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| December 14, 2005 |
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| World Bank: Tsunami Reconstruction Unsatisfactory |
WASHINGTON - December 14, 2005. Reconstruction efforts in Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh province have been
unsatisfactory because officials and charity groups are more focused on
building permanent homes than temporary shelters, the World Bank said
Wednesday, reports The Associated Press.
Of the half a million Acehnese left homeless by the December 26 tsunami,
more than 300,000 have been able to return to their homes, said Andrew
Steer, the World Bank's Country Director for Indonesia. But around 180,000 remain in tents, dormitory-style barracks, or with host families. "Are we happy with the progress in Aceh? No, we are not at all," Steer said before Thursday's release of a one-year reconstruction progress report. Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra Island, was the area hardest hit by the magnitude 9 quake in the Indian Ocean and subsequent tsunami that left at least 216,000 dead or missing in a dozen nations. Three months later another strong tremor killed more than 900 people on Nias and smaller surrounding islands, also in western Indonesia.
Agence France Presse further writes Steer said relief officials should
have realized that it would be impossible to build more than 30,000 houses in the first year and that, as a result, many survivors would be left
staying in tents. There were also hopes that more of the homeless would
have been able to stay with host families, he said. Of the 500,000 people forced from their homes by the tsunami, 180,000 still regard themselves as internally displaced. That figure is about evenly split between those staying in tents, in barrack-style accommodation, or with host families, he said. But a program to provide permanent housing for the tsunami victims is on course. "We're now moving into the really big permanent housing phase," Steer said. About 25,000 houses will be finished by the first anniversary of the disaster, with 5,000 being started and completed every month.
Dow Jones notes Steer said reconstruction efforts were also hampered by unavoidable problems caused by the killer waves - which left large areas of land submerged, roads washed away and ports destroyed. Indonesia, foreign governments and NGOs have pledged a total of $9 billion to rebuild in Aceh and Nias, but bureaucracy has slowed the actual provision of funds, particularly by government donors, Steer said. He said he didn't think corruption was a serious problem.
The World Bank hopes 70,000 more permanent houses will be built by the
middle of 2007 to accommodate the remaining survivors, but a lack of
infrastructure could make the target hard to meet, Steer said. Looking
ahead, Steer said a large portion of the $2 billion to $3 billion that has
been allocated for reconstruction in Aceh in 2006 will be spent on
housing, transport and health care, but stressed there was still a need
for emergency relief supplies of food and medicine.
Andrew Steele, Managing Editor of the Van Zorge Report, a bi-weekly
analysis of Indonesia's politics and economy, writes in The Jakarta Post
(Indonesia) that while one World Bank official in Jakarta admits that "no
one in January would have thought the people in tents then would still be
in tents 10 months later," to cite that as a failure on the part of relief
workers, including the Indonesian government's own Rehabilitation and
Reconstruction Agency (BRR) for Aceh and Nias, is unfair at best. The
unrealistic expectations and overly optimistic projections that pervaded
the dialogue last year should not be used as a benchmark for judging the
reconstruction efforts. Those that have not witnessed the efforts day in
and day out should tread lightly and consider the unforeseen obstacles
that have impeded efforts before they denigrate the process.
There certainly have been speed bumps that could have been avoided; for
example, to date there is still no formalized monitoring of the rebuilding
of homes by international aid groups, explains Steele. That has allowed
for occasional shoddy construction and has led to jealousy among villagers
regarding the differences among homes being built. Some villages have
actually rejected newly built homes. Also, relief groups have at times
competed with one another where coordination would have been more
appropriate. For sure, the Indonesian bureaucracy is a problem, too. The
red tape is often exhausting, aid workers say. And the government at times seems to lack a sense of urgency. It also has no system to disperse emergency funds efficiently.
In related news, Agence France Presse further reports that top scientists
and government officials from over 25 nations on Wednesday launched talks
aimed at setting up a tsunami early warning system for Indian Ocean
countries by next year. The UN's Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission, holding its second session on the system, will review progress
made by the nations involved in the project and seek to plug
implementation gaps.
The first meeting of a coordination group for the regional tsunami warning
system, held in August in the western Australian city of Perth, set up
working groups to deal with different aspects of the project. These
included measuring seismic activity, data collection and exchange,
deep-sea tsunami detection measurements, tsunami hazard identification and establishment of a system bridging all the tasks. Experts say an alert system might have averted many of the deaths in the region. A warning system is already in place in the Pacific Ocean region. It can issue a warning less than an hour after the occurrence of an earthquake that could
cause a tsunami.
Source: The World Bank |
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