Feature
Think globally, act locally
by Graham Reid
Despite logistical and political difficulties, aid agencies assure New Zealanders that their generosity is getting through to tsunami victims.
Shuna Lennon, Oxfam’s advocacy manager, who usually does policy work out of the Auckland office, was in Christchurch for Christmas. On December 27 she saw the front page of the Christchurch Press.
Since then she has spent most days at work, first in the Christchurch office then back in Auckland. She, other Oxfam colleagues who have returned early from holiday and numerous volunteers are processing donations that have poured in to assist those affected by the tsunami that swamped large parts of Aceh province in northern Sumatra, and coastal areas of Sri Lanka, Thailand and India. Within 10 days, New Zealanders have donated over $5m, which will be matched dollar for dollar by the government. Tearful collectors tell of people emptying their purse or pockets into their buckets.
Professional aid agencies such as Oxfam, World Vision and Save the Children have international infrastructures, so when tragedy strikes there are established procedures to quickly transfer aid money.
Despite banks being closed for much of the Christmas and New Year period, with consequent delays in processing cheques and access to donors’ credit card accounts, local aid organisations initially work with amounts pledged and inform their inter-national partners of funds coming available. Those partners can then start spending, using credit or their own funds, sure that more is coming.
Ten days after the disaster, Save the Children New Zealand transferred around $300,000, plus government contribution, to its London branch, which redirected it to local offices, particularly in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, where needs had already been identified. This is the cyberspeed spin on the adage,“Think globally, act locally”.
Oxfam in the UK, also allocating money from its international offices such as New Zealand, is expecting to reach more than 320,000 people with essential aid.
Relief agencies prefer to buy emergency supplies in-country to keep freight costs low, expedite necessary materials and food, and to support local economies.
Supplies not able to be sourced in-country, like family-sized plastic tents for the homeless in Sri Lanka, says John Bowis, the executive director of Save the Children in New Zealand, are freighted in.
New Zealand’s Oxfam director Barry Coates says there is an impression that in a crisis dozens of aid agencies descend on the scene, competing to assist. Not so.
Established aid organisations have formal protocols with other NGOs and work with a lead agency that has particular expertise. Oxfam, for example, has been assigned the lead response in the Tamil Nadu region by the Indian Government, and is a lead agency in Indonesia’s beleaguered Aceh province because it has had long experience there.
STC, with a 30-year involvement in Aceh, also has a considerable presence because of its established relationships with local organisations. It has been in Sri Lanka for 40 years, with offices and partners across the country, nine of them in the battered coastal regions.
The efficiency with which aid agencies have responded to the current crisis is born out of bitter experience.
In Sri Lanka, counsellors are already alongside traumatised children because they have been doing similar work with those who have suffered during the on-going struggle between the Tamil separatist movement and the government. Many STC counsellors have been relocated to coastal areas.
“You couldn’t do that as an organisation coming in at short notice,” says Burkhard Gnarig, CEO of the International Save the Children Alliance. “You need people who are trained. If they are not, they could create more damage.”
Gnarig is speaking from a hill in Sri Lanka near devastated Matara where cellphone reception is serviceable. He arrived in the country the previous day and has seen their chartered plane land in Colombo with emergency supplies, witnessed heartbreaking ruin at Galle, and welcomed specialist staff from Japan, New Zealand, Britain and Australia. He speaks of the efficiency and professionalism of STC.
“You have to have top-quality people in the field who can take very significant decisions. Our emergency director here was signing cheques, which under normal conditions he would not be allowed to sign. But he has to because we cannot pass them back and forth between bureaucrats.
“They are quite tough decisions, like how many trucks can you rent now – the price will go up when UN agencies come in. So, does it make sense to buy a truck? Or a fleet of trucks?
“This is a country which is extremely well organised. It is not a country which cannot feed its people – it is a distribution problem – so we are already starting to focus on other things.”
Between 35,000 and 40,000 fishing boats have been lost in Sri Lanka, so aid workers are considering buying cheap boats (for around $US200) that carry a crew of three, which means three families being fed.
Kate Medlicott, programme manager for Oxfam’s Water for Survival programme in Auckland, says while assisting displaced fishing communities in India by providing water and sanitation, they may soon consider purchasing fishing nets to get people providing for themselves again.
It’s the long view while the immediate crisis rages around them, and the scale of the destruction has inevitably put a strain on supply lines.
Page 1 2 
