The US and other donors responding to the south-east Asia disaster must be there for the long haul, writes Eric Schwartz.
Colin Powell was right. When it comes to providing relief to millions afflicted by natural and man-made disasters, the United States is anything but stingy. Each year, the US government provides well over $2 billion for life-saving relief activities throughout the world.
Our contribution to the World Food Program represents more than half of the organisation's resources, and we provide the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees with nearly one-third of its annual budget. The disaster assistance response teams of the US Agency for International Development, already assessing conditions and providing relief in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka following last week's undersea earthquake, are among our most dedicated and effective public servants. Their efforts are supported by a network of US private voluntary organisations providing food, shelter, sanitation and emergency health assistance.
I am convinced of the Bush administration's commitment to this tradition of US leadership, as I was involved in the administration's first effort to respond to a major natural disaster.
On January 26th, 2001, shortly before the end of my eight-year tenure as the National Security Council official responsible for humanitarian aid issues, a major earthquake struck Gujarat, India. I was certain that both the US military and our civilian aid providers had roles to play, but I didn't know what to expect from a new administration that had campaigned hard against the involvement of the military in operations other than war.
My doubts were dispelled when both the new national security adviser and her deputy pressed successfully for a generous response that included US troops.
It was therefore hardly surprising when US officials took umbrage last week at comments by Jan Egeland, the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, who suggested that the United States and other governments are tight-fisted with foreign assistance.
But before dismissing Egeland's comment, it is worth noting that it was focused not on the immediate relief effort but on what comes next - after the crisis abates, after CNN departs and after the attention of the world is focused elsewhere. Will the US sustain its willingness to help meet rehabilitation and development needs in the affected countries in the months and years to come?
This is a perfectly reasonable question. Over the past several decades, the US has been far better at responding effectively to natural disasters and man-made emergencies, from the Balkans to Africa, than it has been at addressing the needs that follow. Even with the president's proposal in 2002 to increase substantially the US commitment to development assistance, the US was still spending less than 0.2 per cent of its gross national income on development aid in 2003, putting us at the bottom of the 20 or so industrialised countries. With hundreds of thousands of people in dire need in the tsunami area, it is difficult to focus on anything other than the immediate relief and recovery challenge.
Nonetheless, the US and other donors must also organise themselves for longer-term challenges, such as reconstructing homes, schools and factories, disaster mitigation training and the creation of an Indian Ocean tsunami early-warning system. The key is to focus on both the short and long terms, but with a keen awareness that we are better at the former than the latter.
Even in a natural disaster, without the political and security complications that come with a man-made humanitarian crisis, there are dozens of daily decisions that involve a wide variety of civilian agencies and the military - to say nothing of judgments that must be made in the field. This has been severely complicated by catastrophic damage in not one, but at least four, countries.
It is no small matter to organise a coherent response. In many cases, the Clinton administration tended to opt for a strong White House leadership role. President Bush has more often turned to the agencies, as reflected in his announcement last week that Under-secretary of State Marc Grossman would lead an inter-agency task force to coordinate the US response. While either model can work, Grossman will need to be more than a co-ordinator, driving the process - effectively as a "Tsunami Relief and Reconstruction Tsar". He will need to have quick access to the Oval Office in order to resolve critical issues.
Speed in preparing a package of assistance is also essential. Existing US disaster and development assistance accounts, annually funded at about $340 million and $1.5 billion, respectively, are already stretched to breaking point, and depleting those accounts for assistance to countries affected by the tsunami would mean denying assistance to other parts of the world. Moving fast will help to ensure the most generous response from Congress, which will be more inclined to act while awareness is high.
After Hurricane Mitch, which killed nearly 10,000 Central Americans in October and November 1998, we in the Clinton administration thought we were moving pretty quickly when we presented the Congress with a special aid request in February 1999. But even that was not fast enough. By then, members of Congress felt less urgency, and passage was delayed until May. President Bush should also stress that our commitment will last for years, which will require revising the 2006 budget request to be presented to Congress in February.
Speed in developing an aid proposal should not come at the expense of quality - and one way to ensure that is to consult closely with US private voluntary organisations. Their expertise runs from immediate relief to long-term development. And their involvement now would help to guarantee the long-term sustainability of aid programmes by ensuring they will be developed in co-ordination with indigenous communities.
Finally, the personal engagement of the president is critical. On this point, I'd suggest he take a page from his predecessor's playbook. Administration officials were correct when they said that actions speak louder than words. But words - and gestures - do matter. In the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, President Clinton's visit to the site of the Casita volcano in Nicaragua, where a mudslide killed some 2,000 people, sent a powerful message of US solidarity to the people of Nicaragua and the region. While now is certainly not the moment for governments in areas devastated by the tsunami to host a presidential visit, the president's increased visibility would help to communicate clearly our sympathy and support to the people of India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other affected countries. It would help ensure support from Congress and prompt other governments to give generously. And it would embody the values that reflect our highest ideals and aspirations.
Eric Schwartz, who was the US National Security Council's senior director for multilateral and humanitarian affairs in the Clinton administration, served last year as the second-ranking official at the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights in Geneva. (LA Times service)