INTERNATIONAL aid agencies displayed “a tragic combination of arrogance and ignorance” in their response to the Asian tsunami and brushed aside the valuable work of local communities in their rush to be seen to be doing something, a study has concluded.

A significant independent evaluation of the international response to the tsunami of December 2004, which killed 227,000 people in 14 countries, has uncovered a string of inconsistencies and failures by agencies that left some communities worse off and caused cultural offence and waste in others.

The hard-hitting report by the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, which was supported by the aid community, found that some organisations struggled to spend the vast sums of money donated by the public, and criticised agencies for failing to halt fundraising when they had achieved their limits for being able to spend the cash.

The global response to the disaster produced $13.5 billion (£7.3 billion) in aid, including $5.5 billion from the public and amounting to more than $7,100 for every affected person. This contrasts starkly with $3 for each individual affected by the floods that hit Bangladesh five months earlier, killing more than 700 people and leaving ten million homeless.

The report says that when disaster appeals “exceed expectations and raise too much money”, there should be greater flexibility to diverting the cash to other causes. It suggests that donation forms include a box for donors to indicate that their gift can be used for other emergencies once it had met the target of the appeal.

The report praised the worldwide generosity after the tsunami and the work of the aid agencies, noting that the large amounts donated meant that “within a few months there was palpable evidence of recovery”.

In all countries children were back in school quickly and health facilities and services were partly restored and, in some cases, much improved. Within six months 500,000 people in Indonesia had a roof over their heads and more than 80 per cent of damaged fish markets, boats and fishing equipment was restored in Sri Lanka. Tourist numbers are now on the rebound in Thailand and the Maldives.

However, the report notes that “local affected people and their neighbours saved virtually every life that was to be saved before the international rescue teams arrived”. In their rush to be of help and to appear to their donors to be doing the right thing, agencies often failed to consult local people about the help they needed and ignored the valuable work that they were already doing. In some instances they poached staff from local and national rescue teams, which were left weaker as a result.

“It would be reasonable to ask, ‘Whose emergency was it?’,” the report notes. It was also critical about the way that aid agencies tended to deal largely with village officials, leaving poorer people marginalised.

John Cosgrave, the co- author of the report, said: “We recommend international agencies should focus on supporting local and national agencies, rather than doing their own thing.” He added that the thousands of individuals who rushed to the disaster zone to help hindered the relief effort in some instances. He warned people off disaster tourism and said that the best way to contribute was through international agencies.

The report, widely welcomed by British aid agencies, suggested that one way to improve the emergency response was to set up a regulatory body to set international standards and provide accreditation to agencies to deal with disasters. www.tsunami-evaluation.org

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