INDONESIA: The United Nations Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, has called on world leaders to honour their pledge of £3.7 billion in aid as they gather in Jakarta for a conference today to deal with the Asian tsunami crisis.
"I hope all the money will be delivered," Mr Annan said yesterday. The aid promised to tackle the biggest humanitarian crisis since the second World War, in which 150,000 people have been killed and millions left homeless, must be "fresh and additional money, not robbing Peter to pay Paul, pulling it from other crises", Mr Annan told CNN.
International aid groups echoed his call.
"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," said Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam.
"Aid should also be given in the form of grants, not loans, not tied to the interests of the donor government," she added.
As aid workers struggled to feed and shelter millions of survivors still burying their dead 10 days after the killer waves struck, leaders from 26 nations and humanitarian organisations arrived in Jakarta seeking an answer to the question - how can the world prevent such a catastrophe ever occurring again?
Indonesia, the worst-hit nation with almost two-thirds of the dead, hopes the one-day summit will agree to set up an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system, which experts say could have saved many lives. The Pacific Ocean has a tsunami warning centre.
Leaders will also look at the huge reconstruction needed to rebuild the shattered lives of millions of people in six nations.
"The conference is not only for Indonesia but for all countries that have suffered from the earthquake," said Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. "And of course we do hope that there will be a concrete result in the mechanism of how to assist countries that are to be assisted."
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said co-ordinating the aid effort was a key agenda item. "This will make a major contribution to ensuring there is a better co-ordinated effort and there are stronger contributions than might be the case without a summit."
The world has pledged $3.7 billion in aid as hundreds of tonnes of emergency supplies of medicines, food, clean water and shelter arrives at tsunami-hit areas by air, sea and road.
Yesterday Australian Prime Minister John Howard pledged A$1 billion (€576 million) over five years to Indonesian tsunami reconstruction and development.
"It is the single largest aid contribution ever made by Australia," Mr Howard said after meeting President Yudhoyono in Jakarta.
Mr Howard said he and President Yudhoyono agreed to form an Australia-Indonesia partnership for reconstruction and development. Under the partnership, the A$1 billion will consist of equal parts of grant assistance and concessional financing, offering Indonesia A$500 million interest-free for up to 40 years, with no repayment of principal for 10 years.
"It is a programme of long-term sustained co-operation and capacity-building. It is focused on economic reconstruction and development," Mr Howard said. "In addressing the urgent humanitarian needs of those afflicted by the tragedy it will also serve to bring our countries and people close together."
Mr Annan is expected to announce a major UN tsunami appeal at the Jakarta conference, which will also discuss the possibility of an immediate freeze of debt payments by affected countries. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said he believed the Group of Seven industrialised nations would be able to agree on debt relief for Sri Lanka and Indonesia, which suffered most from the December 26th disaster that killed around 145,000 people.
Japan joined other G7 members Britain, the United States, Canada and France in supporting a debt payment moratorium, which will be discussed in Jakarta today and also at a January 12th meeting of the Paris Club of creditor nations.
The relief effort has faced enormous hurdles.
The giant waves destroyed hospitals, damaged airports and washed away roads and bridges.
And the sheer number of aid organisations arriving in Asia has posed co-ordination problems and created bottlenecks.
The United Nations' latest report on the relief operation said a lack of trucks, aircraft, boats, warehouses and operating airstrips was holding up aid to survivors around the Indian Ocean rim. It also cited a lack of co-ordination among aid groups.
Mark Malloch Brown, head of the UN Development Programme who was recently appointed as Mr Annan's chief of staff, said world leaders must not only ensure aid funds flowed quickly but that they also lasted for the longer-term reconstruction.
"Our message will be, yes, let's fund the first phase, but let's very quickly make sure funding is in place for communities to get back on their own feet," he said. - (Reuters)