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Initial findings from the TEC. A word of caution!. Very much initial, preliminary, provisional, and tentative findings. Not all the TEC’s 30+ different reports and surveys are yet available, even in draft form.
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A word of caution! • Very much initial, preliminary, provisional, and tentative findings. • Not all the TEC’s 30+ different reports and surveys are yet available, even in draft form. • The main report for the work of the TEC will be the Synthesis Report, due in April 2006 • More information on the Tsunami response is being published every day • More detailed study of the individual TEC and other reports may lead to an alternate interpretation and emphasis in the Synthesis Report
1. Relief was effective • Overall the relief phase was effective, through a mixture of: • local assistance in the immediate aftermath • international assistance in the first weeks after the disaster • There seems to have been little or no significant examples of avoidable deaths or suffering.
2. Response scale unprecedented • The disaster was not the biggest but the scale of the generous public response was unprecedented: • In terms of the amount of money • International $13.8 billion • Affected governments $2 billion • Populations of affected countries – at least $190 million • in the speed with which money was donated • in which it was channelled (NGOs and RC).
2. Response scale unprecedented • The scale of funding: • exceeded the capacity of the humanitarian system • acted as a giant lens, highlighting many of the existing problems in the humanitarian systems • Almost all large agencies still have funds at the end of 2005.
3. Local capacity is a key capacity • Most of those that were saved, were saved by their own effort, their families and their neighbours. • Although local capacity is key to saving lives, this capacity is: • overlooked by the international media. • underestimated and undervalued by the international aid community.
3. Local capacity is a key capacity • International actors measure local capacity in terms of their own skills base rather than in terms of the skills base appropriate to the local context. • International agencies did not engage sufficiently with local actors, particularly in the vital initial phase. • The role of national and local government was crucial.
4. Funding system is deeply flawed • A high proportion of Government pledges appear to have been turned into commitments. • Funding decisions were made prior to assessment reports being available. Funding decisions are made in response to domestic political pressure rather than to needs assessment. • NGOs and the RC were, in this crisis, the pivots of the humanitarian response, but this pivotal role brings new responsibility.
4. Funding system is deeply flawed • Funding for any one crisis is not related to needs.
4. Funding system limits system capacity • Systems develop for their normal level of demand.
4. Funding system limits system capacity • There was not too much money for the tsunami, but there is too little money for most humanitarian responses. • This low level of background funding is what limits the surge capacity of the system overall.
5. Corporatism versus accountability • Corporatism puts the interests of the agency first, accountability puts donors or recipients first. • Agencies focused too much on their own institutional needs and not enough on the needs of the affected populations. This was apparent in: • The low priority given to coordination in the early stages. • The way in which evaluation reports have been treated. • The lack of information flowing to aid recipients.
5. Corporatism versus accountability • The lack of accountability remains a problem within the sector. The recent spate of the so-called “accountability reports” demonstrates this. • Agencies are still not transparent enough or accountable enough to the people they are trying to assist. • In come cases agencies are also not sufficiently accountable to those providing the funding.
6. Recovery is harder than relief • Aid recipients were happier with the relief phase than with the recovery phase. This decreasing satisfaction may be due to: • recovery needs being more complex than relief needs; • the longer time scale needed for recovery interventions to bear fruit; • increased expectations for the recovery caused by the over-subscribed relief effort; • or a mixture of all three.
6. Recovery is harder than relief • While the relief phase was effective, the recovery phase is encountering many problems that may be due to: • the greater complexity of recovery • the demands that such complexity places on the aid agencies. • There are broadly agreed standards for relief, but no such standards for recovery. • Agencies missed the opportunity to address issues of equity, conflict, gender, and governance in the response.
7. The response changed over time • The nature of the tsunami response changed quite significantly during 2005. • What was true of the initial phase of the tsunami response, for example, competition between agencies for “turf”, was not true of the later phases. • Some problems have remained throughout the operations, including issues of capacity, accountability, and transparency.
