capacities and Quality.)
Donors and international agencies should support such measures through
funding, technical assistance and encouragement, as necessary. They should also
promote the development of International Disaster Response Law (IDRL) as a
means of clarifying and strengthening the respective responsibilities,
accountabilities and authority of affected states and international agencies,
including bilateral actors, such as international military forces. Among these are
states’ responsibilities not only to regulate the quality of natural disaster response
agencies operating within their territories, but also to facilitate invited actors
regarding: prompt entry permits/visas; appropriate legal protection; recognition
of professional qualifications; necessary financial transactions; import, export
and transit of relief materials; exemption from taxes, fees and tolls on relief
activities; necessary communications systems; and participation of locals as
volunteers and staff.
Where national structures and methods are particularly centralised, international
agencies should support affected people and their authorities in the delicate task
of bridging gaps and building communication. This can be done most effectively
through patient, long-term preparedness programmes that achieve a judicious
balance between the potentially competing needs for centralised ‘command and
control’ and decentralised decision making and response.
5.2.4 Support to host authorities
International agencies should map and support host authority capacities in a
manner similar to that for mapping capacities of affected people. This should be
conducted prior to any disaster event and updated during the response. This
mapping should include all key official actors, nationally and sub-nationally,
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including military forces. Multi-year support should be provided, both pre- and
post-disaster, and integrated into relevant development programmes and with
strategically placed counterpart institutions. This requires a long-term
commitment and presence on the part of international agencies in high-risk
countries. International agencies with a development mandate are best placed for
providing such support.
International agencies should assist states in high-risk regions to establish or
strengthen a national/sub-national institution to manage disaster preparedness
and response and to enable cooperation between relevant government
departments and between central and local government.139 They should also be
responsible for contingency planning, preparedness measures and liaison with all
levels of the international community in disaster planning. International support
should include appropriate technical expertise,140 equipment and systems through
capacity-building partnerships.
Support for joint national–international information services should include
preparedness for the rapid deployment of initial assessments intended to provide
a comprehensive overview of needs and resources and covering all affected areas
and population groups. This should lead to the establishment of a single set of
jointly managed databases of all affected people and resources provided to assist
them. Aims of the databases would be to match needs and resources, and to plan
and track responses. (UNDP’s DAD might be a model from which experience
could be drawn.) This would require an agreed definition of ‘affected person’.
While a widely accepted international definition would be ideal (for both specific
disasters and in determining equitable disaster funding globally), at least national
definitions should be developed and formalised through national legislation.
Beyond the initial days (at most weeks) of a disaster, donors should make funding
for follow-on activities conditional on the application of such a comprehensive
joint assessment. They should also fund pre-disaster preparation, including the
establishment of regional rosters of experts.
International agencies and states in high-risk areas should reverse the pattern
whereby DRR has long been advocated but rarely adequately funded or supported.
Detailed guidance on DRR is available from a variety of sources.141 Recovery is
essential for introducing or strengthening DRR. Thus, lessons and
recommendations contained in the next section regarding recovery are indirectly
relevant to successful promotion of DRR. The following text emphasises a number
of points:
• Donor governments and IFIs should consider allocating a set percentage of
their relief budget to DRR. Funding should be long-term, predictable and
aimed at the reduction of vulnerabilities in risk-prone regions.
139 Options should be identified jointly with national and international actors (especially donors).
140 Agencies should, for example, assist disaster prone countries to access remote sensing data
as well as to develop the capacity to process these data.
141 For example, DIPECHO, IFRC, CARE International, CRED, ISDR, OFDA, UNDP and others
including IFIs such as the World Bank and regional investment banks.
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• States should also set targets for national funding of DRR. If appealing for
disaster response funding, they should design appeals to include funding for
long-term DRR strategies and not just short- or medium-term relief and
recovery.
• Comprehensive, multi-year risk reduction programmes should be established
in all risk-prone countries on a scale commensurate with the risks faced, be
they natural disasters, conflict or other factors.
• The programmes should be based on hazard and vulnerability analysis and
anchored within national development and social protection structures. (The
Hyogo, 2005 framework and related guidance should be applied as guidance
in this respect.) These should link with local and community DRR initiatives.
5.3 Strengthening international
disaster response capacity and
quality
Recommendation 2
All actors should strive to increase their disaster response capacities
and to improve the linkages and coherence between themselves and
other actors in the international disaster response system, including
those from the affected countries themselves.
Elements of this recommendation, regarding national and community capacity,
have already been discussed above.
5.3.1 Emergency surge capacity
This section makes recommendations regarding the capacity of response agencies
to scale up quickly. It addresses: the unpredictable, episodic nature of funding; the
low priority given to such capacity by some agencies; the lack of a career structure
within the sector; and the cost of such preparedness.
Many constraints and impediments to effective surge capacity are specific to
individual agencies. All international agencies should review periodically their
disaster response capacities (for example, after each major disaster).142 These
agency-specific reviews should cover as a minimum: the capacity for rapid
deployment of sufficient experienced managers and specialised personnel; rapid
and effective assessments; logistical, administrative and financial management
support; and coordination capacities.
142 Some agencies already seem to be doing this under an initiative announced by the Special
Envoy for Tsunami Recovery.
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Donors need to support the development of surge capacity within agencies by
funding143 such development between emergencies. This could include seeking to
increase the international emergency staff pool by supporting full-time standby
emergency response mechanisms144 and funding research into means to improve
surge capacity. Donors and response agencies should be cognisant of and
transparent about the considerable costs of developing and maintaining such
surge capacities. This should be a major consideration in their choice of what type
and level of response they aim to provide (and advertise as being available) – for
example, an immediate emergency response (to be operational within 72 or 96
hours of a sudden-onset disaster event) or a later, intermediate response, or both.
In addition to full-time standby personnel, agencies need to develop or improve
response rosters accompanied by appropriate training145 to allow the rapid
deployment of ‘regular’ personnel in emergencies (for example, the redeployment
of personnel working in non-emergency aid activities). Staff members from
countries and regions most likely to be affected by disasters should be given
priority for such training. The same logic applies at the national level. Potentially
affected governments also need to identify key emergency response staff and
establish rosters for rapidly building up capacity at any disaster-affected location.
Finally, all agencies need to reduce the high rates of turnover commonly seen in
emergencies by providing contracts and conditions of employment that encourage
staff to remain in post.
5.3.2 International coordination and information
management
In line with earlier recommendations regarding support to authorities,
international agencies should invest more in their assessment capacities.
Assessments should ideally be joint, involving national, local and international
actors. The Red Cross and the UN system, in particular, should enter into
discussions on how to achieve this (in line with the recommendations of the TEC
Needs Assessment Report). In addition, all agencies should, as a principle, share
assessment reports. The UN should integrate all assessment-support components
of its response (UNDAC, Humanitarian Information Centre [HIC] and United
Nations Joint Logistics Centre [UNJLC]) into one knowledge management
programme, with a greater capacity to analyse data (including remote sensing
data) in conjunction with local and national authorities.
Many actors make their initial funding or deployment decisions on the basis of
media coverage. The quality of these decisions and public understanding could be
improved if media organisations formally appoint journalists with an interest in
the sector as their ‘aid correspondents’.
143 For example, Irish Aid has a funding scheme to increase the surge capacity of Irish NGOs.
144 As do a number of donors, such as Danida and Norad via respectively the Danish and
Norwegian Refugee Councils (DRC and NRC).
145 CARE is doing this already on a small scale with its CARE Emergency Response Team
programme.
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Improvement of international coordination requires increased training, improved
‘coordinator’ rosters, the deployment of senior personnel beyond capitals to
support local coordination, and greater involvement of NGOs. Where appropriate,
integrated geographic coordination mechanisms (not just sectoral or ‘cluster’-based
models) should be considered. To improve advocacy, UN RC/HC’s need to take a
lead in developing a cross-agency consensus on sensitive issues before raising
them with national authorities.
Civilian relief agencies and the military need to undertake joint training and
exercises so that they are more aware of each other’s procedures and approaches.
The military is effectively the only source of large amounts of rapidly deployable
helicopter lift in sudden-onset emergencies. Senior humanitarian actors should be
more aware of the services that the military can offer in a rapid response. Military
actors too need greater understanding of the nature of humanitarian coordination,
and both the military and senior humanitarian actors should engage in joint
exercises.
Further recommendations on both coordination and assessment can be found in
the respective TEC reports.
5.3.3 Strengthening recovery practices and
capacities
Much of the guidance for ’good recovery’ and ‘LRRD’ practices is contained in the
preceding sections on accountability and support to local and national actors
(particularly regarding information). This section supplements that guidance. It
focuses on the lesson that international agencies need to pay as much attention to
how they do things and their capacities to do them, as they do to the content of
their policies and programmes.
First, entirely different sets of skills and ways of working are required for recovery
compared to relief. Efforts should shift to removing obstacles and facilitating paths
to help communities meet their own needs. Response actors should learn to stand
back (or ‘get out of the way’, as the LRRD Report puts it), when they do not have
the capacity or endurance to understand and support people’s own recovery
efforts. To improve management of the transition from relief to recovery,
international agencies should adapt their: staffing (skills profiles and numbers);
assessment and planning methods and data; funding sources and programme
horizons; strategic partnerships; and operational methods. International agencies
with a history of and commitment to longer term local presence and partnerships
have a better chance of managing this transition than have new actors (that is,
new to a country or area, and who are unwilling to commit to being there over the
longer term). Established international–local relationships facilitate, for example,
mutual capacity building during the emergency and early recovery phases, which
in turn enhances later recovery efforts.
Second, sensitivity to context and the flexibility to adapt to evolving realities are
essential instead of applying pre-determined strategies and one-size-fits-all
solutions. Activities must be firmly rooted in national and local contexts and
processes. International agencies should look to specific sectors reflecting people’s
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own priorities more than to organisational policies in the design of their recovery
programmes. ‘Poor people’s realities [are] local, complex, diverse, dynamic and
unpredictable’ (Chambers, 1997, p162). Donors and agencies should continue to
invest in national–international participatory assessments of livelihood recovery.
This is in order to identify these sectors within specific locations or populations
and to plan programmes based on ongoing poverty alleviation trajectories. This
process implies close and often complicated linkages among international
agencies, and between them and national and local authorities and NGOs.
Third, international agencies should treat recovery activities as longer term
development interventions rather than as extensions to relief operations.146
Recovery is dependent on gradual political, administrative and development
processes. It is, for instance, more about re-establishing livelihoods and asset
creation than it is about asset replacement. Further research is needed to identify
principles for recovery including adapting existing DAC poverty reduction criteria
to recovery scenarios.147
5.3.4 International regulation
Recommendation 3
The international relief system should establish an accreditation and
certification system to distinguish agencies that work to a professional
standard in a particular sector.
A regulatory system is necessary to ensure predictably high quality international
disaster response. International agencies should take concrete steps to advance
formal discussions in this direction. One mechanism for such a regulatory system
would be through an accreditation and certification148 system for aid agencies. This
section provides a range of options for consideration.
Governments can support regulation by making tax-exempt status dependent 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
146 ‘Attention to “their LRRD projects” leads inevitably to greater engagement in micro and
macro political processes…[E]ffective LRRD does demand close engagement with local
institutions, with a consequent loss of independence. Weakened adherence to some aspects of
humanitarian principles can nevertheless be balanced by political savvy, clarity of commitment and
contextual awareness so as to ensure impartiality and neutrality in conflict situations and amid
political efforts to influence resource flows’ (TEC LRRD Report, 2006, p12).
147 A network such as the ProVention Consortium could be the platform for such an undertaking.
148 Certification refers to the certification of an agency as meeting specific requirements, such as
the quality of assessments. Agencies would be certified by a third party accredited by the
humanitarian community as being competent to determine whether agencies meet the certification
requirements. For example, the Société Générale de Surveillance is accredited by the International
Standards Organisation to certify organisations as being ISO9001 compliant.
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obliged to be as transparent about their finances and expenditures as are NGOs in
the US.149
Complementary to the regulation of aid agencies is professionalising the role of aid
workers, both national and international. The aid agencies should, together with
academic institutions and training providers, set 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.
Box 5.1. Types of regulatory system
There are a number of options for regulation. All regulatory systems have
costs and disadvantages as well as the expected benefits. One option is inter￾agency self-regulation, wherein the whole group of agencies, or a
representative sub-group, monitors compliance by individual agencies. This
would require agencies to submit to the consensus opinion of their peers.
However, it is interesting that not one of the current initiatives to improve
international humanitarian response has adopted this model, indicating that it
is likely to be a non-starter.
• 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 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.
149 Via Form 990 as described earlier on.
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5.3.5 Improving information flow from the affected
population
In previous sections, recommendations have been made for improving
information to affected populations. There is also a need to improve flows of
information from them to the donor public. Key to improving the quality of the
response is to provide the donor population, taxpayers and agencies themselves
with information on how well different agencies are performing. One important
innovation in the tsunami response has been the large number of surveys of the
affected population. Agencies should regularly conduct joint surveys of affected
communities to determine whether they are aware of agency plans and are
satisfied with the support they are getting. These surveys need to be more
structured and methodical, to provide a better measure of progress. The full
results of such surveys should be reported on the agency’s website. All parties
can improve accountability by publishing full evaluation reports of their projects.
Where possible, such evaluations should be jointly carried out with other agencies
to maximise the potential for learning and minimise ‘evaluation fatigue’. Standards
for independence and transparency covering all phases of evaluation processes
should be developed. These should cover the tasks of both doing and managing
evaluations.
5.4 Strengthening international
funding for disaster response
The term ‘donor’ is used below to refer to official bilateral or multilateral donor
entities.
Recommendation 4
All actors need to make the current funding system impartial and more
efficient, flexible, transparent and better aligned with principles of good
donorship.
5.4.1 Proportionality, impartiality and flexibility
International agencies should develop mechanisms, similar to those being
developed under the GHD initiative, to measure when funding appeals should be
terminated. Appeals thresholds should be examined in reference to both assessed
need and an agency’s capacity to deliver effectively and efficiently. Any future
accreditation/certification system (as discussed in the previous section) should
include conditions on how money is solicited and reallocated, as well as how and
when appeals to the general public are closed down once funding thresholds have
been reached.
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All appeals for funds should include a tick-box (or a similar option for telephone
donations) to allow donors and the public to earmark the funds they donate. An
explanatory note should indicate that if they do not mark this option, funds could
be reallocated to other populations in similar need. When international agencies
appeal for funds they should publicise the possibility that funds could be
reallocated for more urgent needs elsewhere. These should be complemented by
fundraising standards that limit open-ended appeals to estimates of overall needs
versus resources available. Pooling mechanisms should also be explored, in order
to facilitate the transfer of surplus funds from one agency to another.
Agencies should also establish clear criteria and a transparent allocation process,
based on needs and capacity assessments. These are necessary for both the
Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)150 and for any country-level (re-)
allocations of pooled funding. The criteria and mechanisms should, among other
things, facilitate the early mobilisation of joint assessment teams from
governments and international agencies. Related discussions should commence to
reach an agreed definition of what ‘affected person’ means. These could take place
in relation to the development of IDRL.
Donors should improve the transition from relief to recovery and development by
increasing the flexibility in applying funds from a variety of budgets and
instruments, in accordance with needs and realities on the ground. This would
require adaptations within donor administrations, such as the early involvement
of staff managing development funding to become involved in monitoring and
planning recovery responses from the beginning of a disaster. If such flexibility is
not feasible the practice by many donors of funding recovery activities under
humanitarian instruments, as opposed to development instruments, should be
reconsidered.
To complement the CERF and other initiatives,151 including official donor peer
reviews, independent oversight of donor impartiality and performance is
necessary. Self-regulation of donors by donors is as incomplete a control as self￾regulation is for operational agencies. The OECD/DAC should develop new or
improve existing oversight mechanisms to monitor donor adherence to GHD
principles. These should include more rigorous reporting standards – not just
about budgets, projects, countries and activities, but crucially about how
impartially and by exactly whom important funding decisions are made. Greater
and more targeted use by the public and media of freedom-of-information laws
could also play a role in improving transparency.
Parliament or congress is tasked with monitoring the ‘Executive’, normally
through committee systems and parliamentary debate, and in doing so is
supported by specialised oversight bodies.152 Such mechanisms should be
strengthened. This would require more focused education of parliamentary/
150 The new CERF of US$500mn was already 50 per cent funded by March 2006.
151 ECHO has designed a tool called the Global Index for Humanitarian Needs Assessment. This
consists of a set of country level indicators of need which it has applied in its funding decisions.
152 Such as the US’s General Accounts Office or the UK’s National Audit Office.
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congressional representatives to enable them to understand better the
technicalities and complexities of humanitarian funding processes.
In addition to steps to improve the quality of aid, the quantity of aid should also be
increased. Official donors through, for example, the OECD/DAC and/or the UN
IASC, should consider setting a target that all people affected by disasters should
be entitled to a minimum level of humanitarian assistance. Similarly, all donors
should set a deadline by which they will reach the (1970) UN Resolution for a
minimum ODA target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product.
153 Wealthy nations
that are not currently part of the DAC should also shoulder their responsibilities
and support a far wider range of development and humanitarian initiatives than
their current portfolios demonstrate. As already proposed, donors should consider
committing a target percentage of their relief funding to be invested in DRR.
5.4.2 Accountability: quality, tracking and reporting
Donors should develop mechanisms to measure the relative effectiveness,
efficiency and accountability of international agencies, and fund accordingly. They
should also inform the tax-paying public of the performance and quality of the
agencies they fund through, for example, widely disseminated independent
reports. This should act as a counter-balance to the frequent ‘spin-doctoring’ by
international agencies regarding their own performance. Signing up to an
accreditation system (as proposed above) should be considered as a requirement
for receiving funding. Any such accreditation system should include standards on
how money is solicited and reallocated, and how and when appeals are launched
and shut down.
Improved mechanisms should be developed to track how the ‘humanitarian dollar’
flows from the tax-payer or contributing citizen to the beneficiary, documenting
each layer, the transaction costs and value added (or subtracted). Common and
consistent accounting definitions need to be agreed and applied across the
humanitarian sector. A pilot study using a sample of programmes from different
agency types (UN, bilateral, NGO and RC Movement) should be commissioned.
The OECD/DAC should experiment with a grant-tracking code system to see if it
would be possible to track grants from pledge to disbursement. The system
should also document local contributions and diaspora remittances. This should
include how to extend existing plans for facilitating and recording remittance flows
for development purposes to apply to humanitarian situations.
OECD/DAC, in conjunction with other actors and mechanisms (such as the
GHD154 and FTS), should develop a common reporting format through which
agencies can simultaneously report to a number of donors. It should develop an
integrated financial tracking system that would, for instance, distinguish between
153 International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade, UN
General Assembly Resolution 2626 (XXV), 24 October 1970, paragraph 43.
154 Common reporting formats are being developed through the GHD group in Geneva.
Unfortunately, however, not all major donors are members. The DAC is working on common
financial reports and definitions and will report in June 2006.
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corporate contributions and the private donations of individuals. This should
include common accounting definitions (including of ‘commitments’,
‘disbursements’ and ‘pledges’). The OECD/DAC should also discount tied aid to 75
per cent of its nominal value in its calculation of the overall value of aid from any
donor nation.155
5.4.3 Donor, public and media education
Donor, public and media education is necessary to improve understanding of and
support for the above lessons and recommendations. Donors should fund mass
communication and public educational initiatives on the themes of ‘good disaster
response’156 and on ‘how to be a principled and effective donor’ (as both individual
members of the public and official donors). The media should be targeted for such
education, to improve the quality of reporting on disasters and funding for
disasters. Public education should cover the serious implications of donors not
meeting their own commitments to impartiality in global humanitarian funding.
155 See the conclusion and footnote on this point in the conclusions chapter, regarding funding.
That text, which notes that tied aid is worth less to recipients than untied aid, provides background
to the recommendation.
156 In order to dispel the many myths around issues such as disease, local capacities,
appropriateness of aid and disposal of dead bodies.
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Endnotes
Chapter 1
E1 Early in Januar 1E y 2005 a number of ALNAP Full Member
agencies began to discuss how to coordinate evaluations of the
tsunami response. An interagency and donor meeting was
subsequently convened in Geneva on 23 February 2005, for which
invitations were extended to the entire ALNAP membership (of over
500) as well as through the DAC Network on Development
Evaluation. At that meeting most of the participants agreed to
constitute themselves into an ‘evaluation coalition’ (later named
the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, or TEC) guided by a Core
Management Group of agencies. It was also agreed that the ALNAP
Secretariat would act as the facilitating platform for the initiative. A
full history of the TEC can be found on the TEC’s website
www.tsunami evaluation.org.
E2 Some have argued that it is too early to collect credible 2
evidence of the longer term impact of the tsunami response. That
said, the IFRC originally intended to undertake an impact study
that, as originally envisaged, would have contributed to the TEC
evaluation set. Shortly after the IFRC announced its intentions, it
partnered with WHO as well as with the Global Consortium at
which point the Office of the Special Envoy (OSE) also became
involved. The necessary coordination, as well as the participatory
approach to ensure full ownership of the project by the affected
country governments, took time. Moreover, unexpected staff
turnover between September and November 2005 also contributed
to delays.
Chapter 2
E3 WHO (2005) reported that in Aceh a total of 23,293 injured 3E
had been admitted for outpatient or inpatient care by 5 January.
The total number of fatalities for Aceh was over 160,000.
E4 Celebrity survivors included action movie star, Jet Li, former 4
German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, former Finnish foreign minister,
Sauli Niinistö, and supermodel Petra Nemcova (Wikipedia, 2006).
E5 The story topics were: Sudan war, Northern Uganda, West 5
Africa, DRC conflict, Chechnya, Haiti, HIV/AIDS, Nepal, Colombia
and infectious disease. It has to be acknowledged that these stories
are not breaking news stories like the tsunami, but they affect the
lives of over 100 million people.
E6 Estimating the true economic impact of the tsunami will be 6
difficult even with hindsight because of the many confounding
factors at the national and international levels.
E7 The affected countries are not expected to recover until the 7
2006/2007 winter season (World Tourism Organisation, 2005).
However, recovery seems to be more rapid in the Maldives with
April 2006 having the highest number of arrivals ever for April
(Anon, 2006).
Chapter 3
SECTION 3.1 T O SECTION 3.1 T O 
E8Tsunamis were responsible for most of the 36,000 plus deaths
caused by the eruption (Volcano World, 2005).
E9 This was certainly the case in the Maldives where the lessons 9
learned workshop identified teaching people to swim as one of its
response measures (Government of the Maldives and United
Nations, 2005). The tsunami also prompted women to learn to
swim in Sri Lanka (Parker, 2005). The gender differences in the
ability to swim may be one of the reasons why more women than
men were killed by the tsunamis. Non swimmers in Tamil Nadu
were twice as likely as swimmers to die (Guha Sapir and van
Panhuis, 2005).
SECTION 3.2 E O 
E10 In Sweden, Norway and Denmark there was considerable 10E
criticism of the response on the consular side and this has led to
public apologies by ministers, and sanctions against Foreign
Service staff in some counties (Cosgrave, 2005).
E11 Families of those lost have been very critical in some cases: 11
‘In a statement issued outside the inquest, Mrs Quinn’s family,
including her parents, John and Daphne Gough, thanked “family,
friends and work colleagues” for their support since the tragedy.
“Regrettably our expression of gratitude must exclude the UK
government”, the statement added. “We lost someone who was a
wife, daughter and sister in the tsunami and throughout the
appalling aftermath of this disaster, our experience of the UK
government has been one of ineffective management and poor
communication with the families affected by this tragedy. Even at
this time, 11 months later, our view of the UK government’s
performance is unchanged’ (Guardian Staff and News Agencies,
2005).
E12 Pledges are promises made by a donor to provide funding. 12E
Pledges may be made at a donor conference, in a press statement
or in parliament. A commitment is a more or less binding promise
to provide a set amount of funding for a particular sector.
Disbursement happens when the donor effectively loses control of
the funding.
SECTION 3.3 E O 
E13 The agreement for the supply of helicopters was signed with 13E
DFID only in the week of 16 22 January and the helicopters
arrived a week later. DFID has since commissioned a review of the
UNHAS deployment.
E14 Lack of participation by affected communities in assessments 14
has been highlighted as a problem in the Gujarat Earthquake
(Humanitarian Initiatives UK et al, 2001, p81) and the
Mozambique Floods (Wiles et al, 2005). The need to validate
assessments with local communities was highlighted after
Hurricane Mitch (Telford et al, 2004, p49).
E15 The EU commissioner returned to this theme on 15 March 15
2005 when he pointed out in a speech that: ‘The financing
decision, which is a sort of initial commitment, is based on an
assessment of needs. The Commission’s policy is not one of
making huge pledges in a kind of donor “beauty contest”. We
prefer a graduated approach with financing decisions taken as and
when information becomes available and financing requests come
in from our partners. This makes sure that financial aid is matched
to real needs’ (Michel, 2005).
E16 The actual survey response was NGOs, but this grouping 16
includes the Indonesian Red Cross, UNICEF, and WFP, as well as
true NGOs.
E17 Inappropriate clothing is often found to be a problem. This
was the case in the Gujarat Earthquake: ‘clothes were considered
inappropriate in virtually all interventions’ (Humanitarian Initiatives
UK et al, 2001, p21). Bam managed to avoid a lot of
inappropriate assistance, but: ‘two IRCS warehouses were found to
be full of used clothes, which cannot be used in Bam as they are
not deemed acceptable by local people’ (Chomilier et al, 2004) .
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
E18 It was initially expected that there would be a big demand for 18
medical services. In the mid 1990s, tsunamis had a ratio of
fatalities to injuries of 0.02:1 to 0.5:1 (Guha Sapir et al, 2006,
p6; citing Alexander, 1996, pp234 235). Therefore it was logical
for Jan Egeland to suggest that there could be hundreds of
thousands of casualties in his press conference of 29 December
2004, based on the assumption that there were four injured
persons for every tsunami fatality (UN News Service, 2004). In the
event, there were relatively few injured survivors in Aceh or Sri
Lanka.
E19 Three weeks is really quite fast for a full scale international 19
response. However, while this sort of timescale is fine for a slow
onset emergency, it is slow for a sudden onset emergency where
peak needs occur immediately after the disaster.
E20 Project Galle (http://www.projectgalle2006.org/index.html) is 20
probably the leading example of such an organisation.
E21 In the event, no agencies were kicked out. This problem for 21E
the agencies is a curious reflection of the problem that affected
communities faced with their own planning in the face of
uncertainty about what agencies were going to do.
E22 This same problem was seen in the Rwanda Joint Donor
Evaluation: ‘In a context of increased competition for funding and
visibility and the proliferation of NGOs, it would appear that the
pressures are increasing for agencies to highlight the positive
aspects of their programmes and play down or obscure the
negative aspects’ (Borton et al, 1996, p152).
E23 Global aid flows through NGOs have increased dramatically in 23E
the last 15 years. As a share of all ODA, NGO flows have grown
from 6 per cent in 1989 to 15 per cent in 2004 (at US$13bn).
The tsunami funding in 2005 will push the NGO share to a new
record. (Source: Analysis of OECD/DAC data from the DAC Online
database.)
E24 UN agencies and secretariat bodies included: UNDP, UNICEF,
WFP, UNHCR, WHO, FAO, OCHA/UNDAC, UNESCO and UNIFEM,
to name but a few.
E25 Paragraph 3 of the UNDAC standard terms of reference states: 25E
‘The UNDAC team will assist in the assessment of international
relief requirements during the first phase of the emergency and,
when necessary, in the coordination of international relief
operations at the site of the emergency.’
E26 ‘UNDAC neglected the actual analysis and compilation of 26
information on needs... most of NGO and many UN interlocutors
found UNDAC “very weak in the field” (TEC Coordination Report,
2006). ‘In all countries, questions arose over the utility of UNDAC
as a “common service” for assessment and coordination… The
UNDAC team was under equipped with even the basics for
communication, there was no Public Information or Civil Military
liaison officer on the team, and no clear administrative procedures
for operating in an environment where quick purchase decisions
were required… (in one case) UNDAC SITREPs were actually put
together and disseminated by UNDP, further putting into question
the added value of the UNDAC’ (TEC Needs Assessment Report,
2006).
E27 UNHCR received cash donations totalling US$59.3mn against 27E
its appeal for US$78.5mn in the Flash Appeal. (Source: UNCHR
(2005) Indian Ocean Earthquake Tsunami Emergency One Year
Progress Report: January December 2005.)
E28 The United States has 12 Carrier Strike Groups but of these 28
only 3 are available at any time; another 3 are in maintenance and
the remaining 6 are in pre deployment training, exercises or post
deployment activities. Carrier Strike Groups are the first line of US
power abroad, and they are normally committed only for issues of
the highest concern to national security. ‘When word of a crisis
breaks out in Washington, it’s no accident that the first question
that comes to everyone’s lips is: “Where’s the nearest
carrier?”’(President Bill Clinton on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, 12
March 1993). (Source: http:/www.globalsecurity.org.)
E29 The US’s tsunami response did improve public perceptions of 29
the US around the world. The US tsunami relief effort led to more
favourable views of the US for most of the nations covered by the
Pew Survey in 2005 (Pew Research Center, 2005, p4). Positive
opinions of the US in Indonesia, which had plummeted to as low
as 15 per cent in 2003, rebounded to 38 per cent in 2005. In
2005, 79 per cent of Indonesians said they had a more favourable
view of the US as a result of the relief efforts (Pew Research
Center, 2005, p2). However, this fell to 30 per cent in 2006 (Pew
Research Center, 2006, p1).
E30 One evaluation of the response to the Mozambique Floods in 30
2000 found that UK military helicopters cost 3 4 times more per
flying hour than did commercial helicopters (Cosgrave et al, 2001,
p38).
E31 Burke (2005) gives the operating cost of the USS Abraham 31
Lincoln, used to support the relief effort in Indonesia, as US$6
million a day. The General Accounting Office (1998) gives the life
cycle cost of a Nimitz class carrier as US$444 million dollars a
year for the carrier. Adjusted for US inflation, this gives a figure of
US$540mn per year or US$1.5mn per day. The air wing on the
carrier costs as much as or slightly more than the carrier but only
has one third the life and has a higher maintenance cost, so the
total cost of the air wing is probably three times the carrier cost,
giving a total carrier plus air wing cost of US$6mn a day. This is
very roughly 50 per cent capital cost and 50 per cent operating
cost, so the operating cost only of the Abraham Lincoln with its
aircraft is probably only US$3mn a day.
E32 The most recent initiative of the Special Envoy’s Office, 32
launched on 12 April 2006, has a lot of common ground with the
TEC. The Special Envoy’s initiative is in conjunction with the US
NGO umbrella group InterAction and aims to improve performance
in five areas: 1) accountability to the beneficiaries of assistance; 2)
enhancing local capacity of governmental institutions and the NGO
community in affected countries; 3) ensuring high standards of
professionalism in the field; 4) communication and coordination
among the NGO community; and 5) incorporating human rights
principles into recovery operations. The recommendations, which
will address both tsunami recovery and future assistance efforts,
will be presented to the former President in late 2006 (Office of the
Special Envoy, 2006).
E33 Humanitarian Common Services (HCS) include the 33E
Humanitarian Information Centres (HIC), the Humanitarian Air
Service (HAS), United Nations Civil Military Coordination (CM
COORD), Interagency Emergency Telecoms, the UN Joint Logistics
Centre (UNJLC) and the UN Disaster Assessment Teams (UNDAC).
Both of the WFP hosted common services, the HAS and UNJLC,
have been subject to a review since the tsunami, with a view to
improving their effectiveness and transparency.
E34 Surge capacity is the capacity to cope with demand additional 34
to the background level of demand during an emergency.
E35 To place this figure in context, one of the authors generally 35
estimates that the true cost of properly managing an effective
programme in the field is typically of the order of 15 per cent of
the total. Other agencies, particularly in the US, claim to have
much lower programme management costs, but such low figures
are usually achieved by folding the overall management costs into
project budgets. USAID has paid up to 24 per cent of project
budgets (19 per cent of the total including the overhead) in one of
its Negotiated Indirect Cost Recovery Agreements (NICRA) with one
128
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
large US agency, and 17 per cent (14.5 per cent of total budget) to
another large US agency. However, one complaint made by local
NGOs is that while INGOs may have overhead costs of this
magnitude, they are very reluctant to allow local partners more
than 5 per cent of the budget for their overhead.
E36 This is a very rough estimate based on the assumption that 36E
INGOs spent about one third of their total tsunami funds in 2005
(true for Oxfam (Oxfam International, 2004) and some of the larger
UK agencies (Vaux et al, 2005)), that INGOs got about US$5.5bn
in private funding, and that they will spend about 40 per cent in
Indonesia, with 90 per cent of this for Aceh. This gives an estimate
of US$660mn for the first year’s INGO spending for Aceh.
SECTION 3.4 T O 
E37 ‘The head of Indonesia’s tsunami reconstruction programme 7
threatened on Monday to throw out international aid agencies from
the devastated province of Aceh if they didn’t submit progress
reports by June. Some international aid groups have exaggerated
their work in the multi billion dollar reconstruction programme in
Aceh, Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the chief of the BRR, the
government agency in charge of rebuilding, told Reuters. “There is
a German NGO (non government organisation) that has made a
report saying they had built more than 100 houses, but they just
built three or five houses”.’ (Reuters, 2006).
E38 This estimate is based on the differential mortality rates 38
shown in Figure 2.3 applied to the total numbers of dead and
missing for each area, with the mortality rate for the nearest area
being applied to areas for which no mortality data were available,
and population distribution being estimated where area specific
mortality was not available. Strictly speaking, not all were adult
women as slightly higher female mortality rates were also seen in
the under 15s in some places.
E39 TheCeylon Daily News is the largest circulation English
language daily in Sri Lanka. It is a conservative, government
owned newspaper. The prevalence of so many negative reports
about local government as well as about aid agencies suggests that
all was not well with the response. However, as with all press in
Sri Lanka, one should bear in mind that one study of the Sri
Lankan media concluded that, with one exception, the main focus
of newspapers in Sri Lanka was ‘to provide propaganda for groups
or parties of their choice’ (Transparency International Sri Lanka,
Jayaratne et al, 2005, p24).
E40 It was designed by the Ministry of Planning (BAPPENAS),
with support from the World Bank, to integrate and coordinate
local, national and international response initiatives. The blueprint
was approved on 16 April 2005.
E41 The DEC did increase its initial timeframe from 9 months to 3 41
years, but did not increase it to 5 years as recommended in both
the DEC monitoring reports and in the evaluation. The DEC will
again consider this issue in September 2006.
E42 Sphere provides over arching humanitarian principles and a 42
set of standards and indicators for four ‘life saving’ sectors: 1)
Water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion; 2) Food security,
nutrition and food aid; 3) Shelter, settlement and non food items;
4) Health services; plus a set of standards common to all sectors.
E43 The eight common Sphere Standards are in: 1) participation; 43
2) initial assessment; 3) response; 4) targeting; 5) monitoring; 6)
evaluation; 7) aid worker competencies and responsibilities; 8)
supervision, management and support of personnel. Areas of
particular weakness were participation, monitoring, and evaluation.
E44 Despite their importance, local and national responses are not 44
given a financial value or, as a matter of course, included in
reports of disaster response. They include: the resources provided
in cash or kind by the affected families and communities
themselves; the services provided by national military during the
emergency phase; and the contribution of local authorities. These
contributions are difficult to value. At least US$190mn, probably
much more, was given by the general public in affected countries.
Data are not available on tsunami related remittances from abroad.
They are most likely very important. Even normal levels of
remittances to Sri Lanka and Indonesia are significant compared
with other inflows such as tourism receipts and direct foreign
investment. Finally, it is estimated that governments of affected
countries have contributed at least US$2.6bn of their own
resources.
SECTION 3.6 E O 
E45 The equivalent commitment figure for non DAC donors was 45
US$319mn (54 per cent). All the IFI pledges are now loan
commitments. By 30 September 2005, DAC donors had disbursed
US$2,061mn (56 per cent of commitments): 97 per cent of
humanitarian commitments have been disbursed compared with
20 per cent for reconstruction commitments.
E46 Despite this example of good practice, MSF still had so much 46
money that, like many other NGOs, it stepped outside the MSF
core speciality of emergency medical response. In at least one
case, this led to poor quality work. MSF built 140 fishing boats in
Lamno from uncured, illegally logged timber (Indonesia Relief,
2005d). Such boats are not sea worthy as the seams open up as
the timber cures.
E47 Excluding the Tsunami Flash Appeal, UN Consolidated 47
Appeals for 2005 are 59 per cent funded, which is not
significantly lower than the average over the period 2000 2004 (of
59 76 per cent). In the UK, donations from the general public for
the DEC Asian Earthquake Appeal have been the second highest
ever, albeit still 15 per cent of the equivalent Tsunami Appeal.
However, research in the UK found that about 20 per cent of the
private donations for the tsunami appeal were made at the cost of
other UK charities (Pharoah et al, 2005, p4).
E48 Debt relief for Iraq in 2005 was nearly US$14bn, and for 48
Nigeria was just over US$5bn. Aid by DAC members still increased
8.7 per cent from 2004 to 2005 even when debt relief is
subtracted (OECD/DAC, 2006a).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
A0 Introduction
The Introduction to this Synthesis Report outlines the
background to the establishment of the TEC and its
aims. It also introduces the TEC’s management
structure. This Annex contains additional information
on:
1 The TEC Core Management Group
2 Membership of the TEC
3 TEC finances (expenditure and funders of the core
TEC team)
4 Structure and management of the TEC thematic
evaluations
5 Tabulated information on key aspects of the
thematic evaluations.
A1 The TEC Core Management Group
The TEC Core Management Group (CMG) provides
general oversight and direction for the TEC on behalf of
its wider membership. Members of the CMG have
included representatives from a total of 14 agencies
(Table A1), and CMG agencies are also core funders of
the TEC.158
Annex A: TEC actors,
financing and methods
158 Since its inception, the TEC has enjoyed financial support not only from these CMG agencies but also from a much larger range of
donors, UN agencies, the Red Cross and INGOs, as well as high level endorsement from the UN ’s Emergency Relief Coordinator.
Most of these agencies were either nominated or self￾selected at the initial meeting of 23 February 2005.
Subsequently, efforts were made to involve more
(I)NGOs, as these agencies were initially very slow to
engage (mostly due to human resource constraints
similar to those discussed throughout this report). The
TEC learning reviews (see www.tsunami-evaluation.org)
also acknowledge that the TEC’s work would have been
enhanced had it included, for example, more
representatives from the affected region on the CMG.
A2 Membership of the TEC
Agencies have been involved in the TEC in two ways:
1 As formal members Formal members are
agencies that have been involved in at least one of
the following: the CMG; evaluation Steering
Committees; evaluation Working Groups; and/or as
funders of components of the TEC process.
2 As wider TEC members Other agencies have
shared their ToRs, lessons and reports with the
TEC, as well as contributed to discussions
concerning, for example, dissemination and
utilisation of TEC findings.
Thus ‘membership’ of the TEC is much larger if it
includes all agencies that have been involved in some
part of the TEC process. Moreover, many of these ‘wider
TEC’ members are committed to promoting TEC findings
and recommendations, and their individual agency
evaluations are included as secondary sources for this
Synthesis Report.
From February 2005 until June 2006, formal members of
the TEC were those listed in Table A2.
(I)NGOs/RC Movement Other
CARE International UK ALNAP Secretariat
AIDMI Groupe URD
World Vision International
IFRC
Donors UN agencies
Danida FAO
Sida OCHA
SDC UNDP
UNICEF
WHO
Table A1. Members of the TEC CMG
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
A3 TEC finances
A3.1 Financing the TEC core in 2005/06 and 2006/07
UN Agencies
FAO
OCHA
UNDP
UNFPA
UNICEF
WFP
WHO
Table A2. Formal members of the TEC
Research networks
ALNAP Secretariat
DaRa International
Feinstein International Famine
Centre
Groupe URD
HPG/ODI
ICMH (International Centre for
Migration & Health)
Donors
AusAid (Australia)
BMZ (Germany)
CIDA (Canada)
Danida (Denmark)
DfA (Ireland)
DFID (UK)
IOB/MFA (Netherlands)
JICA/MoFA (Japan)
MFA (France)
MFA (Luxembourg)
NORAD (Norway)
NZAid (New Zealand)
SDC (Switzerland)
Sida (Sweden)
USAID (United States)
NGOs and RC
ActionAid International
AIDMI
CAFOD
CARE International UK
Cordaid
IFRC
Oxfam GB
Oxfam NL
RedR
Save the Children – UK
Tearfund UK
World Vision International
World Vision Canada
A4 Thematic evaluation management
and structure
The TEC thematic evaluations have varied in
management and structure. For example, three of the
five TEC thematic evaluations – on Coordination, Needs
Assessment and Capacities – benefited from the
management of a multi-agency Steering Committee (SC),
while representatives from the evaluation departments
of the two respective commissioning agencies for the
LRRD and Funding Response studies constituted the SC.
These bodies took the major decisions on the
evaluations, including the selection of the evaluation
teams and signing-off on the final report.
The same three studies employed one overall team each,
with different use of national consultants in countries
visited. The LRRD study, on the other hand, first
employed a senior researcher to undertake a review of
current debates in LRRD. This then provided the
conceptual framework for the work of the subsequent
evaluation, which was undertaken by three separate
teams: one looking at the response in Sri Lanka, one in
Indonesia, and another undertaking a policy-level
analysis that also involved work at HQ. These three
studies were then synthesised into the overall TEC
LRRD Report.
The Funding Response study was the most complex of
the five evaluations. Broken down into eight overall
Item US$
Personnel 233,855
ODI service charge 26,127
Travel, accommodation & 54,755
subsistence
Other costs (incl. publication, 46,335
teleconferences & meetings)
Total US$361,072
Table A3. Expenditure of the TEC Core Team
(‘Secretariat’) in 2005/06
Item US$
Coordination evaluation (approx) 494,500
Needs assessment evaluation 215,782
Capacities evaluation 392,672
LRRD evaluation (approx) 588,700
Funding Response evaluation 803,762
TEC Core (2005/06) 361,072
Total (approx) US$2,856,488
Table A4. Total costs of the TEC
131
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Contributors Money received Money pledged Coordination Needs Capacities LRRD Funding
2005/06 2006/07 Assessment Response
US$ US$ US$ US$ US$ US$ euro
Donors
AusAid (Australia) 4,200
BMZ (Germany) 65,000 23.392 48,780 50,440 45,500
Cida (Canada) 44,582C 25,641
Danida (Denmark) 31,619B 68,628C 169,550
DFA (Ireland) 23,502C
DFID (UK) 34,796B 53,178 86,060
IOB/MFA (Netherlands) 59,035B 65,000 30,500
JICA/MoFA & JBIC (Japan) 57,000
MFA (France) 11,877B 14,000 15,384
MFA (Luxembourg) 38,318C 70,000
NORAD (Norway) 25,000 32,760C 50,000 101,460
NZAid (New Zealand) 30,923C
SDC (Switzerland) 22,000
Sida (Sweden) 36,808B 27,362C 8,000 537,000
USAID (United States) 30,000 28,555 30,000 30,000
UN agencies
FAO 6,000
OCHA 25,000 15,000 101,467 14,000
UNDP 25,000 100,000
UNFPA 10,000
UNICEF 50,000 20,000 50,000 50,000
WFP 10,000 10,000 15,000 –
WHO 7,800
INGOs/RCM/Other 
ActionAid International 4,500
Cordaid 24,444
DaRa International 20,053 50,000 94,660
IFRC 20,000 20,586C 20,000
World Vision Canada 17,000
World Vision International 4,109B 12,000 17,000
TotalA euro 635,410
US$ 338,244 388,713 507,500 215,893 396,568 587,400 803,762
Note A For 2005/06 money originally pledged was equal to expenditure. However, currency fluctuations meant less was actually received
(see note B below) and so the two totals look different.
B These figures reflect the amount received after conversion from the currency in which the money was donated (from GB£ to US$). They B
are therefore approximate and account for the difference between the total in this table for 2005/06 and the expenditure shown in Table A3
(see note A above).
C These figures have also been converted from donating currencies to US$ for ease of reading in one currency. C
TEC Core TEC thematic evaluation studies
Table A5. Contributors to the TEC Core and the TEC’s thematic evaluations
132
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
study areas, this evaluation consists of 30 sub-studies
that have been synthesised into a single report for each
of the topics considered. These sub-syntheses were
themselves then synthesised into the overall Funding
Response Report.
A4.1 Role of the thematic evaluation Steering
Committees
The evaluation Steering Committees (SCs) provided
overall management guidance for the evaluation, as well
as funding. The SCs were chaired by the commissioning
agency (or agencies) for each study; and for three of the
five evaluations – Coordination, Needs Assessment and
Capacities – the SC included a further core group of
participating agencies. This information can be found in
Table A7. The role of the SCs was to:
• ensure an inclusive process to finalise the ToR
• provide funding for the evaluation and assist in the
mobilisation of resources (financial and in-kind)
• participate in the selection of the evaluation team
members (identifying the team, and ensuring quality
throughout the process)
• participate in teleconferences on key issues
regarding this evaluation
• advise their own agencies and staff on this
evaluation as well as coordinating agency internal
substantive feedback back to the group
• ensure that field representatives were aware of the
TEC and fully involved and available to contribute to
the evaluation
• participate in any workshop that may be planned
once the draft report has been received.
A4.2 Role of the thematic Working Groups
In addition, the evaluations on Coordination, Needs
Assessment and Capacities also benefited from a wider
evaluation Working Group (WG). The WG consisted of
additional agencies and donors that ‘signed up’ to
participate – either in terms of funding or providing
substantive input – in the different evaluations but were
not in a position to provide active management guidance.
A5 The TEC thematic studies at a
glance
The tables starting on p132 provide information on
several different aspects of the individual TEC thematic
studies.
133
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Geographic coverage Timeframe Interview sources
Funding Response study1
Australia, Spain, Canada,
Sweden, Denmark, UK,
EC, USA, Germany,
India, Ireland,
Indonesia, Japan, Sri
Lanka, Luxembourg,
Thailand, Netherlands
Period studied:
Studied the fundraising
and disbursement over
the first 6 months
following the tsunami
More information is
contained in the 30 sub
studies of this
evaluation. See:
www.tsunami
evaluation.org
Information in each of
the 30 sub studies. See:
www.tsunami
evaluation.org
Total: euro635,410
(US$803,762;
FXConverter. 16 Jun
2006:
euro1=US$1.265)3
Study on LRRD
Indonesia, Sri Lanka,
Maldives, Thailand
Agency and donor HQ
in North America &
Europe
Period studied:
Phase 1 of the LRRD
study: First 9 10
months of the response
Of the evaluation:
Preparation: Literature
review: 3 weeks (Jul
Sep 2005) •
Preparation: Country
and policy studies: 1 2
weeks • Fieldwork for
two country studies:
2 3 weeks each during
Oct Nov 2005 •
Fieldwork for policy
study: 2 weeks in Oct
and Nov 2005 •
Writing country and
policy reports: Writing
synthesis of these
reports (the final
thematic evaluation):
Nov Dec 2005 (with
revisions through Mar
2006)
Affected individuals/
families:
IDN: 1227
LKA: 915
Approximately
US$588,700
Capacities study
Indonesia, Sri Lanka,
Maldives, Thailand
Period studied:
First 8 months of
response (relief
through initial recovery
period)
Of the evaluation:
Preparation (initial
desk review, HQ
interviews, TEC
Inception Workshop,
Team briefing): 2
weeks • Fieldwork: 2.5
months (3 weeks
Indonesia and Sri
Lanka, 10 days
Thailand and Maldives)
• Writing country
reports & thematic
evaluation report: mid
Nov 2005 to mid Apr
2006
Local & national NGOs
(176); INGOs & RC
Movement (140); UN
(121); national level
government (55);
district level
government (46);
Bilaterals (30)
TOTAL: 568
Affected individuals/
families: IDN: 1000
LKA: 1155
US$392,672
Needs Assessment study
Indonesia, Sri Lanka,
Maldives, Thailand
Agency and donor HQ
in North America &
Europe
Period studied:
Limited to needs
assessments initiated
in the first 3 months
after the tsunami
Evaluation of the
decision making
process triggered by
needs assessments had
no fixed timeframe,
and included both
immediate and longer
term decision making
processes
Of the evaluation:
Preparation: 1 week •
Fieldwork: 2 3 weeks
in the major countries;
15 days worth of visits
to agency HQ •
Writing thematic
evaluation report:
early Nov 2005 to Feb
2006
UN agencies (125);
donors (54); INGOs
(44); local government
(43); other (42)
TOTAL: 306
Affected individuals/
families:
IDN: 49
LKA: 86
US$215,782
Coordination study
Indonesia, Sri Lanka,
Maldives, (Thailand)
Period studied:
26 Dec 2004 30 Nov
2005 (relief through
initial recovery period)
Of the evaluation:
Preparation: 1 week •
Fieldwork: 8 weeks
(2.5 weeks per key
country) • Writing
country reports &
thematic evaluation
report: mid Nov to end
Mar 2006 (including
widespread
consultation with field
and HQ stakeholders)
UN (95); affected
governments (75);
INGOs & RC Movement
(70); military linked to
the UN, donors/ IFIs &
affected governments
(42); donors/IFIs (41);
local NGOs/CBOs (28)
TOTAL: 351
Approximately
US$494,500
Cost of the
evaluation2
Table A6. Coverage, timeframe, interview sources and costs of the thematic evaluations
Notes IDN: Indonesia, LKA: Sri Lanka tNoes
1 The funding study involved separate studies for each key donor country and the four most affected countries. Within the donor
countries, there were separate studies for NGO funding, government funding and general public funding. There was an additional
study of overall UN funding flows and one on Red Cross/Crescent flows, making 30 separate studies in all.
2 Please note that not all evaluations had finalised their accounts at the time of writing this report.
3 For a cost breakdown of the individual funding sub studies, please see the Funding Response Report (2006).
134
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Coordination study Needs Assessment study
Desk review & literature search • Multi-stakeholder
consultation workshops/ debriefings in IDN, LKA & MDV
• Two combined qualitative & quantitative surveys with
claim-holders in IDN & LKA • Qualitative interviews with
institutional stakeholders • Evaluation exit stakeholder
meetings in the field • Evaluation Steering Committee &
TEC team advice & inputs • Horizontal coordination with
other TEC teams & studies.
Desk review & literature search, including review &
inventory of assessments in IDN, LKA, IND, MDV • Multi￾stakeholder consultation workshops/debriefings in IDN,
LKA & MDV • Observations/field visits to five sites in
three countries (3 in IDN; 2 in LKA; 1 in THA) • Semi￾structured interviews with humanitarian personnel – using
a snowball approach with saturation coverage •
Interviews with affected individuals • Insertion of
questions into TEC Capacities Study surveys in IDN &
LKA • Constant triangulation • Dissemination of initial
drafts to over 250 interviewees for validity check &
feedback • Evaluation Steering Committee &TEC team
advice &inputs • Horizontal coordination with other TEC
teams & studies.
Desk review & literature search • Multi-stakeholder
consultation workshops/debriefings in IDN, LKA & MDV •
Semi-structured interviews with key actors; supplementary
written inputs • Group interviews • Phone interviews •
Insertion of questions into TEC Capacities Study surveys in
IDN & LKA • Collection of written data from the field •
Evaluation exit stakeholder meetings in the field •
Evaluation Steering Committee & TEC team advice &
inputs • Horizontal coordination with other TEC teams &
studies.
Funding Response study
Lack of time for planning & desk review of documents
prior to fieldwork • Selection of interviewees dependent
on who was present in each country (absence of key
informants given time of evaluation) • Evaluation burden
on interviewees • Lack of coherence & coordination
between TEC teams in the field (despite best efforts) •
Lack of agreed benchmark standards for coordination
against which to assess its efficiency, effectiveness, etc
(study based on observations of experienced people
about what worked & what did not).
Lack of time for planning & desk review of documents
prior to fieldwork • Field visits nine months after the
onset meant key staff turnover limited the number of
interviewees there in the first three months. This was
offset by systematically tracing key individuals & locating
them in HQ offices • Restricted access to assessment
reports • Lack of ownership of the TEC evaluation: a few
senior officials, particularly in the UN, did not see the
need for an evaluation not directly mandated by one of
their key donors • Evaluation fatigue found to have
‘absolutely no influence’ on the findings of the report.
Lack of time for planning & desk review of documents
prior to fieldwork • Lack of time in the field (& reduction
of overall time due to illness & accident in the evaluation
team) • Month of Ramadan.
LRRD Synthesis Report Qualitative analysis of the
constituent reports • Evaluation exit stakeholder meetings
in the field • TEC team advice & inputs • Horizontal
coordination with other TEC teams & studies • All three
empirical studies Inception reports • Semi-structured
interviews • Telephone interviews • Focus group
discussions • Horizontal coordination with other TEC
teams & studies • Country studies Quantitative surveys.
Varied approaches in the three empirical studies meant
data collected are not fully comparable, thus full use of
survey data not possible • Findings are indicative rather
than conclusive: (1) because assessment of LRRD requires
longitudinal data & this is not yet available; (2) because
responding agencies are learning & many of the issues in
this study may be addressed by the agencies • There will
be a Phase II LRRD study in early 2007, at which point
more definitive conclusions may be possible • All three
empirical studies Evaluation fatigue. Difficulty identifying
who to interview due to complexity of LRRD concept.
Analysis of financial records of donors and aid agencies •
Structured interviews with aid officials • Focus group
interviews and structured individual interviews with
beneficiary communities • Horizontal coordination with
other TEC teams & studies • TEC team advice & inputs.
Many agencies do not keep financial information in a
format that makes it easily available to outside
investigators • It was not always clear, particularly with
local funding flows, how much were new funds and how
much were redirected old funds • Funding is not ‘tagged’
as it flows from Donor to UN to NGO etc, so there may be
some double counting. However, the study has done its
best to eliminate this • Little information was available
during the evaluation period to allow the study to compile
a good picture of overall end-point disbursement to
beneficiaries.
Research methods employed Limitations and constraints
Capacities study Study on LRRD
Table A7. Research methods, limitations and constraints for the TEC evaluation
Note IDN: Indonesia, LKA: Sri Lanka, THA: Thailand; MDV: e
Maldives.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Evaluation team: core team members Additional researchers
Funding Response study
Funding Synthesis
Report Michael Flint
(UK) • Hugh Goyder
(UK)
For all other studies,
please see Table A9
Study on LRRD
LRRD Synthesis
Report Author &
LRRD Advisor: Ian
Christoplos
LRRD Policy Study
Hugh Goyder (team
leader; UK); Cowan
Coventry; Jerry
Adams (UK); Tania
Kaiser (UK);
Susanne Williams;
Ian Smillie (Canada)
LRRD Sri Lanka
Case Study Bjorn
Ternstrom (team
leader); Ellen Girerd￾Barclay; Darini
Rajasingham LRRD
Indonesia Case
Study Emergy
Brusset (team
leader); Anne
Davies; Susanne
Pedersen
LRRD: A Review of
the Debate Margie
Buchanan Smith
(UK) & Paola Fabbri
(Italy) (background
document that
informed conceptual
frameworks of the
three empirical
studies)
Capacities study
Arjuna Parakrama
(team leader; Sri
Lanka) • Smruti
Patel (India) •
Elisabeth Scheper
(Netherlands)
Abdur Rofi
(Indonesia);
Sudarshana
Gunawardana (Sri
Lanka); Janey Lawry
Needs Assessment study
Claude de Ville de
Goyet (team leader;
Belgium) • Leslie C.
Morinière (France)
Michael Adhikara
Budi (Indonesia); Dr
Achmad Harjadi
(Indonesia); Bryan
Heal (Canada);
Akhmad Hidayatno
(Indonesia);
Christina Lopriore
(Italy); Dr Ernie
Widianty Rahardjo
(Indonesia)
Coordination study
Jon Bennett (team
leader; UK) •
William Bertrand
(USA) • Clare
Harkin (civil–military
issues; UK) •
Stanley
Samarasinghe (USA/
Sri Lanka) •
Hemantha
Wickramatillake
(NGOs in Sri Lanka)
Table A8. TEC evaluation team members, researchers and management
White (UK)
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Funding Response study
Steering Committee
Danida (lead)
Advised by Peter
Walker (Feinstein
International Famine
Centre)
Study on LRRD
Steering Committee
Sida (lead)
Advised by Ian
Christoplos
(independent)
Capacities study
Steering Committee
UNDP (joint lead)
DMI (joint lead)
ActionAid
 International
Cordaid
UNICEF
Working Group
NORAD
FAO
Tearfund (UK)
HPG/ODI
Oxfam (GB/ NL)
ICMH
SDC
RedR
WHO
Independent
consultant (Ian
Christoplos)
Needs Assessment study
Steering Committee
FAO (joint lead)
SDC (joint lead)
WHO (joint lead)
To assist these
agencies with
implementation of
the evaluation, the
International Centre
for Migration and
Health (ICMH) was
contracted to
facilitate
administrative and
logistical support.
In addition,
substantive input
was received at
various stages
during the project:
Cida; Groupe URD;
CICR; DaRa
International; Centre
for Humanitarian
Dialogue; HAP-I;
Sphere; University of
Westminster; USAID/
OFDA; WFP
Coordination study
Steering Committee
OCHA (lead)
IFRC
Save the Children –
 UK
UNDP
UNFPA
UNICEF
USAID
In addition,
substantive input
was received from:
RC/HC office, Sri
Lanka; RC/HC office,
Maldives; RC/HC
office, Indonesia;
UNORC, Banda
Aceh; UNHCR, Sri
Lanka; IFRC, all
countries; Oxfam;
World Vision;
Muslim Aid; Islamic
Relief; and CRS
Table A8. TEC evaluation team members, researchers and management continued Steering Committees
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Table A9. Team members for the funding response constituent studies
Global Flows, RC and Local Response
Global Flows and UN/CAP
Judith Randel
Tony German
Tasneem Mowjee
Lydia Baker
Red Cross/Red Crescent
Christian Bugnion
Silvia Hidalgo
Lucía Fernández
Local Response
Overview: Earl Kessler, ADPC
Indonesia Liliana Marulanda (Forum
LSM Aceh, team leader) and
Syamsul Rizal/Syiah Kuala
University
India: Balachandran (team leader)
and Haran Sowmya, principal
researcher; Environmental Planning
Collaborative
Sri Lanka: Anoja Wickramasinghe,
Peridenia University (team leader)
and Kamalini Fernando (principal
researcher)
Thailand: Dr Seree, Rangsit
University (team leader) and Khun
Montri of the Royal Thai
Government/Department of Disaster
Prevention and Mitigation
Donor Government Studies
Synthesis: Silvia Hidalgo (team
leader), Ricardo Solé and Achim
Engelhardt
Australia: Bernard Broughton and
Philip Fradd
Canada: Liz Satow
Denmark: Rie Andersen and Marina
Buch Kristensen
ECHO: Silvia Hidalgo, Ricardo Solé
and Kim Wuyts
Germany: Peter Wolff
Ireland: Rie Andersen and Marina
Buch Kristensen
Japan: Tomoko Honda and Yuki
Todoroki
Netherlands: Rie Andersen and
Marina Buch Kristensen
Spain: Silvia Hidalgo, Velina
Stoianova and Lucía Fernández
Achim Engelhardt, Julia Flores
Sweden: Paula San Pedro, Silvia
Hidalgo and Virginia Tortella
UK: Silvia Hidalgo and Achim
Engelhardt
USA: Liz Satow
UK: Julia Flores
Private Funding Studies
NGOs
Denmark: Rie Andersen and Marina
Buch Kristensen
Ireland: Rie Andersen and Marina
Buch Kristensen
Japan:Tomoko Honda and Yuki
Todoroki
Netherlands: Rie Andersen and
Marina Buch Kristensen
Spain: Augustín Moya
General Public
Germany: Dagmar Bär, Burkhard
Wilke, Christel Neff, Tanja Ibrahim
Spain: Gilles Gasser, Ricardo Solé
Corporate Sector
Gilles Gasser, Ricardo Solé
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
B1 Background
Early in January 2005, in recognition of the added value
joint evaluations bring to the humanitarian sector, a
number of ALNAP members began to discuss how best
to coordinate evaluations of tsunami response. The
intention was twofold:
1 To promote a sector-wide approach to evaluations
of the tsunami response in order to optimise sector￾wide learning.
2 To develop, test and validate procedures or the
future timely establishment of such an evaluation
coordination (coalition) mechanism that could
facilitate such an approach.
An interagency and donor meeting was held in Geneva
on 23 February 2005 to discuss how best to develop this
approach. At that meeting participants agreed to
constitute an ‘evaluation coalition’ (now called the
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, or TEC), guided by a Core
Management Group (CMG). It was also agreed that the
ALNAP Secretariat would act as the facilitating platform
for the initiative.
B2 The Synthesis Report
It is intended that the TEC Synthesis Report will be the
primary joint output of the TEC. The report will draw not
only from the six joint thematic evaluations within the
TEC framework, but also from other learning from the
crisis including any evaluations conducted by the TEC
members.
B2.1 The overall objective of the TEC Synthesis
Report
The Synthesis Report is intended to promote beneficial
change in the humanitarian sector by distilling the
learning from all of the evaluations on the response to
the earthquake and tsunamis of 26 December 2004. This
learning includes not only the TEC’s joint thematic
evaluations but also evaluations and studies from
agencies that are part of the wider TEC network.
The report will present a concise overview of the
learning from the response. It is intended that the
Annex B: TEC synthesis
terms of reference
Synthesis Report will improve policy and performance
within the humanitarian sector by:
• providing the humanitarian sector with the means
to reflect on its performance in the tsunami
response, identifying generic strengths and
weaknesses through a synthesis of the principal
findings, conclusions and recommendations of the
evaluations made available to the TEC
• commenting on the overall coherence of the TEC
evaluation effort, including any examples of
duplication or major gaps between the component
evaluations.
The Synthesis Report will also highlight issues for
ongoing TEC studies.
• The Consultant will ensure that the conclusions of
the report focus on lessons learned from the
experiences of the evaluations. Concentrating on
the tsunami- affected regions but framed by the
broader context, the conclusions will also provide
some indications for evaluators as to specific
themes to focus on when carrying out evaluations
of similar situations in the future. The conclusions
will also provide an input for agencies’ ongoing
planning in the region.
• The Synthesis Report should advocate for any
necessary change in policy and practices in the
humanitarian sector by clearly showing where such
change is necessary, and supporting this with
examples and reasoned argument.
B3 Reporting lines
The Consultant will report directly to the Head of ALNAP
and will work in close cooperation with the Evaluation
Advisor and Coordinator (EAC) and the Researcher and
Deputy Coordinator (RDC). The EAC and RDC will be
subsidiary authors for the report and will draft material
in accordance with the outline agreed between the
Consultant and Head of ALNAP. The Consultant will act
as the team leader for the Synthesis Report writing team.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
B4 Timeframe
A maximum of 30 person-days have been allocated to
complete the consultancy. All main parties will be in
regular contact to review progress. A provisional
schedule is shown in Figure B1.
Date Action
November 2005 Consultant attends the one-day workshop
with the evaluation teams to understand what the key
messages are likely to be.
December 2005 Consultant reads the initial draft thematic
evaluations, comments on the apparent key messages,
and attends the workshop with the evaluation teams
and CMG in Brussels on 10 December. Consultant
comments on the draft of the key-messages report
prepared by the EAC.
January 2006 Consultant reads other available
evaluations.
Mid-January 2006 Consultant visits ALNAP Secretariat to
discuss progress and agree on the outline of the
Synthesis Report.
Mid-February 2006 Consultant submits first draft to
ALNAP Secretariat for review.
Late February 2006 Modifications and redrafting, including
a meeting between the Consultant and the CMG,
probably in London.
1 March 2006 Consultant submits final draft of report and
summary sheet to Project Leader. Report summarised
and submitted to academic journals.
Figure B1. A provisional schedule
B5 Outputs
The Consultant will be responsible for the following
outputs:
1 the Synthesis Report, expected to be 15,000 to
20,000 words in length, exclusive of annexes
2 a short summary of the Synthesis Report of no
more than 1,200 words
3 a condensed version of the Synthesis Report
suitable for publication in academic journals.
B6 Selection process
The selection process for the Consultant is as follows:
1 Candidates are requested to submit their CV
together with three samples of their work to the
ALNAP Secretariat as early as possible but no later
than 1700 British Summer Time, 15 August 2005.
One of the work samples submitted should be a
recent example of a synthesis report that they have
written. No application is required other than a brief
cover note confirming their interest in the
consultancy and outlining any prior commitments.
2 Selection of the shortlisted candidates will be based
primarily on their writing samples, but also on their
CV.
3 Telephone interviews will be held on 18 August for
the shortlisted candidates. The interview panel will
consist of three members of the TEC Core
Management Group.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
C1 Synthesis and TEC team
John Telford, Synthesis Team Leader and
Co-author, Synthesis Report
John Telford is a consultant in international
humanitarian and development aid. Over the last 20
years he has worked as a practitioner, trainer, analyst
and evaluator worldwide, especially in Latin America,
covering both natural disaster and conflict-related
programmes. He has served as National Director of
Amnesty International, Ireland; as a teacher and
journalist in Colombia for six years; and for six years
with UNHCR, including as a Senior Emergency
Preparedness and Response Officer. He has
subsequently worked with a wide range of international
humanitarian organisations (UN, NGO and donor
agencies) and with affected governments and
communities. John has lectured in universities in
Ireland, Central American countries and Colombia. He
has contributed to a variety of publications, including
specialised reviews, textbooks and news media.
John Cosgrave, TEC Evaluation Advisor and
Coordinator (July 2005–April 2006) and Co-author,
Synthesis Report
John Cosgrave is an independent Irish consultant with
nearly 30 years work experience in 50 countries on the
management and operation of relief and development
programmes. John has worked as an independent
consultant since 1997, having spent most of his previous
professional life managing NGO projects and
programmes. Most of John’s work now consists of
evaluating programmes in the field to identify how they
can be improved. He has undertaken evaluations for the
EC, ECHO, and for the aid departments of the Danish,
Norwegian, US and Irish governments, as well as for
NGOs including Oxfam, CARE, the Danish Refugee
Council, and the DEC in the UK.
John has also worked for UNHCR, the UK’s
Department for International Development (DFID), and
WFP. He has developed and delivered training in over a
dozen countries, principally in the area of emergency
preparedness, emergency management and NGO
Annex C: Biographies
security. John is an engineer by training, and holds two
masters degrees.
Rachel Houghton, TEC Researcher/ Deputy
Coordinator (May 2005 – April 2006); Coordinator
(May 2006 – present) and Contributing Author,
Synthesis Report
Rachel Houghton has spent most of her professional life
working in development and humanitarian NGOs and
research institutes. Recent roles have included
consultancies for an international women’s organisation
in Bosnia, where she was responsible for designing a
multi-country participatory M & E framework, and work
for the UK’s national Charities Evaluation Service. Prior
to this Rachel held predominantly communications and
advocacy roles in a variety of NGOs and community
development organisations in South Africa and the US,
before joining ODI as the Deputy Coordinator of the
Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) in 1999. She left
this role to pursue a masters degree in Advanced Social
Research Methods and Social Policy (distinction) before
re-joining ODI, this time with ALNAP, to coordinate the
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition.
Rachel has contributed to a variety of publications,
including editing three out of five volumes of ALNAP’s
annual Review of Humanitarian Action. She sits on the
Policy and Programmes Committee of Womankind
Worldwide, and is currently advising the agency on how
to conduct a learning review.
Sherylin Thompson, Media Specialist
Sherylin Thompson is a media consultant specialising in
the not-for-profit sector. Her background in press and
media relations has been gained largely within the UK
voluntary sector. Over the past eight years she has
worked for national organisations including Help the
Aged, the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of
Hearing People (RNID) and National Children’s Homes
(NCH). Within these organisations Sherylin has
developed media strategies supporting lobbying work
and initiatives extending into overseas development,
such as children’s homes in Zimbabwe.
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
TEC Administrators
The TEC has had three Administrators: Laura Kitchin
(September 2005–March 2006); Charlotte Woodhill
(April 2006–May 2006); and Chinwe Ozugha (May
2006–present).
C2 Synthesis peer reviewers
Yasemin Aysan, Independent Consultant
Dr Yasemin Aysan has been working in the
humanitarian and development fields for more than 25
years in over 20 countries. She was the director of the
Disaster Management Centre at Oxford Brookes
University (1989–1993) where she previously served in
various positions (1979–1989) related to training,
national capacity building and research in disaster
management. She worked as a senior policy advisor and
subsequently as the director of the Disaster
Preparedness Department at the International Federation
of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) (1993–
1999). At the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery
(BCPR), UNDP, she served as the senior policy adviser
and director for the Disaster Reduction Unit (1999–2004).
Since 2005 she has been working as an
independent consultant in disaster risk management and
recovery planning. She served as a member of the World
Bank recovery assessment teams to Sri Lanka, after the
tsunami, and to Pakistan, following the earthquake.
Dr David, Disaster Mitigation Institute
Dr David joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS)
in 1966 and worked in various fields including district
administration, rural development (encompassing
development and poverty alleviation), management of
government-owned corporations and agriculture. Dr
David has an MSc in Social Planning in Developing
Countries and a PhD in Commerce and Business
Management. He currently works with the Disaster
Mitigation Institute in India where his field of specialty is
in food security in emergency situations. He has also
been involved in assessing work undertaken by various
actors in tsunami relief in India, Sri Lanka and
Indonesia. Dr David is also a consultant on rural
development with the International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD).
Will Day, Special Advisor to UNDP
Will Day has spent the past 20 years working with a
range of relief and development NGOs, including Save
the Children, Oxfam, the Opportunity Trust and CARE
International, in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and
Somalia. He has worked for the BBC World Service for
Africa, and was responsible for setting up Comic Relief’s
grant-making programme for Africa. Will sits on the
Boards of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and
BBC Children in Need; he is the external member of the
BBC’s CSR Board; and is an independent assessor for
the public appointments process of the DCMS.
Will is currently Special Advisor to the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in which
capacity he is involved with the UN’s Growing
Sustainable Business initiative. As a Senior Associate of
the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry he
is a regular faculty member of the Prince of Wales
Business and Environment Programme at Madingly Hall.
He has recently been appointed Chair of Water and
Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), a non-profit
company bringing together private-sector and NGO
member organisations to pursue the Millennium
Development Goal for water and sanitation in the
poorest parts of the world.
Andrea Woodhouse
Andrea Woodhouse worked in Aceh as adviser to the
Indonesian cabinet minister in charge of tsunami relief
and reconstruction during the emergency phase of the
tsunami response. She has worked for the World Bank
and the United Nations in Indonesia and East Timor,
focusing on issues of corruption, conflict and community
development. She has a masters degree in International
Relations from the London School of Economics, and has
lived in Burma, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Jordan, Indonesia
and the United States.
C3 Members of the Core Management
Group
Mihir Bhatt, AIDMI
Mihir R Bhatt studied and practised architecture and city
planning in Ahmedabad and Delhi, India, and later
Cambridge and Washington DC, USA. On returning to
India in 1989 he initiated a project on disaster risk
mitigation with a team of 3, which is now the 78-member
and 11-activity-centre All India Disaster Mitigation
Institute (AIDMI). AIDMI works on both direct action and
community learning.
Mihir has also studied at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). He received the Russell E
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Train Institutional Fellowship from the World Wildlife
Fund, USA (1997), the Eisenhower Fellowship, USA
(2000), and recently the Ashoka International Fellowship,
USA (2004). He has set up a disaster insurance and
mitigation programme for the 12,000 micro-enterprise
beneficiaries of the Livelihood Relief Fund of AIDMI in
three states of India. Currently, he is evaluating the work
of UN and international agencies on tsunami relief and
rehabilitation activities in coastal areas of South India, Sri
Lanka and Indonesia.
Tijana Bojanic, IFRC (replaced on the CMG by
Margaret Stansberry, January 2006)
Tijana Bojanic is currently a temporary officer in the
Monitoring and Evaluation Department at the IFRC,
where she has worked for over five years. Just prior to
this she was Acting Head of Department. In her former
roles at the IFRC before she was Acting Head, Tijana
designed and managed two rounds of evaluations of the
IFRC tsunami operation, participating in the development
of an impact-assessment system. She has designed and
taken a lead role in the process of improving the
implementation of the ‘Strategy of the Movement’. Tijana
is currently working for a Doctorate of Philosophy in
International Economics.
Amy Cavender, World Vision International
(replaced on the CMG by Jamo Huddle, March
2006)
Amy Cavender has spent most of her professional life
working for humanitarian aid and development NGOs in
Africa, Latin America, Asia and the UK. Most recently,
she joined World Vision International (WVI) to focus on
assessment, design, monitoring and evaluation in the
policy and advocacy arena. From January 2005, she led
World Vision UK’s coordination of the tsunami response,
overseeing programme design in the four worst affected
countries, as well as representing DEC agencies and
WVI on the TEC CMG.
Prior to this, Amy was Head of Monitoring and
Evaluation at BESO, responsible for impact-review
processes in both economic and social sectors for 60
countries. Previously, Amy managed a variety of NGO
projects and programmes over 10 years, working for
organisations including The Gaia Foundation, World
Vision, LICC and at the grassroots with CBOs in East
Africa. Amy holds a masters degree in Environment and
Development.
Niels Dabelstein, Danida
Niels Dabelstein has been head of Evaluation in Danida
since 1988. He was Chair of the OECD/DAC Working
Party on Aid Evaluation from 1997 to 2002 and Vice-chair
in 1996 and from 2002 to 2005. He has been a pioneer in
several aspects of development evaluation. For example,
he was instrumental in drafting the DAC Principles for
Aid Evaluation in 1990, the DAC Guidelines for
Evaluating Humanitarian assistance in 1998 and the
DAC Evaluation Quality Standards in 2006. In 1994 he
initiated and led the first major joint evaluation of
humanitarian aid – of the International Response to the
Genocide in Rwanda. In Danida and in his work for the
DAC he has pioneered joint evaluations and evaluation
capacity building.
Stefan Dahlgren, Sida
Stefan Dahlgren is a senior evaluator at Sida’s
Department for Evaluation and Internal Audit and has,
during the last three years, worked largely with
evaluations in the humanitarian area. Before rejoining
the evaluation department in late 2003 he was head of
Sida’s office in Afghanistan, and spent four years for Sida
in Vietnam, working on governance and legal-sector
issues, as well as support to culture and media. Stefan
joined Sida in 1987 and worked with evaluations for
several years before becoming head of Sida’s evaluation
unit from 1991 to 1993. Before joining Sida he worked in
housing and planning research, mainly in Sweden but
also in Tanzania.
Susanne Frueh, Chair, TEC CMG
Susanne is an international development professional
with over 20 years experience in the evaluation,
planning, design, appraisal, and management of
development and humanitarian programmes. She has
extensive international experience working for several
UN agencies on programmes and initiatives in Africa,
Asia and Latin America, combining hands-on operational
know-how with corporate policy, evaluation and results￾based management expertise. Currently Susanne heads
the Evaluation and Studies Unit of OCHA, with the aim
to strengthen OCHA’s effectiveness and accountability in
the coordination of humanitarian assistance.
André Griekspoor, WHO (replaced on the CMG by
Rachel Sauvinet-Bedouin, April 2006)
André Griekspoor is a medical doctor with a masters
degree in international public health. He joined the
World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2000, based in the
then Emergency and Humanitarian Action Department
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
(EHA), now Health Action in Crises (HAC). His main
responsibilities as an evaluation expert have been to
develop the evaluation function of WHO in emergencies.
He has managed and participated in several evaluations
of WHO’s performance. André was extensively involved
in assessments and formulating strategies within the
interagency Consolidated Appeal Process. In March 2006
he joined the Evaluation and Performance Audit unit of
Internal Oversight Services at WHO.
Previously, André worked for nine years with
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), as a field doctor and
medical coordinator in South Sudan, Rwanda, Ethiopia
and Liberia, and was health advisor and later the head of
monitoring and evaluation for MSF in Amsterdam. Since
1997 he’s been a full member of the Active Learning
Network on Accountability and Performance in
Humanitarian Action (ALNAP), and also served on its
steering committee.
François Grünewald, Groupe URD
Francois Grünewald is an engineer in agricultural
science, specialising in rural economy, and is Associate
Professor at Paris XII University. He spent 25 years in
development, emergency and post-disaster rehabilitation
projects in Africa, Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand),
Central Europe and Central Latin America, as well as at
HQ levels. He has worked with NGOs, UN agencies and
the ICRC. For five years he ran the Agricultural
Rehabilitation Unit of ICRC. In 1997, he became
chairman of a French research, evaluation and training
institute, Groupe URD (Urgence-Rehabilitation￾Developpement), doing research and evaluation work for
the EU, the UN and NGOs.
Professor Grünewald has written several books
and articles on complex emergencies and the
management of socio-natural disasters. He has been
team leader for the evaluation of the UN food security
response to Bar el Ghazal Famine in 1998, the Post-Mitch
inter-NGO evaluation process from 1999 to 2001; the
DFID--UNICEF evaluation of the response to the Darfur
crisis, and the evaluation of the French response to the
tsunami.
Jamo Huddle
Based in Singapore, Jamo Huddle is the Design,
Monitoring and Evaluation Manager for World Vision’s
Asia Tsunami Response Team (ATRT). Prior to joining
ATRT in 2005, Jamo worked for C-SAFE (a consortium of
international NGOs – World Vision, CARE and Catholic
Relief Service) as the M&E Regional Technical Advisor,
operating in Lesotho, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe to
support vulnerable communities facing the southern
Africa regional food crisis. From 1997 to 2002 Jamo
worked as a Senior Nutritionist and Team Leader for the
World Vision Canada Nutrition Team. During this time
she organised the CIDA–funded international
Micronutrient Conference, in Hull, Canada. From May
1993 to June 1994, Jamo worked as Field Research
Manager for Guelph-Malawi Nutrition Project in Malawi,
Africa. Her responsibility included all phases of research
project: implementation, collection and analysis of data.
This research was funded by the International
Development Research Centre. Jamo holds a Ph.D. in
Applied Human Nutrition from University of Guelph.
Christoph Jakob, SDC
Christoph Jakob has worked for humanitarian and
development agencies for the last 15 years, and has a
masters degree in humanitarian action. Since 2003 he
has been responsible for evaluation in the humanitarian
aid department of the Swiss Agency for Development
and Cooperation (SDC). Previously he worked for NGOs
and UN agencies, combating the trafficking of children
and women in Southeast Asia, and managing relief and
development programmes in other parts of the world.
Simon Lawry White, UNICEF (replaced on the CMG
by J Wayne MacDonald, September 2005)
Simon Lawry-White has masters degrees in agricultural
engineering and in business administration, and has
worked in relief and development for 25 years. His
former positions include: Programme Services Director
of Oxfam GB; management consultant to government,
the UN and NGOs; and manager of multiple evaluations
of humanitarian programmes. Currently, he is Senior
Programme Officer in the UNICEF Evaluation Office,
responsible for evaluations of institutional performance.
J Wayne MacDonald, UNICEF (from October 2005)
J Wayne MacDonald is currently Senior Project Officer
with UNICEF’s Evaluation Office in New York, and
responsible for leading the evaluation of UNICEF’s
response to the Indian Ocean tsunami. From 1981 to
1998, Wayne held various managerial positions in the
Canadian International Development Agency, related to
humanitarian and NGO programming and evaluation. He
is a former senior manager at the International
Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva (1999–2003),
where he was Head of Planning, Monitoring and
Evaluation. As a consultant he has worked with various
NGOs and UN agencies on strengthening organisational
performance. From 2000 to 2002, he was Chair of the
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Active Learning Network for Accountability and
Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP).
John Mitchell, ALNAP Secretariat
John Mitchell is currently the Head of ALNAP (the
Active Learning Network for Accountability and
Performance in Humanitarian Action), an interagency
organisation aimed at improving accountability and
performance in humanitarian action. John has worked
in the humanitarian sector for 20 years, beginning his
career with the British Government and the United
Nations in Ethiopia (1984–86), where he worked as a UN
field monitor.
In 1989 John set up a consultancy company
specialising in participatory evaluations in humanitarian
crises, and worked for a wide range of UN, donor and
NGO clients in Africa and Asia. John has also worked in
a number of advisory roles including on food security
for ActionAid, disaster preparedness for the IFRC, and
for six years as senior humanitarian adviser for the
British Red Cross. He has published widely in journals
and books.
Miles Murray, CARE (left in Spring 2006)
Miles Murray has until recently held the position of
Emergency Programme Officer at CARE International
UK, focusing solely on those areas affected by the
tsunami. Over the last 10 years he has worked on both
development and relief programmes in Southern Africa
and Asia. His has worked for several periods in Zambia,
most recently coordinating CARE’s response to the 2002/
3 drought. Miles has particular experience of food
security and nutrition, and, having worked in the
aftermath of the Gujarat earthquake, knowledge of
shelter and reconstruction. He is currently investigating
the possibility of marketing sorghum to promote crop
diversification and therefore food security in Zambia.
Suppiramaniam Nanthikesan, UNDP
Suppiramaniam Nanthikesan is an Evaluation Advisor in
the Evaluation Office of UNDP, and leads the Strategic
and Thematic Evaluation Group. He co-managed the TEC
thematic evaluation on Capacities. Prior to joining the
UNDP Evaluation Office, he was part of the Harvard
University research team studying global health
inequalities. He did his PhD at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and MPA (Public Policy) at
Harvard University.
Rachel Sauvinet-Bedouin, FAO (from May 2006)
Rachel Sauvinet-Bedouin is a staff member of the FAO
Evaluation Service. Over the past 20 years she has
worked for multilateral agencies in the fields of rural
development, food security and vulnerability
information, analysis and policy, and disaster
preparedness. She manages, supervises and leads
evaluations, in particular on FAO’s work in emergencies
and rehabilitation. This has included an evaluation of
FAO’s programme in Afghanistan. She is currently
overseeing the real-time evaluation of FAO’s work in
post-tsunami rehabilitation. She has undertaken several
evaluation missions, on programmes related to food aid,
in collaboration with WFP. Rachel’s background is in
economics, and she holds a post-masters diploma in
international development economics from the
University of Paris X Nanterre.
Margaret Stansberry, IFRC (from January 2006)
Margaret Stansberry joined the IFRC Secretariat in
Geneva in February 2006. For the previous three years,
she was an independent consultant conducting
evaluations and needs assessments, setting up
monitoring systems and developing planning systems for
clients including Care International, the United
Methodist Committee on Relief, Winrock International,
and the World Initiative for Soy in Human Health.
She has a masters degree in international
relations from the State University of New York at
Buffalo She has worked in both conflict and natural￾disaster settings for more than 10 years, covering more
than 25 countries. From 1994 to 2003 she worked for the
American Red Cross International Services, creating
their planning, monitoring and evaluation department,
and providing technical assistance to country delegations
around the world.
C4 Thematic Evaluation Team Leaders
Jon Bennett (Coordination Report)
Jon Bennet has had 30 years’ experience in Africa, Asia
and Eastern Europe including Country Representative/
Field Director posts and independent consultancies for
development agencies – ranging from the UN, EU and
NGOs. He is a socioeconomist and specialist in food
security, rural development, relief, evaluation and NGO
training. He was Executive Director of ACBAR (Agency
Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief) from 1990–92, and
founding Director of the Global IDP Project (1995–98).
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From 2004–05 he held a D1 post as UN Team Leader,
Joint Assessment Mission, Sudan. He has five published
books and has been a Research Associate at the Refugee
Studies Programme, Oxford University (1994–2000). He
is a board member for Forced Migration Review and is
currently Director of Oxford Development Consultants.
Michael Flint (Funding Response Report)
Michael Flint is an economist with 24 years postgraduate
experience of international development programmes,
the last 17 years as an independent evaluation
consultant. His areas of expertise include: social and
economic analysis; monitoring and evaluation; project
and programme design and appraisal; rural and
environmental issues; and performance assessment
systems. Michael has been team leader/ lead author of
over 20 major impact-evaluation studies, including 8
evaluation synthesis reports. The latter include DFID’s
first Development Effectiveness Report and the first
three Annual Reports on Results and Impact for IFAD.
He has designed, led and conducted several Country
Programme Evaluations for DFID.
Ian Christoplos (LRRD Report)
Ian Christoplos is a researcher at the Swedish University
of Agricultural Sciences and an independent consultant.
His research engagements focus on risk, recovery, rural
development and agricultural services. He has worked
as a researcher and practitioner in both development
cooperation and humanitarian assistance. He is the co￾author, together with Catherine Longley and Tom
Slaymaker, of Agricultural Rehabilitation: Mapping the
Linkages between Humanitarian Relief, Social Protection
and Development, published by the Humanitarian Policy
Group of the Overseas Development Institute (2006) and
co-editor, together with John Farrington, of Poverty,
Vulnerability, and Agricultural Extension: Policy Reforms
in an Era of Globalization, published by Oxford
University Press in 2004.
Dr Claude de Ville de Goyet (Needs Assessment
Report)
A Belgian national, Dr de Ville de Goyet graduated as a
doctor of medicine from the University of Louvain,
Belgium in 1965, and completed postgraduate studies in
tropical medicine and public health. He also holds a BSc
in Operational Research and Computer Sciences from
the University of South Africa.
Following six years of public-health work in Africa,
Dr de Ville de Goyet joined the Disaster Epidemiology
Research Centre (CRED, University of Louvain, Belgium)
as Executive Director (1973–1977). He is the author of
numerous articles and publications, including the WHO
manual, ‘Management of Nutritional Emergencies in
Large Populations’. For 25 years (1977–2002), he was
Director of the Emergency Preparedness and Disaster
Relief Coordination Program of the Pan American Health
Organisation, regional office for the Americas of the
World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO). PAHO is a
recognised leader in promoting health preparedness.
Since his retirement from PAHO in 2002, he has
been a senior consultant to UN agencies and national
governments, specialising in evaluation of preparedness
and response projects across the world, including health
response to complex emergencies in Bosnia and Kosovo
and to cyclones in the Caribbean. He has regularly
visited the tsunami-affected countries before this
mission. In 2005, he received a certificate of distinction
from the UN Sasakawa award.
Professor Arjuna Parakrama (Capacities Report)
Dr Parakrama currently teaches cultural studies and
discourse analysis at the University of Peradeniya in Sri
Lanka. He has worked for the past 14 years as a
consultant in the community development sector,
specialising in capacity strengthening and working on
conflict, notably with Oxfam Australia, and has been
UNDP Peace & Development Advisor in Nepal. He has
participated in evaluations of UNDP programmes in the
Philippines, Macedonia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
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This Synthesis Report is published alongside the TEC’s
five thematic joint evaluations. An accompanying
reference CD contains this report, all five of the thematic
evaluations as well as all the sub-studies linked to these
five reports. These sub-studies are listed in Table D1.
Annex D: TEC reports on
CD-ROM
Table D1. List of Thematic Report Sub-studies on accompanying CD-ROM
Name of sub-report Author(s)
TEC Synthesis Report
Joint Evaluation of the John Telford, John Cosgrave &
international response to the Rachel Houghton
Indian Ocean tsunami:
Synthesis Report
TEC Thematic Evaluations
Funding the tsunami response
Links between relief, Ian Christopolos
rehabilitation and development
in the tsunami response
Impact of the tsunami
response on local and national Smruti Patel 
capacities
Coordination of international Jon Bennett, William Bertrand,
humanitarian assistance in Clare Harkin, Stanley Samarasinghe
tsunami affected countries & Hementha Wickramatillake
The role of needs assessment Claude de Ville de Goyet &
in the tsunami response Lezlie Morinière
Links between Relief, Rehabilitation and Development in the
Tsunami Response
LRRD: A Review of the Debate Margie Buchanan Smith & Paola
Fabbri
LRRD: Indonesia Case Study Mr Emery Brusset (team leader),
Wartini Pramana, Anne Davies,
Yashwant Deshmukh, Susanne B
Pedersen. In cooperation with Team
LRRD: The Policy Study Hugh Goyder (team leader), with
Cowan Coventry, Jerry Adams, Tania
Kaiser, Suzanne Williams, Ian Smillie
Name of sub-report Author(s)
Links between Relief, Rehabilitation and Development in the
Tsunami Response continued
LRRD: Sri Lanka Case Study Björn Ternström (team leader), Ellen
Girard Barclay, Darini Rajasingham,
Yashwant Deshmukh, Susanne B
Pedersen
Funding the Tsunami Response
Overall Funding Flows Tony German, Judith Randel,
Tasneem Mowjee, Lydia Baker
Government Funding/ Achim Engelhardt, Silvia Hidalgo,
Synthesis Ricardo Sole
Government Funding/Australia Bernard Broughton, Philip Fradd
Government Funding/Canada Liz Satow
Government Funding/ Rie Andersen, Marina Buch
Denmark Kristensen
Government Funding/ Silvia Hidalgo, Ricardo Sole,
European Commission Kim Wuyts
Government Funding/Germany Peter Wolff
Government Funding/ Rie Andersen & Marina
Ireland Buch Kristensen
Government Funding/Japan Tomoko Honda & Yuki Todoroki
Government Funding/ Rie Andersen and Marina
The Netherlands Buch Kristensen
Government Funding/Spain Achim Engelhardt, Silvia Hidalgo,
Velina Stoianova, Lucá Fernández,
Julia Flores
Government Funding/Sweden Paula San Pedro, Silvia Hidalgo,
Virginia Tortella
Government Funding/UK Achim Engelhardt & Silvia Hidalgo
Betty Scheper, Arjuna Parakrama
Michael Flint & Hugh Goyder
&
C Voter, Mr Robin Davies
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Name of sub-report Author(s)
The Role of Needs Assessment in the Tsunami Response
Desk review on Needs Assess Cristina Lopriore
ments in Food Security/Food Aid
Coordination of International Humanitarian Assistance in
Tsunami-Affected Countries
Indonesia Case Study Jon Bennett (team leader), Clare
Harkin (civil military issues), Stanley
Samarasinghe
Sri Lanka Case Study Jon Bennett team leader, William
Bertrand, Clare Harkin (civil military
issues), Stanley Samarasinghe,
Hemantha Wickramatillake (NGOs in
Sri Lanka)
The Maldives Case Study Jon Bennett (team leader), Clare
Harkin (civil military issues), Stanley
Samarasinghe
Civil Military Aspects Clare Harkin
of the International Response
Impact of the Tsunami Response on Local and National Capacities
Indonesia Country Report Elizabeth Scheper (with contributions
(Aceh and Nias) from Smruti Patel and Arjuna
Parakrama)
Maldives Country Report Smruti Patel (with contributions from
Janey Lawry White)
Sri Lanka Country Report Arjuna Parakrama (with contributions
from Elisabeth Scheper and
Sudarshana Gunawardena)
Thailand Country Report Elizabeth Scheper (with contributions
from Smruti Patel)
Name of sub-report Author(s)
Funding the Tsunami Response continued
Government Funding/US Liz Satow
United Nations and Funding Tony German, Judith Randel,
Tasneem Mowjee, Lydia Baker
IFRC and ICRC Funding Christian Bugnion, Silvia Hidalgo,
Lucía Fernández
NGO Funding/Ireland Rie Andersen & Marina Buch
Kristensen
NGO Funding/ Rie Andersen & Marina
The Netherlands Buch Kristensen
NGO Funding/Japan Tomoko Honda & Yuki Todoroki
NGO Funding/Spain Agustín Moya
NGO Funding/UK Julia Flores
Funding from the Dagmar Bär, Burkhard Wilke,
General Public/Germany Christel Neff, Tanja Ibrahim
Funding from the Gilles Gasser & Ricardo Solé
General Public/Spain
Local Response/Overview Earl Kessler
Local Response/India Balachandran Haran Sowmya
Local Response/Indonesia Liliana Marulanda & Syamsul Rizal
Local Response/Thailand Dr Seree & Khun Montri
Funding the Tsunami Response/ Anoja Wickramasinghe &
Local Response/Sri Lanka Kamalini Fernando
Corporate Funding/Spain Gilles Gasser & Ricardo Solé
Table D1. List of Thematic Report Sub-studies on accompanying CD-ROM continued
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The following is based on Section 5 which sets out the
report recommendations. It breaks down the
recommendations into tasks by disaster response actor.
The term ‘donor’ is used below to refer to official
bilateral or multilateral donor entities.
These recommendations should be read in conjunction
with those in both Section 5 and the TEC Thematic
Reports. The underlying logic for the recommendations
is presented in Section 4, ‘Conclusions’.
Recommendations for all actors
All actors should enter into sector-wide discussions to
close the gap between international practices and
international policies regarding the principle of local and
national ownership of disaster response. (See additional
guidance at the beginning of Section 5.)
All actors should strive towards sustainable disaster risk
reduction (DRR) and increased disaster response
capacities at community, national, and international
levels, within the framework of local development
processes and plans. Multi-year investments and
technical support are required by national institutions
and local civil society organisations including poorer,
marginalised and specific groups (such as women’s
associations).
All actors should promote the development of
International Disaster Response Law (IDRL) as a means
of clarifying and strengthening the respective
responsibilities, accountabilities and authoritiesof
affected states and international agencies, including
bilateral actors, such as international military forces.
All actors should commence discussions to reach an
agreed definition of what ‘affected person’ means. These
could take place in relation to the development of IDRL.
Recommendations for potentially
affected states
Comprehensive, multi-year risk reduction and
preparedness programmes and national funding targets
should be established in all risk-prone countries, on a
Annex E: Recommendations
by aid actor
scale commensurate with the risks faced – be they
natural disasters, conflict or other factors.
If appealing for disaster response funding, potentially
affected states should design appeals to include funding
for long-term DRR strategies and not just short- or
medium-term relief and recovery. They should also boost
their response capacity by, for example, pre-identifying
key emergency response staff and establishing rosters
for rapidly augmenting capacity at any disaster-affected
location.
States should set standards and procedures for inviting,
receiving and regulating international assistance,
including accountability and transparency standards for
all agencies responding to natural disasters in their
countries. Such standards should cover the publication
in accessible languages of assessments, budgets, audits
and independent evaluations within a reasonable period
from the commencement of operations. All standards
and procedures should be commensurate with
definitions of roles, responsibilities and authority being
considered under the development of IDRL.
Where appropriate, and with the support of multilateral
agencies, states should establish, and international
agencies should be prepared to work through, common
mechanisms such as consortia and trust funds.
Recommendations for institutional
donors
All donors should make the international funding system
impartial and proportionate. Measures are needed to
make it more efficient, flexible, transparent and better
aligned with principles of good donorship. As an
important step they should establish independent
oversight of donor impartiality and performance.
Donors should support the development of surge
capacity within agencies by funding such development
between emergencies. This could include investment to
increase the international emergency staff ‘pool’ by
supporting full-time standby emergency response
mechanisms and funding research into additional means
to improve surge capacity. They should also fund pre-
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disaster preparation in high-risk countries, including the
establishment of regional rosters of experts.
Beyond the initial days (at most weeks) of a disaster,
donors should make funding for follow-on activities
conditional on the application of a comprehensive joint
assessment.
Donors should improve the transition from relief to
recovery and development by increasing flexibility in
applying funds from a variety of budgets and
instruments, in accordance with needs and realities on
the ground. If such flexibility is not feasible, the practice
by many donors of funding longer term recovery
activities under humanitarian instruments, as opposed to
development instruments, should be reconsidered.
Donor governments and IFIs should consider
committing a target percentage of their disaster response
funding to be invested in DRR. They should also,
through for example the OECD/DAC and/or the UN
IASC, consider setting a target that all people affected by
disasters be entitled to a minimum level of humanitarian
assistance.
Industrialised countries should honour the undertaking
given in 1970 to increase ODA to 0.7 percent of their
GDP. In light of the growing importance of private
charitable flows, it might be appropriate for such flows
(not counting remittances) to be included in the
calculation of any donor nation’s total effort. In addition,
wealthy nations which are not currently part of the DAC
should shoulder their responsibilities as rich countries
and support a far wider range of development initiatives
than their current portfolios demonstrate.
Donors should develop mechanisms to measure the
relative effectiveness, efficiency and accountability of
international agencies, and fund accordingly. They
should also inform the tax-paying public of the
performance and quality of the agencies they fund
through, for example, widely disseminated independent
reports. Signing up to an accreditation system (see
Section 5) should be considered as a requirement for
agencies receiving funding. Donors and agencies should
also agree on a common and consistent disaster
response resource tracking system, including accounting
definitions. The system should also document local
contributions and diaspora remittances.
Governments of donor countries should support
regulation of the aid sector by making tax-exempt status
dependent on agencies meeting accountability
requirements, such as those required in the US, as well
as demanding regular published audits and independent
evaluations.
Donors should fund mass communication and public
educational initiatives on the themes of ‘good disaster
response’ and on ‘how to be a principled and effective
donor’ (regarding the donor roles of both individual
members of the public and official donors). The media
should be targeted for such education.
Recommendations for the OECD/DAC
The OECD/DAC should develop new or improved
oversight mechanisms to monitor donor adherence to
GHD principles, especially regarding impartiality.
The OECD/DAC, in conjunction with other actors and
mechanisms (such as the GHD and FTS), should develop
a common reporting format through which agencies can
simultaneously report to a number of donors.
The OECD/DAC should resume efforts to have all donors
untie their aid and should discount tied aid to 75 per cent
of its nominal value in its calculation of the overall value
of aid from any donor nation.
The OECD/DAC should continue to monitor pledges as
well as commitments and disbursements for major
emergencies.
Recommendations for donors and
agencies
International donors and agencies should respect,
promote and support (including through funding)
national coordination of all response activities.
International coordination should be conducted as a
component of national coordination.
All agencies and donors should commit formally to
publishing full independent evaluation reports of their
programmes and projects.
Recommendations for all
international agencies
The international relief system should advance formal
discussions with a view to establishing an accreditation
and certification system (See section 5 for options).
International agencies should make their systems and
practices suitable for maximum participation by local
people, starting with information management. This
requires appropriate assessment, planning, intervention
and communication methods, in line with those set out in
the respective recommendation in Section 5 of this report.
As an example, agencies should give greater
consideration to the judicious use of mechanisms such as
cash distribution that allow affected populations to set
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their own priorities. They should recognise that
appropriate approaches are less to do with over-arching
policies than with methodologies and capacities,
especially personnel skills, knowledge, attitudes and tools.
During their responses, agencies should regularly
conduct joint surveys of affected communities to
determine whether they are aware of agency plans and
are satisfied with the support they are getting. The full
results of such surveys should be reported on agency
websites and made available locally.
International agencies should ‘map’ and support both
host-authority and local capacities, including the
establishment or strengthening of a national/sub-national
institution to manage disaster preparedness and
response. This should be conducted prior to any disaster
event and updated during the response. It requires long￾term commitment and presence on the part of
international agencies in high-risk countries.
International agencies with a development mandate are
best placed for providing such support. Support for joint
national–international information services should
include preparedness for the rapid deployment of initial
joint national–international assessments. These should
foresee the establishment of a single set of jointly
managed databases of all affected people and resources
provided to assist them. (The UNDP DAD might be a
model from which experience could be drawn.) This
would require an agreed definition of ‘affected person’
(see above).
All international agencies should review periodically
their disaster response capacities (for example, after
each major disaster). These agency-specific reviews
should cover as a minimum: the capacity for rapid
deployment of sufficient experienced managers and
specialised personnel; rapid and effective assessments;
logistical, administrative and financial management
support; and coordination capacities. In addition to full￾time standby personnel, agencies need to develop or
improve response rosters to allow the training and rapid
deployment of ‘regular’ (non-fulltime emergency)
personnel in emergencies. Staff members from
countries and regions most likely to be affected by
disasters should be given priority for such training.
All agencies need to reduce the high rates of turnover
commonly seen in emergencies by providing contracts
and conditions of employment that encourage staff to
remain in post.
All agencies should, as a principle, commit explicitly to
sharing assessment reports.
All international agencies need to review (and improve
accordingly) their ‘recovery’ approaches, methods and
capacities (see Section 5 for guidance). Donors and
agencies should continue to invest in national–
international participatory assessments of livelihood
recovery. International agencies should treat recovery
activities as longer term development interventions
rather than as extensions to relief operations.
International agencies should develop mechanisms to
determine when funding appeals should be terminated.
Any future agency accreditation system should include
conditions on how money is solicited and reallocated as
well as how and when appeals to the general public are
closed down once funding thresholds have been
reached. Pooling mechanisms and criteria should also be
explored, in order to facilitate the transfer of surplus
funds from one organisation to another. (For further
details, including using ‘tick boxes’, see Section 5).
Aid agencies should, together with academic institutions
and training providers, set up a professional body with
transparent admission criteria and standards for the
achievement of ‘certified professional’ or ‘chartered’
status for aid workers. As an initial step, the IASC or a
major donor could host discussions on what the
requirements for such professional status would be.
Recommendations for the United
Nations
The UN should develop a coordination model that
supports national coordination efforts. It should
establish, in line with the recommendations of the UN’s
Humanitarian Response Review (HRR), a field
coordination system for international disaster response
actors built around the IASC model, which should mesh
fully with national coordination initiatives.
The UN should support such coordination mechanisms
through a variety of steps, including: increased training
for coordinators; improved ‘coordinator’ rosters; the
deployment of senior personnel beyond capitals to
support provincial and local coordination; and greater
involvement of NGOs. Where appropriate, integrated
geographic coordination mechanisms (not just sectoral
or ‘cluster’-based models) should be considered. In
addition, to improve joint advocacy, UN RC/HC’s need to
develop a cross-agency consensus on sensitive issues
before raising them with national authorities.
The UN should integrate all assessment-support
components of its response (UNDAC, HIC and UNJLC)
into one knowledge management programme, with a
greater capacity to analyse data (including remote
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sensing data) in conjunction with local and national
authorities.
The UN should consider whether the interests of the
affected populations are best served by the current large
number of UN entities that respond to disasters, and
whether a reduction in the number of agencies would
lead to greater efficiency.
The UN, via the IASC, should instigate discussions on a
protocol to promote common needs assessments by the
UN, Red Cross Movement and NGOs to be carried out
jointly with national and local entities.
Recommendations for the Red Cross
and United Nations
The Red Cross and the UN system, in particular, should
enter into discussions on how to establish a capacity to
conduct high quality joint assessments with affected
states (in line with the recommendations of the TEC
Needs Assessment Report).
Recommendations for the European
Commission
The European Commission should 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 (regarding financial
reporting regulations).
Recommendations for all agencies
and the military
Civilian relief agencies and the military need to
undertake joint training and exercises so that they are
more aware of each other’s procedures and approaches.
The military needs to develop ‘lean’ approaches to
humanitarian operations to allow them to provide
support (such as air-lift capacities) at considerably lower
costs than is currently the norm.
Recommendations for the ProVention
Consortium
The ProVention Consortium should conduct research to
identify principles for recovery programmes including
adapting existing DAC poverty reduction criteria to
recovery scenarios.
Recommendations for humanitarian
quality initiatives
Humanitarian quality initiatives should consider how the
quality standards they espouse could be enforced under
a regulatory framework.
Sphere, HAP-I and ALNAP should develop standards and
indicators regarding transparency and accountability to
support the over-arching principle of the affected
population’s right to know and aid agencies’ and
authorities’ responsibility to inform.
HAP-I should develop guidance materials targeted
directly at affected communities to assist them in
demanding accountability from ‘duty-bearers’ (both
states and international agencies).
ALNAP should promote, support and develop guidance
on joint evaluations.
ALNAP should develop standards and guidance on the
independence and transparency of evaluations. These
should be aimed at both evaluators and those funding
and managing evaluations.
Recommendation for political
representatives in donor countries
Parliamentary and Congressional oversight bodies
should strengthen their monitoring of governments’
commitments to impartial and proportional funding.
Parliamentary and Congressional oversight bodies
should pay particular attention to the relative
effectiveness of the different components of the ODA
budget, including disaster response aid. They should
monitor more closely the effectiveness and cost￾efficiency of different instruments regarding, for
instance, in-kind food aid or ‘tied’ grants versus
unearmarked aid or budget support.
Recommendation for the media
Media organisations should appoint journalists with an
interest in and knowledge of the sector as specialised
‘aid correspondents’.
The media in donor countries should use freedom-of￾information laws to improve transparency of donor
decision making (regarding, for instance, by whom and
on what criteria major funding decisions are made).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
India
Sri Lanka
Indonesia
Thailand
Malaysia
Myanmar
Kuala Lumpur
Khao Lak
U-tapao
Aceh
Meulaboh Medan
Colombo
IND
ships x5
helos x9
fixed wing x9
med team x2
GBR
ships x1
CAN
DART team
med team
eng team
Male
LKA
ships x12
helos x3
fixed wing x5
FRA
ship x1
helo x1
AUS
med team
GBR
eng team
JPN
fixed wing x1
FRA
helos x4
INA
ships x28
helos x2
fixed wing x15
FRA
ships x2
helos x8
med team
CHE
helos x3
IND
hosp ship
SGP
ships x2
AUS/NZL
helos x4
fixed wing x7
NZL
fixed wing x1
AUS
C-130 x2
KOR
ships x2
fixed wing x1
JPN
ships x3
helos x5
fixed wing x1
med team
PAK
ships x2
fixed wing x2
eng team
IND
ships x4
helos x3
fixed wing x3
med team x4
GBR
ships x2
helos x2
BGD
C-130 x2
ships x2
helos x3
med team
eng team
AUS
med team
AUT
fixed wing x1
PAK
ships x2
fixed wing x1
USA
ships x25
helos x57
fixed wing x45
BRN
helos x2
field hospital
PAK
field hospital
eng team
DEU
hospital ship
helos x2
AUS
ship x1
helos x2
JPN
med team
MYS
ships x1
helos x2
fixed wing x2
med team
eng team
FRA
helos x1
fixed wing x2
NOR
fixed wing x2
FRA
fixed wing x1
DEU
field hosp
THA
ships x7
Darwin
IND
ships x30
helos x30
fixed wing x22
Maldives
Andaman Islands
SGP
helos x8
fixed wing x5
Annex F: The military
logistics contribution
Notes
This map shows principal logistics assets on multiple missions in the
region from the onset of the tsunami until March 2005. It is based on
United States Pacific Command (2005, #313) with changes to remove
some military acronyms. The map does not show other military
deployments, such as the Danish military’s transport of a field hospital to
Indonesia.
A total of 13 military contingents are referred to as operating in Aceh on
Indonesia Relief, including Australia, France, Germany, Malaysia, Mexico,
New Zealand, Pakistan, Japan, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland,
the UK and the US. Denmark also had a military contingent in Aceh.
There may also have been others carrying out one time missions.
AUS Australia
AUT Austria
BGD Bangladesh
BRN Brunei
CAN Canada
CHE Switzerland
DEU Germany
FRA France
GBR United Kingdom
IDA Indonesia
IND India
JPN Japan
KOR South Korea
LKA Sri Lanka
MYS Malaysia
NOR Norway
NZL New Zealand
PAK Pakistan
SGP Singapore
THA Thailand
USA United States
Abbreviations
helo(s) helicopter(s)
eng engineer
med medical
hosp hospital
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Annex G: Data and sources
for figures and tables
Date 000’s Source
26 December 2004 12 BBC, 2005d
27 December 2004 27 Ditto
28 December 2004 50 Ditto
29 December 2004 77 Ditto
30 December 2004 114 Ditto
31 December 2004 124 Ditto
03 January 2005 140 Ditto
06 January 2005 146 Channelnewsasia.com, 2005
07 January 2005 153 Ditto
08 January 2005 156 Ditto
16 January 2005 168 Ditto
19 January 2005 215 Ditto
23 January 2005 227 Ditto
25 January 2005 280 Ditto
31 January 2005 286 Morella, 2005
06 January 2005 283
Source: By calculation from AFP (2005a), which sets the overall
toll for 8 April of 217,241 plus 2,932 missing in Thailand and
5,637 missing in Sri Lanka, giving a total of 225,810. AFP
(2006) makes it clear that the Indonesian authorities changed
the total on 7 April, and Aglionby (2005c) gives the total
change as a net reduction of 57,221.
07 April 2005 226
Source: By calculation from AFP (2005a; 2006).
18 April 2006 228
Source: AFP (2005d): 1,800 added to the toll in Indonesia.
Sources for Figure 2.2: Age-specific tsunami
mortality at five locations (plus one historic
disaster)
The sources for the first four of the sub-graphs in this
figure, and the sixth one, are as follows.
G1 Sources for figures
Sources for Figure 2.1: Changes in death toll
(including missing) over the first month
The principal sources for this table are the media (as
figures given in official UN agency reports often lagged
the media by a day or so).
Age group Mortality Number Number
(%) in sample dead/missing
Place: Aceh, Indonesia. Source: Doocy et al, 2006a, p3.
0–14 17.4 585 102
15–49 10.4 1,259 131
50+ 22.7 255 58
Place: Ampara, Sri Lanka. Source: Nishikiori et al, 2006.
0–14 21.1 1,143 241
15–49 7.9 2,030 161
50+ 15.3 360 55
Place: Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Source: Birkmann et al, 2006.
0–10 8.4 427 36
11–60 2.7 1,730 47
>60 10.8 102 11
Notechange in age grouping.
Place: Tamil Nadu, India. Source: Guha-Sapir et al, 2006.
0–14 11.9
15–49 4.1
50+ 10.4
Place: Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh). Source: Chowdhury et al, 1993.
 0–14 15.5
 15–49 4.0
 50+ 13.4
Note non tsunami mortality.
continued overleaf
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Age group Age group Age group Relative
(years) as percentage as percentage mortality
of population of victims
0–4 11.5 30.8 2.7
5–9 14.1 14.4 1.0
10–14 15.3 7.7 0.5
15–19 12.4 3.8 0.3
20–24 8.7 3.8 0.4
25–29 7.5 2.9 0.4
30–34 6.8 1.0 0.1
35–39 5.8 1.9 0.3
40–44 4.6 2.9 0.6
45–49 2.8 4.8 1.7
50–54 2.2 1.9 0.9
55–59 2.2 1.0 0.4
60–64 2.3 5.8 2.5
65–69 1.7 5.8 3.4
70–74 1.1 7.7 7.2
75–79 0.5 1.9 3.7
80+ 0.4 1.9 4.6
The data for the Maldives sub-graph essentially
compare a population pyramid with a tsunami￾mortality pyramid. The tsunami mortality data are
calculated from the full list of the deceased and
missing (ages were available for only 104 of the 108
casualties) (National Disaster Management Center,
2006).
The population pyramid was calculated from the age
distribution from the 2000 Census of the Maldives
(Government of the Maldives, 2004). The data were
not corrected for 2004 as this would be a very
complex procedure that would produce relatively
little change in the pyramid, despite the falling birth
rates in the Maldives.
These data were summarised to give the data
presented for Maldives in Figure 2.2.
Sources for Figure 2.2: continued Sources for Figure 2.3: Tsunami mortality risk
for females compared with males
Place Female Based on • Source
relative risk
Indonesia
Banda Aceh 1.24 16,609 deaths reported by sub￾district heads Source Women
Studies Centre, 2005
Banda Aceh 1.20 Cluster survey of 478 households
Source Doocy et al, 2006b
Aceh, W coast 1.60 Cluster survey of 387 households
Source Doocy et al, 2006b
Aceh Barat 2.06 2,217 deaths reported by sub￾district heads Source Women
Studies Centre, 2005
Meulaboh 2.10 Cluster survey of 388 households
Source Doocy et al, 2006b
Aceh, E coast 1.50 Cluster survey of 400 households
Source Doocy et al, 2006b
Other Aceh 1.20 6,671 deaths reported by sub￾district heads Source Women
Studies Centre, 2005
Sri Lanka
Ampara District 2.13 Survey of 899 households (457
dead/injured) Source Nishikiori et
al, 2006
Galle 1.86 Survey of 502 households Source
Birkmann et al, 2006
Batticaloa 1.27 Survey of 532 households (94
deaths) Source Birkmann et al,
2006
India
Tamil Nadu 1.43 Survey of 651 households (231
deaths) Source (Guha-Sapir et al,
2006)
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
continued next column
Sources for Figure 2.4: Tsunami press citations
The data for this figure are drawn from the survey of
press coverage of the tsunami published by AlertNet
(Jones, 2005).
Topic Number of As percentage
press citations of total
Tsunami (6 weeks) 34,992 51
Sudan War 7,661 11
Northern Uganda 5,209 8
West Africa 4,804 7
DRC conflict 3,119 5
Chechnya 2,886 4
Haiti 2,669 4
HIV/AIDS 2,623 4
Nepal 2,287 3
Colombia 1,441 2
Infectious disease 924 1
Total citations reviewed 68,615 100
Sources for Figure 3.2: National and
international capacities in Aceh
The data used to generate this chart are illustrative
only and drawn from general sources about the
relative roles of different capacities in the response.
Sources for Figure 3.3: Comparison of UK aid
and UK expenditure on consular services
Item US$mn Source
Consular costs 77.45 National Audit Office and Foreign
to end 2005 & Commonwealth Office, 2005
Aid pledges 96 OECD/DAC, 2006b
Aid commitments 149 OECD/DAC, 2006b
Aid disbursements 130 OECD/DAC, 2006b
to September 2005
Note Consular cost converted at the rate of 1.82238 US$/£, this oNte
being the average exchange rate for the period 26 December
2004 to 31 December 2005 (www.oanda.com).
Source for Figure 3.4: Number of registered
INGOs in Banda Aceh
In the following table the first number given is the
number used for the graph, and the second number is
the number given in the text. The difference comes
from some reports not distinguishing INGOs from
other international organisations.
Date Number Source Number
in graph in text
12 Jan 2005 50 AFP 50
More than 50 aid organisations have been working with foreign
military task forces to bring relief to many areas isolated by
destroyed roads and rugged mountains.
19 Jan 2005 100 Reuters 100
United Nations figures show at least 100 ‘non governmental
organisations,’ or NGOs, flooded into Aceh following the
December 26 wave that killed at least 115,000 people in
Indonesia and left a half million more homeless.
03 Mar 2005 140 DPA 140
No less than 140 NGOs from 83 foreign countries are operating
in Aceh’
03 Mar 2005 140 AFP 140
The chief of the foreigners’ registration taskforce, Police Brigadier
General Ashikin Husein, said after two weeks of registrations 820
foreign civilians from 82 countries were working under 140
organisations.
21 Mar 2005 153 Xinhua 160
Some 160 NGOs have been involved in the emergency relief
efforts in Aceh, since the earthquake caused tsunami on
December 26, 2004 took away the lives of some 200,000 people
in Indonesia and made another 10,000 homeless in the province.
21 Mar 2005 153 Reuters 160
He said some 160 organisations, including UN agencies, were
operating in the province and had been given 30 days to fill out
questionnaires.
22 Mar 2005 153 AFP 160
Paperwork will be sent to 160 private non governmental groups
and UN agencies that will determine whether their work fits in
with a government blueprint to rebuild the region, Welfare
Minister Alwi Shihab told reporters.
23 Mar 2005 153 Laksamana.net 160
More than 380 humanitarian organizations have registered in
Aceh since the disaster, and 160 groups are still operating there.
26 Mar 2005 153 Reuters 153
153 non governmental organisations are providing relief, along
with UN and foreign government aid agencies.
01 Jun 2005 180 Reuters 180
Indonesia has since mainly weeded out non professionals among
the 180 NGOs operating in Aceh, which since 2003 has been
closed to foreigners because of a military campaign against
rebels.
18 Dec 2005 124 Observer 124
124 international non governmental organisations, 430 local
NGOs, dozens of donor and UN agencies.
17 Jan 2006 124 The Times 124
In Indonesia 124 international non governmental organisations
(NGOs), 430 local NGOs, 30 national or multilateral donors, and
more than a dozen UN agencies are involved, managing more
than US$7bn (GB£4.02bn) in aid in a state of political unrest
and widespread corruption.
Sources for Figure 3.4: continued
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Sources for Figure 3.5: Global spending on the
military
Data for development aid are from the OECD DAC
Table 1 (net disbursements) consulted on 14 June
2006. Data on military expenditure are abstracted
from the graph presented in SIPRI (2005). Dollar
values for 2003 were translated to 2004 values using
the DAC deflator for 2003 to 2004.
Year Military Military ODA Relief
spending spending aid
(US$bn, (US$bn, (US$bn, (US$bn,
2003 values) 2004 values) 2004 values) 2004 values)
1994 789 838 71 5
1995 772 820 65 4
1996 775 823 65 4
1997 766 813 62 4
1998 774 822 67 4
1999 775 823 65 6
2000 805 855 70 5
2001 820 870 73 5
2002 865 918 78 5
2003 926 983 80 7
2004 975 1,035 84 8
continued next column
Sources for Figure 3.6: DAC donor commitments
and disbursements against pledges
The data for this chart are drawn from OECD/DAC
(2006c) and the associated tables.
Sources for Figure 3.6: continued
Germany 634 313 82 49 13
Spain 114 114 17 100 15
EU 600 311 135 52 23
France 444 243 109 55 25
Austria 63 28 16 44 25
Netherlands 312 156 82 50 26
Australia 431 193 117 45 27
Italy 139 94 42 68 30
United States 902 792 277 88 31
Canada 343 176 131 51 38
Sweden 86 86 35 100 41
Finland 63 44 30 70 48
Denmark 77 41 41 53 53
Portugal 13 13 7 100 54
Belgium 34 30 20 88 59
Luxembourg 11 11 7 100 64
Switzerland 29 29 20 100 69
Norway 172 139 132 81 77
New Zealand 48 37 37 77 77
United Kingdom 149 149 130 100 87
Ireland 26 26 23 100 88
Japan 601 601 539 100 90
Greece 33 33 33 100 100
DAC total 5,324 3,659 2,062 69% 39%
(US$mn, 2004 values) (%) (%) Pledged Committed Disburded Percentage committed Percentage disbursed
Sources for Figure 3.7: Tsunami fundraising in
the UK
This chart is based on data from the Disasters
Emergency Committee (DEC) in the UK (DEC, 2005).
The DEC is a fundraising structure with (then) 13
member agencies. The average conversion rate for the
period of the appeal is used for conversion of £ to US$.
Date £mn $mn Event
28 Dec 2004 5.3 10.0 DEC appeal goes live
29 Dec 2004 20 37.7 First TV and radio appeals
31 Dec 2004 32 60.4 World record for online giving
01 Jan 2005 60 113.2 £10mn raised on New Years Day
04 Jan 2005 76 143.3 Appeal becomes largest ever
DEC appeal
06 Jan 2005 109 205.6
07 Jan 2005 138 260.3
11 Jan 2005 180 339.5
14 Jan 2005 200 377.2
26 Feb 2005 300 565.8 Appeal closes
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Source for Figure 3.9: Institutional donor
support for UN and intergovernmental agencies
This is based on information presented in the TEC
Funding Response/Government Funding Synthesis
Report (2006). Values in the table are percentages of
aid given via the UN from each donor.
Donor OCHA WFP UNICEF WHO UNDP Others Total %
US 1 77 12 1 0 9 100
UK 36 11 20 11 14 8 100
Sweden 2 7 15 27 29 20 100
Spain 0 0 0 0 0 100 100
Japan 2 26 31 3 11 27 100
Ireland 15 15 15 13 17 25 100
Germany 1 25 0 2 42 30 100
ECHO 9 18 15 4 3 51 100
Denmark 6 32 32 17 0 13 100
Canada 2 26 46 4 8 14 100
Australia 3 37 22 3 20 15 100
Source for Figure 3.8: Funding channel by donor
type
This is based on information in the TEC Funding
Reponse Report (2006). Values are in percentages of
funding by channel.
Channel Official Private
NGO 24 59
UN 34 9
RC 14 32
Affected governments and others 29 0
Total % 100 100
Source for Figure 3.11: Balance between
reconstruction and relief for different donors
This is based on information presented in the TEC
Funding Response/Government Funding Synthesis
Report (2006).
Donor Tsunami Tsunami
relief reconstruction
aid (%) aid (%)
USA (USAID) 16 84
Spain 16 84
Germany 30 70
Sweden 36 64
EC 41 59
Denmark (pledges) 47 53
Australia 49 51
UK 54 46
Netherlands 83 17
Japan 83 17
Canada (CIDA) 87 13
Ireland 100 0
Source for Figure 3.10: Sectoral allocations by
some institutional donors
This is based on information presented in the TEC
Funding Response/Government Funding Synthesis
Report (2006). Values in the table are percentages of
aid from each donor.
Food and non-food 36 8 20 26 18 14 23
Health 22 14 10 12 6 11 14
Water and sanitation 0 21 20 0 2 13 20
Shelter 8 4 7 7 2 1 14
Initial rehabilitation 0 0 4 12 24 14 17
Preparedness 0 0 0 27 3 0 0
Coordination 25 4 3 1 6 34 0
Multisector 0 43 7 0 32 5 0
Others 9 6 29 15 7 8 12
Total % 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Australia Denmark ECHO Germany Ireland UKUS
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Source for Figure 3.13: Net relief disbursements
as a percentage of all net ODA disbursement
This table is drawn from the OECD/DAC development
statistics online, Table 1 (consulted on 14 June 2006).
World economy data, (which shows that the world
economy grew 13 fold against a three-fold increase in
ODA) is from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook
Database, April 2006, consulted on 6 July 2006. World
economy data is not included in the figure to avoid
confusion.
Source for Figure 3.12: Allocation of funding by
affected country
This chart is based on information gathered by the
TEC Funding Response Study (2006).
Country Percentage of
total funding
Indonesia 37.20
Sri Lanka 23.50
Unspecified 22.70
India 13.20
Maldives 2.50
Thailand 0.70
Myanmar 0.10
Somalia 0.10
Seychelles 0.04
Malaysia 0.01
Total 100.05
The additional 0.05% is a rounding error and can be ignored.
Year Relief as ODA World Economy
percentage (US$bn, (US$bn,
of ODA 2004 values) current values;
 year not given)
1970 0.1 37.0 3,402.4
1971 1.0 38.1 3,736.9
1972 1.5 40.9 4,198.5
1973 1.2 36.9 5,151.6
1974 0.9 43.0 5,701.5
1975 1.1 44.7 6,284.9
1976 0.9 42.7 6,791.2
1977 1.2 44.3 7,622.9
1978 1.1 49.6 9,112.9
1979 1.5 51.8 10,501.4
1980 1.3 56.2 11,788.8
1981 1.3 56.2 11,983.3
1982 0.9 61.2 11,840.1
1983 1.0 60.9 12,130.1
1984 1.1 65.6 12,516.1
1985 2.5 66.0 12,919.0
1986 2.0 67.3 15,243.9
1987 1.7 65.7 17,475.9
1988 1.6 72.0 19,552.2
1989 1.6 70.6 20,534.0
1990 2.1 74.4 22,710.5
1991 5.2 82.1 23,903.7
1992 4.3 81.4 24,090.6
1993 6.3 75.5 24,653.9
1994 6.9 76.3 26,462.1
1995 6.0 69.1 29,356.9
1996 5.8 68.7 30,042.9
1997 5.6 65.5 29,895.7
1998 5.7 70.8 29,655.8
1999 8.9 71.1 30,759.8
2000 7.2 75.4 31,623.5
2001 6.5 78.3 31,461.5
2002 6.5 83.9 32,728.6
2003 8.6 87.2 36,757.7
2004 9.1 92.0 41,253.2
2005 12.1 115.1 44,433.0
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Sources for Table 3.1: Numbers killed and
missing from outside the affected countries
The data in this table are drawn mainly from the
tables presented in the Wikipedia page on the
countries affected by the tsunami (Wikipedia, 2006).
The figures given on this site were found to be as
accurate as those obtained directly from official
sources.
Additional sources checked included:
Country Source
Austria Government of Austria (2005)
Denmark Danish Police (2005)
Germany Bundeskriminalamt (2005)
Hong Kong Government of Hong Kong (2005)
Sweden Swedish Police (2006)
UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2005)
Some changes have been made where it was clear that
some of the numbers included non-national residents.
However, not all countries have identified how many
of those included in the ‘national’ death tolls are non￾nationals. Because some people are nationals of one
country and resident in another, or hold multiple
nationalities, it may be that there is some double
counting in the table.
The numbers quoted in the table reflect a significant
fall from the data available at the end of January, when
over 3,500 foreigners were listed as killed or missing
(news.telegraph, 2005). However, a number of reports
suggested that, while such figures as are presented in
this table are accurate, the global figures should be
treated with caution (News24.com, 2005).
Sources for Table 2.1: Numbers of people lost
(dead or missing)
The table gives totals for killed and missing as a single
figure for losses. It should be remembered that all
such data are subject to error, as data on missing
persons especially are not always as good as one
might wish (INET, 2006; News24.com, 2005).
Sources for Table 2.2: Demographic and
economic impact of the tsunami
The principal source for this table is BRR and World
Bank (2005), but with mortality data as for Table 2.1
and remittance data from World Bank (2005c).
G2 Sources for tables
Table entry Data source
Indonesia BRR (2005), quoting Satkorlak Report, 10–16
October 2005. Indonesia figures include just under 1,000
killed in the earthquake of 28 March 2005.
Sri Lanka Government of Sri Lanka (2005). One Sri Lankan
woman was among the dead in the Maldives (National
Disaster Management Center, 2006).
India Sharma (2005). In addition, 13 Indians were killed in
Sri Lanka, and one in the Maldives (Government of India,
2005), but the Maldives casualty list includes no Indians
(National Disaster Management Center, 2006). It may be that
one of those identified as Sri Lankan was an Indian passport￾holder.
Thailand Bagai et al (2005, p14), quoting DDPM website,
October 2005. The same source gives 2,448 tourists from 37
countries dead in Thailand. However, this figure exceeds the
fairly solid data for tourist deaths presented in the Table of
Tourist Deaths.
Somalia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Tanzania, Seychelles and
Kenya UN Office of the Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery
(2006), quoting ‘OCHA–UNDP, Brief on Tsunami Response in
Six Less Affected Countries, November 2005’.
Maldives National Disaster Management Center (2006). Of
those killed, 3 were from the UK, 2 from Sri Lanka, and 1
from Bangladesh.
Bangladesh AFP (2005a). One Bangladeshi was also killed in
the Maldives (National Disaster Management Center, 2006).
Yemen IRIN (2005).
South Africa Dickson (2004). 11 South African tourists were
killed in Thailand and 4 are missing presumed killed (Cohen,
2005).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Sources for Table 3.2: Varying estimates of the
number of IDPs with host families in Aceh
The principal source for this table is UNORC (2006b),
with additional data from Morris (2005).
Sources for Table 3.3: Timeline for selected
elements of international assistance in Aceh
The source of data for the US military is United States
Pacific Command (2005). Data on the Australian Ship
come from Australian Department of Defence (2005).
Information on the ICRC hospital is from IFRC (2005a),
and on the Danish hospital from Copenhagen Post
(2005).
Sources for Table 3.4: Press coverage of the
tsunami in Sri Lanka
The data presented here are drawn from the TEC
Capacities Sri Lanka Report (2006).
Sources for Table 3.5: Funding for the tsunami
response
The data in this table are drawn from the TEC Funding
Study (2006).
Sources for Table 3.6: Per-capita international
funding for different disasters
Data in this table are drawn from a variety of sources
including ReliefWeb and the OCHA FTS.
Sources for Table 3.7: UK official funding for the
tsunami
The data in this table are drawn from Beeston (2005).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Annex H: What caused the
tsunami?1
The crust of the Earth is in relative terms as thin as the
skin of an apple. The crust is divided into tectonic plates
that move relative to each other at very slow speeds. It is
thought that this movement is driven by the circulation
of molten rock (magma) within the Earth.
In some places, plates are moving apart and new crust is
being created (as in the mid-Atlantic ridge). Elsewhere,
plates are sliding alongside each other (as in California),
or pushing against each other. When plates push against
each other one plate generally sinks below the other
(subducts) and is turned back into molten rock.
This US Geological Survey image2
 shows the location of
the tectonic plates in the region of the tsunami. The
Burma plate is a micro-plate that runs from south of
Simeulue to the tip of Burma. The India plate dips down
into the Sunda Trench to subduct under the Burma plate,
as shown by the saw teeth on the Sunda Trench in the
image.
The India plate is moving at about 60mm per year in
relation to the Burma sub-plate. For comparison, this is
faster than the rate of fingernail growth but slower than
the rate of hair growth.3
The earthquake that caused the 2004 tsunami happened
under the Burma plate at the junction of the India and
Australia plates.
1 Principal sources are: Pararas Carayannis (2005, p234); USGS
(2005b, p2); Atwater (2005, p250).
2 Downloaded from Geology.Com (2005, p249).
3 Suzy’s World (2002, p248).
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
4 Images reproduced from Atwater (2005, p250) by permission.
This diagram shows the India plate sinking or
subducting below the overriding Burma sub-plate.
Tectonic plates do not always move smoothly and
sometimes get stuck.4
The result of stuck plates is local deformation in the
overriding plate. This distortion stores up energy as
rock is compressed. This process went on for
centuries under the Burma sub-plate.
Eventually the stuck area ruptures, which allows the
overriding plate to move. As happened on 26
December 2004, the energy stored in the deformed
rock was released, lifting the seabed by a few metres
over a huge area, possibly an area over 1,200km long.
The sudden raising of the seabed displaced billions of
tonnes of seawater, crating the train of tsunamis that
rushed away in both directions from the plate
boundary. The tsunamis travel as shallow waves at
high speed across the deep ocean, but slow down and
grow in height as they start to reach the shallows near
land.
tsunami
waves
spread
earthquake
starts
tsunami
stuck area ruptures,
releasing energy in an
earthquake
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Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Synthesis Report
Cited references
Abarquez, I and Z Murshed (2004) Community-Based
Disaster Risk Management: Field Practitioner’s Handbook.
Bangkok: Asian Disaster Preparedness Center.
AFP (2005a, 08 April) ‘Death Toll in Asian Tsunami
Disaster Revised Down to 217,000’. Agence France￾Presse. Retrieved 21 December 2005 from http://
www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/0/
9d7ebecd556b2409c1256fdd0030c9b5?OpenDocument.
AFP (2005b, 6 January) ‘EU alert to corruption risk to
Asia aid’. Agency France-Presse/ReliefWeb. Retrieved 2
May 2006 from http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/
db900SID/DDAD-68DMWB?OpenDocument.
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