http://www.thestar.com/News/article/165169
Red Cross has disbursed less than a third of $370M raised, but says aid to victims continues
December 26, 2006
Rick Westhead
Staff reporter
Two years after a devastating tsunami hit Southeast Asia, the Canadian Red Cross says it has spent only $103 million, or 27.8 per cent, of the $370 million it raised for the catastrophe.
The agency's slow spending has stoked criticism from other aid agencies who say the Red Cross lacks experience in reconstruction and lacked willingness to partner with local agencies better placed to use money effectively.
But, rampant inflation and chaos throughout much of Southeast Asia since the disaster have made it difficult to spend Canadians' contributions any faster, said the Red Cross's Jenna Clark. Reconstruction is continuing, with the focus on building homes, she said.
On Dec. 26, 2004, at about 8 a.m. local time, an 18-metre wall of water triggered by an underground earthquake ravaged Southeast Asia. Indonesia and Sri Lanka were the worst hit. Entire villages were wiped out. One of the hardest hit areas was the Indonesian provincial capital Banda Aceh.
In all, more than 220,000 people – including more than 2,400 tourists – were killed in at least 12 countries. More than 2 million others were left homeless. It's estimated that 20,000 families still live in tents and other temporary housing.
In the two years since the calamity, the Canadian Red Cross says its long-term reconstruction program has built 65 permanent homes and 1,800 so-called transitional homes, with steel frames and wood panelling, that can be moved by their owners. Much of the money spent so far went to immediate disaster relief in the weeks and months after the tsunami.
During a recent trip to Indonesia, Clark said, she saw "houses built (by other aid agencies) in the middle of swamps with the plumbing not connected to any water pipes. What are those people supposed to do with their waste?"
Clark wouldn't identify those other agencies.
"We are making an effort in some cases to make the homes better than they were before the tsunami," she added.
"No one is saying this is an easy context in which to work," Clark said, "and look at what's happened with Hurricane Katrina. You still have people in the richest country on earth living in tents. Reconstruction can take a long time."
But spokespeople for other aid agencies say the Red Cross should have put to better use the incredible outpouring of generosity from Canadians that followed the tsunami. They say that the agency lacks experience in the business of long-term development and reconstruction and should have sought help from other international agencies and from local agencies to move things along.
"They don't have experience building houses, they're an emergency relief organization," said Celia Borgatti, tsunami relief co-ordinator for USC Canada, an aid organization.
Immediately after the tsunami disaster occurred, the Red Cross asked donors to help pay for blankets, tents and power generators to help victims. The response was swift. Between donations from individuals and companies and grant money from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Red Cross said it wound up with $370 million pledged for tsunami relief.
Dirk Booy, of World Vision's Canadian branch, said the tsunami sparked the most donations from Canadians since a famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s killed a million people.
"It was Christmas time and people weren't working, and watched the horrible pictures come across their TV," said Steve Gilbert, a Care Canada vice-president. Tony Enns, tsunami project director with the Winnipeg-based Mennonite Central Committee, which has disbursed about $8 million, or about two-thirds, of the $12 million it had earmarked for tsunami relief, said he has "heard directly from Red Cross people that they have been challenged well beyond their comfort zone.
"Prior to the tsunami, I think the last thing the Red Cross would have looked at was getting into the long-term reconstruction business, but having all those funds available forced their hand," said Enns.
The Red Cross should have followed the lead of Doctors Without Borders, said Oxfam Canada president Robert Fox. On Jan. 4, 2005, Doctors Without Borders asked donors to stop contributing specifically to its tsunami-related projects because it couldn't spend the excess donations properly in that region.
"Even in the face of the enormity of the tsunami, their (the Red Cross's) phase should have been weeks and millions (of dollars raised), not years and hundreds of millions," Fox said. "They're just not a development agency."
Enns also said the Red Cross should have sought local partners who had a track record of rebuilding. "The Red Cross in Sri Lanka and Indonesia doesn't have that experience," he said.
The Red Cross's Clark said the Canadian Red Cross did partner on tsunami-related projects with the Sri Lankan and Indonesian Red Cross federations.
And Jose Garcia-Lozano, the Canadian Red Cross's head of international operations, said the agency gained experience in long-term reconstruction, and built homes after earthquakes in Bam, Iran, in 2003, and in Gujarat, India, in 2001.
He also said the organization has partnered with a number of agencies on the ground, including the Planning Alliance, a Toronto-based architecture firm with experience in post-disaster reconstruction; McElhanney Group, a B.C.-based engineering firm; and Wetlands International. The Red Cross and Wetlands have partnered to re-establish mangrove swamps along Indonesia's coastline, which provide a habitat for fish, he said. However, John van Nostrand, of the Planning Alliance, disagreed that there was a partnership between the firm and the Red Cross. "We never signed a contract with them," he said.
"The Red Cross was extremely slow at getting mobilized," van Nostrand said. "They talk about land title problems in Southeast Asia, but we all knew what the issues were back in March 2005. They thought they knew what long-term reconstruction was, but they really didn't."
Van Nostrand said his company disagreed with the Red Cross's efforts to build transitional homes. "No temporary housing should have been built in this case. Once you put someone in a temporary home, you don't get them out of it. I've seen people still living in temporary housing 30 years after the fact."
The Canadian Red Cross is not the only aid organization scrutinized for its efforts in Southeast Asia. This summer, a World Bank report stated only $1.5 billion of the $8.5 billion dedicated worldwide to tsunami relief in Aceh had been spent. The United Nations agency, Habitat, charged in a separate report that long-term reconstruction efforts had been hampered because some agencies lacked expertise to build homes.
In a forward to the report, former U.S. president Bill Clinton wrote that some agencies seemed to be more concerned with advertising their "brands" than accounting for spending.
Earlier this year, the relief group Save the Children said it would tear down 371 homes it had built because they were unusable; another 200 would undergo repairs. As well, Oxfam has fired 10 staff members who allegedly colluded with local contractors in schemes that resulted in poorly built homes.
David Morley, chief executive of Save the Children Canada, said that some criticism levelled at the Red Cross is probably due to "misplaced covetousness."
"I'm sure there are groups out there that look at how much the Red Cross raised and say, `if I had $5 million of that, what could I do?'"
Red Cross has disbursed less than a third of $370M raised, but says aid to victims continues
December 26, 2006
Rick Westhead
Staff reporter
Two years after a devastating tsunami hit Southeast Asia, the Canadian Red Cross says it has spent only $103 million, or 27.8 per cent, of the $370 million it raised for the catastrophe.
The agency's slow spending has stoked criticism from other aid agencies who say the Red Cross lacks experience in reconstruction and lacked willingness to partner with local agencies better placed to use money effectively.
But, rampant inflation and chaos throughout much of Southeast Asia since the disaster have made it difficult to spend Canadians' contributions any faster, said the Red Cross's Jenna Clark. Reconstruction is continuing, with the focus on building homes, she said.
On Dec. 26, 2004, at about 8 a.m. local time, an 18-metre wall of water triggered by an underground earthquake ravaged Southeast Asia. Indonesia and Sri Lanka were the worst hit. Entire villages were wiped out. One of the hardest hit areas was the Indonesian provincial capital Banda Aceh.
In all, more than 220,000 people – including more than 2,400 tourists – were killed in at least 12 countries. More than 2 million others were left homeless. It's estimated that 20,000 families still live in tents and other temporary housing.
In the two years since the calamity, the Canadian Red Cross says its long-term reconstruction program has built 65 permanent homes and 1,800 so-called transitional homes, with steel frames and wood panelling, that can be moved by their owners. Much of the money spent so far went to immediate disaster relief in the weeks and months after the tsunami.
During a recent trip to Indonesia, Clark said, she saw "houses built (by other aid agencies) in the middle of swamps with the plumbing not connected to any water pipes. What are those people supposed to do with their waste?"
Clark wouldn't identify those other agencies.
"We are making an effort in some cases to make the homes better than they were before the tsunami," she added.
"No one is saying this is an easy context in which to work," Clark said, "and look at what's happened with Hurricane Katrina. You still have people in the richest country on earth living in tents. Reconstruction can take a long time."
But spokespeople for other aid agencies say the Red Cross should have put to better use the incredible outpouring of generosity from Canadians that followed the tsunami. They say that the agency lacks experience in the business of long-term development and reconstruction and should have sought help from other international agencies and from local agencies to move things along.
"They don't have experience building houses, they're an emergency relief organization," said Celia Borgatti, tsunami relief co-ordinator for USC Canada, an aid organization.
Immediately after the tsunami disaster occurred, the Red Cross asked donors to help pay for blankets, tents and power generators to help victims. The response was swift. Between donations from individuals and companies and grant money from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Red Cross said it wound up with $370 million pledged for tsunami relief.
Dirk Booy, of World Vision's Canadian branch, said the tsunami sparked the most donations from Canadians since a famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s killed a million people.
"It was Christmas time and people weren't working, and watched the horrible pictures come across their TV," said Steve Gilbert, a Care Canada vice-president. Tony Enns, tsunami project director with the Winnipeg-based Mennonite Central Committee, which has disbursed about $8 million, or about two-thirds, of the $12 million it had earmarked for tsunami relief, said he has "heard directly from Red Cross people that they have been challenged well beyond their comfort zone.
"Prior to the tsunami, I think the last thing the Red Cross would have looked at was getting into the long-term reconstruction business, but having all those funds available forced their hand," said Enns.
The Red Cross should have followed the lead of Doctors Without Borders, said Oxfam Canada president Robert Fox. On Jan. 4, 2005, Doctors Without Borders asked donors to stop contributing specifically to its tsunami-related projects because it couldn't spend the excess donations properly in that region.
"Even in the face of the enormity of the tsunami, their (the Red Cross's) phase should have been weeks and millions (of dollars raised), not years and hundreds of millions," Fox said. "They're just not a development agency."
Enns also said the Red Cross should have sought local partners who had a track record of rebuilding. "The Red Cross in Sri Lanka and Indonesia doesn't have that experience," he said.
The Red Cross's Clark said the Canadian Red Cross did partner on tsunami-related projects with the Sri Lankan and Indonesian Red Cross federations.
And Jose Garcia-Lozano, the Canadian Red Cross's head of international operations, said the agency gained experience in long-term reconstruction, and built homes after earthquakes in Bam, Iran, in 2003, and in Gujarat, India, in 2001.
He also said the organization has partnered with a number of agencies on the ground, including the Planning Alliance, a Toronto-based architecture firm with experience in post-disaster reconstruction; McElhanney Group, a B.C.-based engineering firm; and Wetlands International. The Red Cross and Wetlands have partnered to re-establish mangrove swamps along Indonesia's coastline, which provide a habitat for fish, he said. However, John van Nostrand, of the Planning Alliance, disagreed that there was a partnership between the firm and the Red Cross. "We never signed a contract with them," he said.
"The Red Cross was extremely slow at getting mobilized," van Nostrand said. "They talk about land title problems in Southeast Asia, but we all knew what the issues were back in March 2005. They thought they knew what long-term reconstruction was, but they really didn't."
Van Nostrand said his company disagreed with the Red Cross's efforts to build transitional homes. "No temporary housing should have been built in this case. Once you put someone in a temporary home, you don't get them out of it. I've seen people still living in temporary housing 30 years after the fact."
The Canadian Red Cross is not the only aid organization scrutinized for its efforts in Southeast Asia. This summer, a World Bank report stated only $1.5 billion of the $8.5 billion dedicated worldwide to tsunami relief in Aceh had been spent. The United Nations agency, Habitat, charged in a separate report that long-term reconstruction efforts had been hampered because some agencies lacked expertise to build homes.
In a forward to the report, former U.S. president Bill Clinton wrote that some agencies seemed to be more concerned with advertising their "brands" than accounting for spending.
Earlier this year, the relief group Save the Children said it would tear down 371 homes it had built because they were unusable; another 200 would undergo repairs. As well, Oxfam has fired 10 staff members who allegedly colluded with local contractors in schemes that resulted in poorly built homes.
David Morley, chief executive of Save the Children Canada, said that some criticism levelled at the Red Cross is probably due to "misplaced covetousness."
"I'm sure there are groups out there that look at how much the Red Cross raised and say, `if I had $5 million of that, what could I do?'"
