Lessons for aid workers in Haiti from the 2004 tsunami
AFTER the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, aid agencies clubbed together to review their efforts. The main conclusion was sobering: “It was local people themselves who provided almost all immediate life-saving action.” But “international agencies often brushed local capacities aside.”
This lesson is relevant to Haiti now. Focused on raising money, bedevilled by disputes over logistical precedence and haunted by fears that the country is too weak to help itself, the Haiti operation shows signs of becoming an aid stampede. Like the tsunami, the earthquake has produced an outpouring of generosity amounting to $1 billion so far.
The experience of the tsunami suggests that agencies will not be able to spend it. Nine months on, governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had disbursed just 39% of the money they had promised to spend. A French NGO, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), stopped emergency fund-raising, saying it did not need more. It was criticised for this, but in retrospect was justified. As the tsunami evaluation put it, “allocation and programming…were driven by the extent of public and media interest, and by the unprecedented funding available, rather than by assessment and need.” This seems to be happening in Haiti, too; MSF has again asked people to switch donations to its general fund.
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