HIGHLIGHTS OF PRESS BRIEFING BY UN EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR AND OTHERS AFTER DONOR MEETING ON HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE TO TSUNAMI-AFFECTED COMMUNITIES

Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, speaking following the Ministerial-level Meeting on Humanitarian Assistance to Tsunami-Affected Communities, said that the United Nations had concrete commitments today from donors for $ 717 million out of its $ 977 million appeal.

"For me this was a very important and very encouraging conference. We had some 70 nations inscribed, all had something very concrete to contribute, small or big, or they were affected countries that could confirm that they are there to not only use all their national resources in the emergency phase and in rehabilitation and reconstruction, but they are also going to stay with us in the long haul in coordinating with us and facilitating our international assistance. We need the best governance possible in these countries to make the international assistance as effective as possible", Mr. Egeland said.

"We got commitments in the course of the day for $ 717 million out of the $ 977 million", Mr. Egeland said. "$ 717 million was concretely committed to our $ 977 million appeal. That is 73 per cent of the total. This has never ever happened before that two weeks after a disaster, we have $ 717 million that we can spend on the immediate emergency relief effort. I expect from hearing the very generous pledges additionally that we will have 100 per cent coverage of this emergency appeal. This is also an achievement in my view of a united world asking for the UN to stay in the lead of the coordination of the international assistance to the affected countries. The UN is the only institution that has the capacity, the mandate, the legitimacy to coordinate the more than 60 donors, assisting the 10 affecting countries where we are working in, and the hundreds and hundreds of aid organizations now involved in the effort".

Mr. Egeland said the world wanted to make this the best aid effort ever, not only the most generous, the most immediate and the most effective in the emergency relief phase, which he believed that it was, but also the best transition ever to the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase which in some places was already starting and in other areas would start within the coming six-month period.

Mr. Egeland said he was also acutely aware of how much the eyes of the international community were on the UN. Some of the countries with the largest pledges like Germany, the United States, and Sweden said that the private sector was matching their enormous grants. He hoped that private contributions would be counted in the billions of dollars for the emergency effort and also for the reconstruction and rehabilitation effort.

"There was also a very strong commitment by the conference, not only the affected countries but also the donor countries, to strengthen early warning, preparedness and prevention efforts", Mr. Egeland said. "We can never ever again have this kind of a catastrophe in the world where a dozen countries were taken aback and millions of people were taken aback in this manner. We have to get a system going to avoid a repeat of such a disaster".

Mr. Egeland said that the Indonesian Minister had confirmed that in addition to the 104,000 confirmed dead in the country, there were still tens of thousands of people missing or unaccounted for. He said that the UN was acutely aware of the need to coordinate between the governments, the international community, military and civilians, even in conflict zones. Finally, it had been agreed to have the best financial tracking system ever and the best investigation system ever for making sure that all funds were committed, spent and reached the affect communities as effectively as possible. The financial tracking system already running on the Internet would be dramatically extended.

Markku Niskala, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the Red Cross and Red Crescent national societies were continuing their support and relief in basic services such as health and sanitation in the affected countries. In Indonesia, where he had just returned from, the Indonesian Red Cross was closely working as an auxiliary to the Government and providing a lot of voluntary manpower. On behalf of these societies, the International Federation was extending its budget next week or later this week from 67 million Swiss francs to approximately 200 million Swiss francs. Now the International Federation was also taking a longer term perspective to its appeal and was starting to take up capacity building and support disaster preparedness as well as participate in the reconstruction and rehabilitation phase. The International Federation was closely coordinating its efforts with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the United Nations.

James Adams, the Vice President of the World Bank, speaking about the reconstruction efforts, said everyone had emphasized today how important it was to fully support the immediate phase of reconstruction efforts. One of the lessons learnt from other crises was that with the waning of interest, the reconstruction phase was often not given enough attention. There was a consistent message from the donors today about the importance of starting to focus now on reconstruction, putting in place programmes to deal with the social and physical loss of the disaster. The Governments involved today spoke about the processes that they put in place to carry out needs assessments and to put in place programmes of analysis to identify both the infrastructure needs and other needs which they saw emerging over the medium and long term. The second point which emerged very clearly from the discussion was the importance of moving to reconstruction of the role of the Governments involved and their important role of putting together programmes and providing leadership and ownership for those programmes. The third point very much emphasized by most speakers was the importance of engaging civil society and engaging local communities in these efforts. A fourth point was on the importance of coordination in the initial effort, and the importance of coordination in the reconstruction effort. The final point concerned staying the course, how it was important to ensure that support was sustained.

Philippe Benedic, Resident Director-General of the Asian Development Bank in Europe, said the Asian Development Bank was fully committed to supporting the affected countries and the President of the Bank had already travelled to most of these countries. The Bank had committed, especially at the recent ASEAN meeting in Jakarta, a total amount of $ 676 million for immediate, initial assistance. This was a major effort from the Bank, and it was fully committed to delivering it quickly to Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives. The Bank was discussing with other affected countries, especially Thailand and India, and it would respond to their needs as quickly as possible. The Bank would also move to the reconstruction phase and it was fully prepared to support the affected countries with additional aid.

A journalist asked if the UN was disappointed that it had not received pledges for the $ 1 billion called for by the Secretary-General in Jakarta last week, and also asked if the UN was sure that the money being pledged was not being diverted from other crises. In response, Mr. Egeland said that he was very impressed and happy. The figure of $ 717 million was money which would be available within days. He also believed that the remaining 27 per cent of the appeal would be covered within the next six months. "I will sleep very well tonight", he said. He also believed that there would be a very good response to the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase. Governments were still pledging in the conference, even as he was now speaking, so he believed that the figure might even increase tonight. As for the second question, Mr. Egeland said that this was one of the areas which the UN would have to be vigilant on to ensure that this year did not end with unprecedented disaster for its programmes elsewhere.

In response to a question, Mr. Egeland said that 18 countries pledged cash donations which made up the $ 717 million. There were between 60 and 70 donors overall. The breakdown for the $ 717 million included $ 250 million from Japan, $ 68 million from Germany, $ 65 million from Norway, $ 74 million from the United Kingdom, $ 35 million from the United States, $ 23 million from Sweden, $ 61 million from the European Commission, $ 20 million from China, $ 29 million from Canada, $ 40 million from Australia, $ 22 million from Denmark, $ 30 million from Finland, all in cash donations; and $ 22 million pledged from the Russian Federation.

Answering another question, Mr. Egeland said that the message from the international community was clearly that the UN should be in the lead in coordinating emergency response, whether it was man-made disasters or in response to natural disasters. The meeting also gave a clear message that all the international institutions needed to coordinate well together for the reconstruction efforts and here the UN was not in the lead but was one of several partners including the World Bank, the Asian Bank, and others.