Nine months after the Indian Ocean tsunami donors have poured more than ${esc.dollar}11 billion into relief and reconstruction in what the United Nations says is an unprecedented response, but most are still neglecting other emergencies.
&${esc.hash}39;It is the most generous and most immediately funded international emergency relief effort ever. In terms of volume and speed it was fantastic,&${esc.hash}39; U.N. emergency co-ordinator Jan Egeland told AlertNet in an interview.
&${esc.hash}39;Donors are honouring their promises and the money not yet paid up was, by and large, always pledged for longer term reconstruction which will take years.&${esc.hash}39;
The tsunami left more than 232,000 people dead or missing and hundreds of thousands homeless when it slammed into 13 countries on Dec. 26.
Dozens of governments, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank have now paid or approved ${esc.dollar}5.7 billion &${esc.hash}39; 80 percent of the ${esc.dollar}7.1 billion they promised, according to AlertNet research. The public donated a similar amount.
&${esc.hash}39;In previous natural disasters, like Hurricane Mitch or the Bam earthquake, it was not the case that we had this degree of paying up. In both, less than half of what was pledged was received,&${esc.hash}39; Egeland said.
&${esc.hash}39;When the media attention wanes after a few weeks people do tend to forget what they said very generously in those first few days and they end up giving much less.&${esc.hash}39;
Click here to see how much donors promisedEgeland said donors had already met about 90 percent of the United Nation&${esc.hash}39;s own ${esc.dollar}1.28 billion tsunami appeal for emergency funds. But his hopes that this outpouring of generosity would set a new trend for other emergencies have been dashed.
&${esc.hash}39;I said perhaps naively during the enormous media attention that we had at the beginning that I hoped this would be the new standard,&${esc.hash}39; he said.
&${esc.hash}39;But unfortunately it is not the case. We haven&${esc.hash}39;t even got half of the very modest appeals we&${esc.hash}39;ve asked for Burundi, for Chad, for Ivory Coast, the Republic of Congo or Guyana.&${esc.hash}39;
In January, Guyana was hit by its worst floods in more than a century which affected some 300,000 people. The United Nations launched a ${esc.dollar}2.9 million appeal around the same time as its tsunami appeal, but Egeland says it has still only received 30 percent &${esc.hash}39; less than ${esc.dollar}1 million.
But he said the response to the tsunami had had some lasting beneficial effect. More new donors had come on board &${esc.hash}39; countries like Nigeria, Mexico, South Korea and the Gulf states.
Corporations were also increasingly setting aside money to contribute to crises and more members of the public were making regular contributions to aid agencies.
Egeland said the media focus on previous funding shortfalls and the public generosity had both played a role in putting pressure on governments to cough up.
But he described the current aid system as a lottery and said there was a danger that &${esc.hash}39;the Congos of the world&${esc.hash}39; would lose out to emergencies like the tsunami that managed to capture people&${esc.hash}39;s imagination.
&${esc.hash}39;Assistance should be given according to needs and not according to who wins in the battle for media and political attention.
&${esc.hash}39;The private sector and new donors do not give to what they do not see.&${esc.hash}39;
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