Poorest get worst deal in tsunami aid handout

Six months after the horror of the Boxing Day disaster, the worst-hit families are still struggling to survive

Amelia Hill and Martin Bright, The Observer
Sunday June 26, 2005
[View original here]

Six months after the Indian Ocean tsunami, a survey by Oxfam has found that the poorest victims have benefited the least from the massive relief effort.

The charity's study found that aid has tended to go to businesses and landowners, exacerbating the divide between rich and poor, with the most needy survivors likely to spend longer periods in refugee camps, where it is harder to find work or rebuild lives.

'Desperately poor people have been made poorer still by the tsunami,' said Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam Great Britain. 'The aid effort must now increase its emphasis on targeting poor people, marginalised groups and women to ensure they are not excluded from the reconstruction efforts.'

The report, Targeting Poor People, comes on the eve of the tsunami's six-month anniversary and shows that its impact on poor people has been compounded by a reconstruction effort that has focused on landowners, business people and the most high-profile cases.

Poor communities were disproportionately affected by the wave's force because the brick houses of the rich were more likely to survive, but poorer villages in remote areas are nevertheless having to wait far longer to receive help and aid.

The survey also found that the provision of housing for poor people is presenting difficulties. Before the tsunami, many of the most marginalised people were not landowners - but even those who had land are now dispossessed because vital proofs of ownership have been destroyed.

The unprecedented international response to the Boxing Day earthquake tragedy meant that the immediate relief effort was a great success, stopping the outbreak of disease and providing people with basics such as shelter and water. But the survey found marginalisation of dalits - outcasts in India - and specific problems in Sri Lanka, where aid has gone to businesses and landowners rather than the landless.

The poverty gap is worst in Aceh, the Indonesian province which was the most badly affected area and was already impoverished by conflict before the tsunami hit. Half a million people in Aceh are now homeless - but Oxfam found that it is largely the wealthiest survivors who have been able to start rebuilding their lives.

Another survey by a group of British academics at Action Aid, who have been monitoring the delivery of aid, has found that there is little evidence of permanent accommodation being built for most people.

Oxfam also called for people to have more realistic expectations about the speed of reconstruction, saying that the media needed to recognise the scale of devastation. 'The media have a crucial role to play in keeping the tsunami in the spotlight, applying pressure on everyone to deliver and exposing problems when they arise. But they also need to be realistic,' said Stocking.

'While there are problems that need to be resolved and some things are taking too long, to expect everything to be rebuilt within six months is unrealistic,' she added, pointing out that rebuilding all the houses destroyed by the tsunami would be the equivalent of rebuilding Birmingham twice over.

[Top]