INDEPTH: DISASTER IN ASIA
Following the money FAQs
CBC News Online | January 12, 2005
Canadians in huge numbers have joined what has turned into an unprecedented outpouring of help for the survivors of the Asian tsunami.
In addition to the federal commitment of $425 million in help, other levels of government, businesses and non-governmental organizations have announced donations of millions more.
Individual Canadians have also dug deep. A preliminary tally shows that Canadians donated at least
$137 million for tsunami relief to 21 eligible Canadian aid organizations as of Jan. 11. The Canadian Red Cross attracted $99 million of that. The federal government is matching dollar-for-dollar all individual tsunami donations made by Canadians by Jan. 11, up to $150 million
Some of CBC.ca's readers have written asking for more details about what their money will buy, how it will be used and what assurances there are that the money will actually get to those who need it most. Good questions all.
What is all the money being spent on?
Aid organizations and governments spent the first few days after the disaster visiting the affected areas to assess the most immediate needs – providing food, shelter and clean drinking water for an estimated five million people who lost everything when the tsunami swept across the coastal areas of almost a dozen countries.
Within the first week, dozens of aid agencies and international organizations were on the ground delivering humanitarian relief to the most desperate.
The Canadian Red Cross, for example, has already shipped 72 tonnes of relief supplies to Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Another 30 tonnes of Red Cross aid supplies has left Canada for Myanmar.
The Canadian Red Cross has also sent money that Canadians have donated to local and international Red Cross operations in all the affected countries. Canadian-donated money has already been used to buy enough water purification packets to purify 15 million litres of water in Sri Lanka.
The Canadian Red Cross has bought and sent a large shipment of medical supplies to Indonesia. The materials include gauze, bandages and medical tools required to dress wounds. Antibiotics, painkillers and oral rehydration salts were shipped to the Maldives.
Some of the Canadian government's $425-million aid package is being dispensed through organizations like OXFAM Canada, World Vision Canada, CARE Canada and Save the Children Canada.
For instance, Ottawa gave $600,000 to World Vision Canada for blankets and clothing and other non-food items for 75,000 people in Sri Lanka and India.
| WHAT CAN A DOLLAR BUY? |
$2.30 - 10 packs of oral rehydration salts to treat diarrhea.
$7 - 1 treated mosquito net for one family.
$10 - 1 month’s supply of soap for 40 people.
$60 - Food for one family for 1 month.
$270 - 1 emergency shelter kit for a family of 8.
$1,100 - 1 latrine digging kit.
$2,843 - 1 water tank to provide 750 people with daily water needs.
Source: Oxfam Canada
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Will a small donation actually help?
Absolutely. It is one of the small miracles that small amounts of money can do a lot of good in foreign lands.
The Canadian Red Cross, for instance, says a $100 donation can pay for enough water purification kits to purify over 20,000 litres of water.
A $70 donation will provide a family of six with a hygiene kit that will last a month. Each kit contains toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, toilet paper, soap, sanitary pads, razors, washing detergent and towels.
The Canadian Red Cross says it's now putting together 50,000 hygiene kits to send to Sri Lanka.
Even very small donations help. CARE Canada says $15 will buy five cans to carry and store purified water. And just 37 cents will provide purified water for a family of five for a week.
Oxfam Canada says $5.38 will buy an Oxfam bucket, an easily-cleaned covered container that has a tap to provide more protection against contamination.
Will all the pledged and donated money actually get to the countries and people most affected?
This is a critical question for a variety of reasons. For one thing, the track record of the world's governments in following through on initial pledges after earlier humanitarian disasters has been less than stellar.
After the December 2003 earthquake that destroyed most of the city of Bam, Iran, foreign governments pledged $1.1 billion US in aid. More than a year later, Iran said it has seen just $17.5 million US of that money.
After hurricane Mitch, which killed 11,000 in Nicaragua and Honduras in 1998, the world stepped up with $9 billion in pledges from donor nations. Less than a third of that actually materialized.
But there is reason to hope that, this time, governments will make good on their tsunami aid pledges. For one thing, there's intense public interest in seeing that this aid is actually delivered as promised. And the early signs are encouraging. The UN's humanitarian chief said the world's governments have already delivered 70 per cent of the $1 billion in emergency aid requested by the UN, just one week after the appeal went out.
Some of the countries hit the by tsunami are known to have high levels of corruption at the local government level. Rebel activity in Sri Lanka and Indonesia has also raised questions about whether aid will reach its intended targets. Aid organizations point out that in this crisis, the world is paying particularly close attention. They urge Canadians to keep donating, confident that the money will get to where it's meant to go.
Many agencies, like World Vision Canada and the Christian Children's Fund, help to ensure aid doesn't get sidetracked by partnering with local aid agencies rather than governments. A large part of the Canadian government's aid package will be funnelled through non-governmental organizations.
Oxfam is also urging countries to make sure that their donations represent new money, not money taken from another part of their foreign aid budgets. "It would be a terrible failure if generosity toward the victims of the tsunami were to come at the expense to people suffering from other disasters," said Rieky Stuart, executive director of Oxfam Canada.
There's also the question of problems within the United Nations. Its Oil-for-Food program in Iraq was widely criticized for mismanagement that allegedly allowed Saddam Hussein to divert hundreds of millions of dollars.
This time, the UN has accepted an offer from an international accounting organization to audit its entire tsunami aid program.
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