MARCH 2005
In this section:
Tsunami Aid Reaches 1 Million Survivors
As World’s Majority Shifts to Cities, Aid
Tackles Urban Issues
Rising Hopes for Peace in N. Uganda
Tsunami Aid Reaches 1 Million Survivors
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Former U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush, in USAID cap,
and Bill Clinton, in February surveyed the shattered
village of Lampuuk, Indonesia. Only 700 of its 6,500
inhabitants survived the tsunami. Bush and Clinton visited
Aceh province, asking if the relief effort could help
resolve a decades-long insurgency and calling on the
government to ensure that American funds are well spent.
AP/World Wide Photos |
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia—Across the kilometers of
rubble where 200,000 people died Dec. 26 in a tsunami, dozens
of mechanical excavators peck at the rubble like so many giant
birds.
As isolated survivors search in the rubble for anything
of value, the machines scoop up mud, boards, furniture, bricks,
books, crushed cars, bicycles, and the other remains of this
city of 350,000 people, smashed by a 30- to 50-foot wall of
water.
Officially, 119,000 died in Aceh Province, most of them
here in Banda Aceh. Another 115,000 are missing and presumed
dead. Every day, as the cleanup continues, trucks haul away
1,000 additional bodies that are found as the rubble is carted
away.
Because the government in Indonesia, as in Sri Lanka and
Thailand, has not yet decided how close people will be able
to live to the sea in the future, very little rebuilding has
begun in the places where the Asian tsunami claimed most of
its victims—downtown Banda Aceh and the western coastal
region of Ampara in Sri Lanka.
However, just a mile away from the sea, beyond the belt
of total destruction, Indonesians living in emergency tent
camps are hired by USAID and other aid groups to clean up
schools, hospitals, and streets that were inundated by up
to 10 feet of water, mud, and debris.
The cash-for-work programs, started within days of the tsunami
by the Agency’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance,
give survivors something positive to do, put $3 to $5 in their
pockets daily to supplement the food they get in the camps,
and move the city towards reconstruction.
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After the Dec. 26 Asian tsunami destroyed his home
and killed his wife and two children on the island of
Pulo Aceh, Indonesia, Affan (he uses only one name),
50, washes his daughter Maulina, 3, in a displaced persons
camp supported by USAID. Foreign aid teams feed and
provide medical care to the 2,500 people in the camp,
about 30 minutes drive southeast of Banda Aceh.
Ben Barber, USAID |
In Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, more than 1
million people have lost their homes. Many have also lost
children, spouses, parents, jobs, and all their possessions.
In mid-February, the number of displaced persons was 412,000
in Indonesia; 553,000 in Sri Lanka; 113,000 in India; 13,000
in the Maldives; and lesser numbers in Thailand, Malaysia,
and Somalia.
Casualties in the Asian countries following the earthquake-produced
tsunami were: 119,000 dead and 115,000 missing in Indonesia;
31,000 dead and 5,000 missing in Sri Lanka; 11,000 dead and
6,000 missing in India; 5,000 dead and 3,000 missing in Thailand.
A rapid civilian and military response to the disaster by
Indonesians, Sri Lankans, Indians, and other local officials—as
well as by the United States and many other countries—prevented
the outbreak of epidemics among the million homeless survivors.
The Bush administration initially pledged $350 million after
the disaster, but in February asked Congress for $950 million
in total aid for areas affected by the tsunami. By mid-February,
U.S. private donations reached $800 million, and world donations
by all governments and private pledges totaled several billion
dollars.
The Indonesian language daily newspaper WASPADA summed
up the feelings of many in this Muslim country of 220 million
people Feb. 4 when it said goodbye to the U.S. military assistance
fleet with a front-page photo of an aircraft carrier under
the banner headline: Terima Kasih USS A. Lincoln (Thank
You USS A. Lincoln).
The Lincoln had sailed here at top speed in four days after
the tsunami, and its dozens of helicopters ferried USAID-provided
food, water, medicine, and plastic shelters to survivors on
the badly mauled west coast of Aceh, where roads were cut
and bridges destroyed.
Another place U.S. help played a vital role—apart from
supplying tons of food and other aid—was in Banda Aceh’s
public hospital. Hit by a chest-high wall of water and mud,
the city’s major health facility has been steadily cleaned
up by a series of crews hired by USAID and other agencies.
German medics set up a military hospital outside the gates.
Australian military doctors made one ward and supplied a working
laboratory.
Another photo on the paper’s front page showed the
U.S. military hospital ship Mercy sailing into Aceh’s
waters to offer medical assistance. Both photos reflected
how the prompt dispatch of U.S. military forces—to provide
compassionate service as well as unparalleled logistics—nourished
good will in a country sometimes beset with anti-American
Islamic extremism.
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Dr. Robert Bristow, 40, an emergency physician and
teacher at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital,
shows midwives at a clinic in Aceh Province, Indonesia,
how to sew up a wound. The number of people served by
the clinic doubled to 30,000, as many tsunami survivors
moved into shelters nearby. Bristow is a volunteer with
the International Rescue Committee, which is supported
by USAID grants..
Betina Moreira, USAID/Indonesia |
Having averted threatened epidemics of dysentery, cholera,
malaria, and other illnesses by prompt grants to NGOs to supply
clean drinking water, spray mosquitoes, and assess health
conditions, USAID-supported aid groups reported Feb. 15 that
the most widespread problem among the displaced was scabies,
a treatable skin disorder.
In Indonesia and Sri Lanka, people waited for permission
to either return to their destroyed homes close to the sea
or for land to build on inland. Meanwhile, in areas such as
Calong on the west coast of Sumatra, the displaced had upgraded
their tents into sturdy—if not cozy—shelters, with
wooden floors scavenged from the wreckage of their town, plastic
sheeting for walls, tin roofs, and jerry-rigged shelves made
from branches and boards.
Children orphaned by the giant waves settled in, surrounded
by loving aunts and cousins. High schoolers walked for hours
from survivors’ camps in the hills to attend the new
school.
And the constant clatter of helicopters, boats, planes,
and heavy equipment marked the intense efforts by thousands
of foreign and local volunteers and workers to rebuild the
affected countries.
TSUNAMI AID
Timely, targeted emergency relief prevented disease and moved
survivors into shelters with adequate food and clean drinking
water. But the long-term reconstruction task has barely begun.
Total World Aid Pledged in January-$4 billion
U.S. Aid Pledged in January-$350 million
Total U.S. Government Spending by Feb15-$122 million
USAID Funds Spent by Feb 15
OFDA $82 million
Food for Peace $22 million
ANE Bureau $5 million
U.S. Additional Funds for 2005 Requested $600 million
As World’s Majority Shifts to Cities, Aid Tackles
Urban Issues
In recent years, hundreds of millions of poor people in developing
countries have packed up their belongings, sold their land
and farm animals, and moved from their villages into growing
cities such as São Paulo, Lagos, Mexico City, Bangkok,
and Shanghai.
Half the world’s 6 billion people now live in cities,
and two-thirds of people will be urban by 2030, according
to population statistics.
The increase of 2.5 billion city dwellers in the next two
decades is basically unstoppable, as people abandon exhausted
and overcrowded farmland in search of the jobs and conveniences
of city life: education, electricity, hospitals, and cinemas.
But when millions arrive, will they find decent housing,
adequate schools, water and sanitation, jobs, and security?
Or will many live in shantytowns, lacking title to their houses,
and join the growing ranks of the urban poor?
Lacking the safety net and traditions of their ancestral
villages, will these urban poor be ripe for recruitment by
criminal gangs or those who preach ethnic, religious, or other
forms of hatred and terrorism?
To address the vast demographic change taking place across
our planet, development experts at USAID and elsewhere are
working to help the urban poor gain title to their houses,
get credit to start small businesses, and create municipal
associations so cities can share their solutions to common
problems.
USAID is also showing mayors and city administrators how
to raise funds for roads, hospitals, water systems, and schools
by selling municipal bonds.
The Agency’s Urban Programs Team, in the Bureau for
Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade, grew out of the Housing
Office in the 1970s, which helped promote savings and loan
associations to support construction of middle-class housing,
said urban specialist Jeff Boyer.
“We help missions deal with this worldwide phenomenon,”
said Boyer. “We don’t try to prevent people from
moving to cities—this is a trend you cannot stop. But
we need to make the best of the situation, which ranges from
well-managed to cities that are collapsing.”
The move to the cities means that poverty—which used
to be mainly rural in developing countries—is becoming
mainly urban, requiring foreign aid groups to shift their
focus.
Above all, say experts, there is a need to build political
will among the leaders of cities to tackle the lack of services.
In Caracas, for example, millions live in the ranchos, or
slums made of orange clay blocks that climb the hillsides
around the commercial and middle-class core. Up in those hills,
water and electricity are stolen from utility conduits, thugs
rule the alleys, jerry-built houses crowd together on unsafe
slopes, there are no parks or schools, and the city does little
to improve things.
Yet every day, hundreds of thousands of men and women, many
wearing spotless white shirts and dresses, walk down to the
buses and trains that take them to jobs in banks, offices,
markets, and factories.
Although USAID and other donors cannot alone provide the
resources for the massive improvements needed to create safe
and healthy urban spaces, they do have the expertise to assist
municipal governments improve things—especially as many
national governments decentralize, granting taxation and other
authority to cities.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, for example, people were
educated to accept that by paying taxes they support city
planning. Now the capital market in South Africa provides
bond revenue for transportation, education, water, sanitation,
public places, and job programs, Boyer said.
The Agency and other donors such as the World Bank are working
with creative and dedicated political leaders in cities such
as Bogota to address major problems created by urban poverty.
The best source of expertise to these cities may well be
the example set by U.S. cities and towns. They can show municipal
governments how to raise funds and take care of vital services,
especially when many developing countries lack resources.
Since the growth of industrial jobs is not keeping up with
the influx of people, the Agency is supporting regional and
international trade as well as microcredit to the informal
sector, such as small shops or street vendors.
Peruvian development expert Hernando de Soto discovered
that when the urban poor get official title to their shanties
or apartments, they find it easier to get credit and register
children in schools. With an official address, they also may
be able to vote and make their voice heard when it comes time
to provide services.
“A lot depends on the election of the mayor—and
the reelection,” said Boyer.
Rising Hopes for Peace in N. Uganda
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A soldier guards Labuje, one of 18 camps for internally
displaced people in Kitgum district. Some 14,188 people
live here. The camp was set up in August 2003, after
the antigovernment rebels threatened massive attacks
on residents of nearby villages. As a result, almost
the entire population of these villages fled to the
relative safety of Labuje Community Center on the outskirts
of Kitgum town.
Ruth Buckley, USAID |
With a recently signed peace agreement expected to end the
20-year civil war in Sudan, a conflict in neighboring Uganda
that has displaced 1.6 million of its 26 million people may
also be ending, U.S. officials say.
Sudan’s government had supported the Lord’s Resistance
Army (LRA), which for 19 years has been abducting men, women,
and children from northern Uganda and forcing them to become
porters, soldiers, or sex slaves. More than 20,000 children
have been kidnapped.
But, in recent months, Sudan has reportedly ended its support
for the LRA. Since then, a number of LRA soldiers and senior
officers defected, taking advantage of Uganda’s amnesty
law. Sam Kolo, head of the LRA peace team, surrendered to
Ugandan authorities Feb. 16. He is one of the highest ranking
rebel commanders to turn himself in.
Since December, the Ugandan government has been engaged
in on-and-off peace talks with the LRA, which the U.S. government
classifies as a terrorist organization. The group is headed
by Joseph Kony, who claims to possess mystical powers and
opposes President Yoweri Museveni.
“We have to think transborder when we think about how
to resolve the issues of northern Uganda,” said Roger
Winter, assistant administrator for the Bureau for Democracy,
Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance.
Northern Uganda is home to some 11 percent of all of Africa’s
internally displaced persons (IDPs)—a number comparable
to those displaced by the conflict in Darfur, Sudan.
Victims of the conflict reside in more than 200 camps spread
along the northern region near Sudan. Humanitarian conditions
at the camps are dismal; the camps lack food, education, medicine,
water, and sanitation.
“This is one of the world’s largest and longest-running
humanitarian disasters, which until recently has been largely
ignored by the outside world,” said Vicki Moore, USAID/Uganda
mission director. “We are thankful that the international
community has rallied to address the needs of the conflict
victims and, hopefully, that peace can be restored soon.”
The USAID mission in Kampala spent $77.5 million last year
in northern Uganda to promote peace and reconciliation and
improve conditions for people living in the camps. Food for
Peace provided 60 percent of the food aid to northern Uganda,
while the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance worked
on improving conditions, mainly through sanitation and water
services.
Long-term development is focused on education, health, psychosocial
services for kidnapped children, reintegration of former combatants
into society, and agricultural growth. The mission is prepared
to work in a situation of peace or continued conflict.
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