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A Dangerous Mix: Religion & Development Aid

After the war in Iraq and again in the wake of the tsunami, Christian aid organizations were among the first to set-up relief operations in devastated countries. Many described the faith-based organizations lining up at the Iraq-Jordan border as a second army, preparing to fight a "battle for the souls" of Iraqi people. With The Faith-Based Initiative launched by the US president, concerns are raised about government's alliance with and sponsorship of Christian values and missionaries. It also lends credibility to the critics who attest that the war on terrorism is really a religious crusade. Should faith-based organizations be allowed to proselytize while providing development and humanitarian aid? (Eman Ahmed, WHRnet, 2005)

http://www.whrnet.org/fundamentalisms/docs/issue-aid_religion0507.html

(Added: Mon May 15 2006   Modified: Fri Sep 01 2006   Hits: 235)

Tsunami - 6 Months After [PDF]

Plan International, June 2005. At the end of December 2004, Plan joined people from neighbouring communities, local governmental and voluntary organisations, and the international community to respond to the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster. It seems appropriate now both to reflect on what has happened since the tsunami struck, and to look at the work in the months and years ahead.

http://www.plan-international.org/pdfs/TsunamiReport.pdf#search=%22Tsunami%20-%206%20Months%20After%22

(Added: Mon Nov 14 2005   Modified: Mon Sep 18 2006   Hits: 106)

Tsunami aid or strategic relationship?

Just $50 million of the $1 Billion Australia has pledged has been dedicated to Aceh as strategic realtinships outweigh concerns for the many who are still in need of urgent assistance.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3315

(Added: Mon Apr 11 2005   Modified: Tue Jan 10 2006   Hits: 178)

The Tsunami and the Brandt report

Mohammed Mesbahi and Dr Angela Paine Thousands of miles of coastline in South East Asia were densely covered in mangrove forests, protecting the coastline from erosion, absorbing carbon dioxide and providing a breeding ground for crustaceans and fish, on which the local population depended for their livelihood. This was a fragile environment, which ecologists have long recommended should enjoy special protection. In India a Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) was created to protect a 500 meter buffer zone along the coast. While the belt of mangrove forest still existed, the people of the area lived inland, behind it. In 1960 a tsunami hit the coast of Bangladesh in an area where the mangroves were intact. No-one died. These mangroves were subsequently cut down by the shrimp (prawn) farming industry and in 1991 thousands of people were killed when a tsunami of the same magnitude hit the same region. On Dec 26th 2004, Pichavaram and Muthupet, in South India, who still have their mangrove forests, suffered fewer casualties than the surrounding mangrove-less areas of coast. Mangroves also acted as a barrier, helping people to survive on Nias Island, Indonesia, close to the epicentre of the Dec 26 tsunami. Burma and the Maldives suffered less from the tsunami because the shrimp and tourism industries had not yet destroyed all their mangroves and coral reefs.

http://www.countercurrents.org/mesbahi010205.htm

(Added: Thu Mar 03 2005   Modified: Fri Jan 12 2007   Hits: 95)

Africa loses aid to tsunami victims

BBC, Monday, 14 February, 2005. Disaster relief officials in Africa are blaming a big drop in funding on the massive world response to December's Asian tsunami.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4258443.stm

(Added: Fri Feb 18 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 165)

Aid That Doesn't Deliver

Foreign Policy in Focus. By Emira Woods, February 1, 2005. The Bush administration has pledged $350 million to tsunami relief. It's a safe bet that at least $248 million of that money will be spent right here in the U.S. The U.S. government places conditions on its foreign aid that require most relief and development assistance materials and services to be purchased from U.S. companies and agencies. The last time the the government revealed any data on this issue-back in 1996-72 cents out of every U.S. foreign aid dollar was spent on U.S. goods and services.

http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2005/0502deliver.html

(Added: Mon Feb 07 2005   Modified: Tue Jul 19 2005   Hits: 249)

While we mourn the losses from the Tsunami...

A number of articles looking at how the large tsunami appeals have affected the fight against HIV AIDS. From ACT UP.

http://www.actupny.org/reports/tsunami.html

(Added: Thu Feb 03 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 138)

Phoenix Rising? Will the Bush Administration's Actions Move Aceh Toward Peace or a Continued Descent Into Destruction?

Foreign Policy In Focus, by Abigail Abrash Walton and Bama Athreya. Aceh, so long isolated from international view by the Indonesian government and military, is now-tragically-at the center of world attention. Members of the U.S. Congress and their staff, U.N. officials, journalists, and humanitarian aid workers have arrived on the scene after years of blocked access. These shifts offer the Bush administration and other actors an unprecedented opportunity for peace-building and enhancement of human security and stability in a region dominated by violent conflict for decades. This report analyzes three key factors in responding effectively to the challenges of emergency aid and reconstruction efforts as well as long-term sustainable development and conflict resolution: 1) the role of the Indonesian military (TNI) in aid delivery and in ending the ongoing conflict; 2) the differences between Aceh's indigenous insurgents (Free Aceh Movement or GAM) and newly arriving extremist Islamic militias; and 3) the role of ExxonMobil in the province.

http://www.fpif.org/papers/PR2005aceh_body.html

(Added: Fri Jan 28 2005   Modified: Mon Dec 05 2005   Hits: 151)

Generosity to tsunami-hit countries has fine print

(AidWatch) By c/o Shaun Tandon, AFP. AFP International Newswire. 2005-01-11 | This excellent article by AFP Newswire raises some key concerns about the fine print of the aid packages currently being offered by Australia and many other governments around the world.

http://www.aidwatch.org.au/index.php?current=1&display=aw00646&display_item=2

(Added: Tue Jan 25 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 151)

After the tsunami: A frenzy of giving and grabbing

Infochange India. There's more money, clothes and goodwill than there is vision, organisation and an understanding of what's needed, reports Nityanand Jayaraman from Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu. It seems as if the need to help has overcome the need for help, as relief agencies rush to be photographed giving aid to the 'victims'

http://www.infochangeindia.org/features232.jsp

(Added: Mon Jan 17 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 162)

Paris Club Agrees to Debt Delay for Tsunami Nations

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The Paris Club of creditor nations, split between the U.S. and Europe over debt relief for countries hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami, agreed to allow them to suspend repayments until the World Bank and International Monetary Fund report on their needs.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=auIgcLtGNk6s&refer=top_world_news

(Added: Mon Jan 17 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 129)

Ravaged Sri Lanka seeks EU duty cut

Times Online, By Carl Mortished, International Business Editor, January 07, 2005. Sri Lanka is calling on America and Europe to remove punitive tariffs imposed on the country's clothing exports as it attempts to rebuild itself after suffering devastation in the Asian tsunami disaster. The impoverished island state is asking Washington and Brussels to lift trade barriers that cost Sri Lankan exporters hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Sri Lanka's garment-making industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of people stitching shirts and underwear for multinational retailers, underpins half the island's economy, but its competitiveness is being undermined by tariff walls in rich countries.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18690-1429683,00.html

(Added: Mon Jan 17 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 131)

Supachai urges members to mull trade policies to help tsunami sufferers

WTO, 13 January 2005. Swiftly concluding the current Doha Agenda negotiations and perhaps other actions, such as better market access, and restraint in using trade remedies, are needed to help countries trying to recover from the Asian tsunami, WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi told members on 13 January 2005. In a letter to all members, he urged them to consider whether they can introduce any trade policies now to help the worst affected economies to recover.

http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news05_e/dg_letter_13jan05_e.htm

(Added: Mon Jan 17 2005   Modified: Thu Jun 16 2005   Hits: 133)

Rich countries fail tsunami victims on debt

Oxfam New Zealand. 13 January 2005. Rich countries meeting in Paris today are failing to take the bold steps needed on debt, said Oxfam today. Rather than agreeing to cancel significant proportions of debt, they seem set to go for the easy option of a temporary suspension of repayments, which will then be reapplied in a few months. This temporary rescheduling of payments means that it is likely that interest will continue to be charged and the debt repayments will have grown when the tsunami-hit countries have to start paying the debts back.

http://www.oxfam.org.nz/media/05_jan_13_failedparismeeting.htm

(Added: Thu Jan 13 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 146)

Aid packages with strings attached

The Business Times, January 12, 2005. (TOKYO) The billions of dollars promised by world leaders after Asia's devastating tsunami may seem like unparalleled generosity but recipient countries should beware there is also fine print. As governments race to top one another by offering the biggest package, much of the 'aid' will arrive in the form of loans that will need to be paid back, contracts for donor countries' companies or, many fear, will not come at all.

http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/story/0,4567,141801,00.html

(Added: Wed Jan 12 2005   Modified: Thu Aug 18 2005   Hits: 182)

The Other, Man-Made Tsunami

ZNet. John Pilger, January 07, 2005. The west's crusaders, the United States and Britain, are giving less to help the tsunami victims than the cost of a Stealth bomber or a week's bloody occupation of Iraq. The bill for George Bush's coming inauguration party would rebuild much of the coastline of Sri Lanka. Bush and Blair increased their first driblets of "aid" only when it became clear that people all over the world were spontaneously giving millions and a public relations problem beckoned. The Blair government's current "generous" contribution is one sixteenth of the ?800m it spent bombing Iraq before the invasion and barely one twentieth of a billion pound gift, known as a "soft loan", to the Indonesian military so that it could acquire Hawk fighter-bombers.

http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2005-01/07pilger.cfm

(Added: Wed Jan 12 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 111)

Loss of Innocence in the Politics of Aid

IPS, By Praful Bidwai, Jan 5. As the international summit meeting to coordinate aid for the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami opens in Jakarta on Thursday, various states are jockeying for political advantage in the region.

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26916

(Added: Fri Jan 07 2005   Modified: Thu Jun 08 2006   Hits: 196)

Oxfam International: Old Money and False Promises for Tsunami Countries?

Oxfam, 4 January 2005. As donors and politicians prepare to gather in Jakarta, Indonesia for the world summit for the tsunami disaster, international agency Oxfam warned them not to repeat the mistakes of the past and instead to commit to a comprehensive package of aid, debt relief and trade concessions for the countries affected by the tsunami disaster. Barbara Stocking, Director of international agency Oxfam GB said: "Rich countries must follow the public mood of generosity and compassion and deliver a radical set of proposals that will bring rapid relief and reconstruction to the millions of people whose lives have been ripped apart by this tragedy. We must ensure we don't repeat mistakes of previous humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Liberia, and elsewhere where donors have either failed to deliver the aid quickly enough (or at all) or delivered aid at the expense of other disasters."

http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/pressreleases2005/pr050104_tsunami.htm

(Added: Fri Jan 07 2005   Modified: Wed Oct 25 2006   Hits: 157)

NZAID - Asia Tsunami

This webpage details New Zealand's International Aid and Development Agency's (NZAID) response to the recent Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

http://www.nzaid.govt.nz/asia-tsunami/index.html

(Added: Fri Jan 07 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 140)

Africa fears tsunami may suck aid coffers dry

(ReliefWeb) By Alistair Thomson, Reuters, January 5, 2004. "Shock waves from Asia's tsunami could reverberate across Africa for a long time to come as aid workers fear the crisis will soak up donor funds and leave less help available for the poorest continent."

http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/UNID/202B252455D5D8FB85256F8000724089?OpenDocument

(Added: Thu Jan 06 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 150)

Interview: Aid to Acheh - not a simple story

Acheh has been making headlines around the world as the worst hit area in the recent tsunami disaster. Nurdin Abdul Rahman from the Achehnese Community of Australia speaks to AID/WATCH campaigner Tim O'Connor about the complexities of delivering aid in the conflict zone of Acheh.

http://www.aidwatch.org.au/index.php?current=1&display=aw00633&display_item=2

(Added: Thu Jan 06 2005   Modified: Thu Sep 14 2006   Hits: 140)

The Tsunami and the discourse of compassion

ZNet article by Harsh Walia analysing public and media reponse to the December 2004 tsunami. "...the compassion for more instantaneous "natural" disasters (a misnomer since the impact of such disasters is inextricably linked to the inequalities of empire) as opposed to the more readily preventative devastation of war, militarization and genocide brings to light the degree of indecency and schizophrenia of the colonial consciousness".

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=44&ItemID=6940

(Added: Wed Jan 05 2005   Modified: Fri Mar 11 2005   Hits: 142)