With the Best of Intentions: Singapore Volunteers and Donors and the Tsunami Reconstruction
Date: September 14th 2006
Author: Mr Tan Tay Keong

Charities and humanitarian organisations here in Singapore that were involved in post-Tsunami relief and reconstruction work keep getting the same queries from volunteers, donors, and journalists. The world has pledged and donated billions to Tsunami relief and reconstruction, and I have personally given money to Singapore charities. Why do I still read about needy people in temporary shelters? Where has the money gone? Another question we get reflects similar sentiments of puzzlement, even frustration: I am moved by the devastation and would like to help by volunteering my time and expertise. I have signed up to volunteer with several humanitarian organizations. I am highly qualified and could help people. Why am I still not sent overseas?

These are good questions that deserve good answers as we approach the first anniversary of the Tsunami. This article will discuss which volunteers are best sent overseas and how donations can most responsibly be used for effective and sustainable reconstruction.

Many Have Called, but Few Are Chosen

First, let us examine the question of why there are so many offers of service unheeded and volunteers unsent. Are volunteer welfare organizations (VWOs) too busy, exclusive or incompetent to meet volunteer interests? The question, as it turns out, is a misguided one. It suggests that all volunteers are needed, beneficial and welcome in the aftermath of a major disaster. The right question to guide volunteer deployment could be: what resources and assistance are needed at what point and do we have the means to place them responsibly and safely in the field? The people in the humanitarian sector have seen this so often that we have a term for this: it is called ‘supply-driven volunteer deployment', where volunteer agencies send volunteers overseas more as an outlet for the volunteers' aspirations “to do something” than to meet an assessed need in the field.

One of the most commonly cited blunders of well-meaning humanitarians is the supply-driven mismatch of volunteer skills with needs in the disaster sites. International volunteers rush in where local Samaritans fear to tread, often without the requisite preparation and coordination. We have all heard some of the stories from returning volunteers: doctors queuing for patients at a hospital camp in Galle, Sri Lanka; and unskilled volunteers doing non-essential (manual) work in Meulaboh while unemployed locals looked on; and the motley international aid contingents clogging the airports and supply lines leading into disaster zones.

When humanitarian workers descended upon the Tsunami-affected eastern coastline of Sri Lanka, we saw in one of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps the meager belongings of a family of five. They have possessions that would fit into a large suitcase. As NGOs streamed there to ‘set up tents and fly the flag', we witnessed NGO leaders lining up at the District Administrators Office in Ampara to offer their aid to local officials. We could see on a flipchart the long list of international agencies offering aid in healthcare, water and sanitation, housing, and education – a public listing of the ironical reality of “too many aid agencies chasing after too few projects”. One international aid worker leaving the office said to me: “Look around you, there are so many untrained foreign reconstruction crews building temporary shelters when newly unemployed Sri Lankan men stand around watching; there must be a better way to rebuild this country!”

In Aceh, Director of the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency ( Badan Rehabilitasi dan Reconstruksi, BRR) Dr. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto lamented that during the immediate aftermath of the Tsunami and Nias earthquake foreign donors sent noodles, skirts and blankets, even cement, when what people most needed were sarongs, tents, sanitary pads, and ready-to-eat biscuits. Some 1,300 containers of donated materials just sat in Medan's nearby harbortown at one stage. Kuntoro further commented that people who rushed to the site of the disaster were not a help but became a burden as they needed to be housed, fed and given drinking water, items that were needed by Tsunami-affected persons as well. The mis-coordination could mean a waste of precious resources that would be critically needed for relief and reconstruction.

The Lifecycle of a Disaster

Disaster management experts often refer to distinct and discernable stages in the lifecycle of disasters, also broadly applicable to post-conflict situations - the emergency, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction phases. The emergency phase is a time for scrambling – evacuations to save or preserve lives, fire- and flood-fighting, and search and rescue. Swift action is most critical to get help to the people to prevent or limit the eventual impact. Immediately following that is the relief phase, when urgent measures are taken to meet the most essential needs of the survivors by providing water, food, shelter and medical care. Relief work is soon transitioned into rehabilitation, as the actions of the affected communities and aid workers turn to restore the basic services and assist the survivors in building their lives and means of livelihood. The final phase following rehabilitation is the long protracted period for reconstruction, when damaged infrastructures are rebuilt and all essential services restored in the context of economic recovery and a long-term development plan.

In the Red Cross and Red Crescent's recently published World Disasters Report 2005, an evaluation of post-Tsunami work in Aceh is offered which highlights a number of interesting findings. The “highly ‘visible' health sector attracted the most agencies: 22 health NGOs were operating in one area on the west coast [of Aceh]. Ten international field hospitals were set up in Banda Aceh, none of which worked at full capacity. There were too many surgeons. One UN witness in Meulaboh saw “20 surgeons competing for a single patient”. Yet midwives and nurses were in short supply.” In the early phases of the recovery effort, UN officials already began to warn of ‘Tsunami tourists' – non-essential humanitarian workers touring the disaster cites, surveying the devastation and taking photographs but contributing little else.

Placement of volunteers overseas in a developing country, especially disaster zones, presents many physical, psychological and social challenges. They range from adjusting to the local diet and dried rations to coping with local stereotypes about and prejudices against foreigners. Especially in responding to ‘complex emergencies' where a natural disaster overlays a civil strife situation, the preparation of volunteers and coordination of their work must be carried out with the utmost care. Suzanne Charest of the Canadian Red Cross writes: “When you are talking about emergency disasters of this size and scope, it's something that you really need to think twice about before spontaneously going over there to offer to help. If you've no training and experience in dealing with traumatic situations, it probably isn't a very good idea. We never send spontaneous volunteers to do relief work overseas”. ( Globe and Mail , 15 January 2005, p. T2).

Why this level of selectivity and caution? The service provided by international volunteers is also typically more complicated than those performed by domestic Samaritans. The challenge of aiding recovery and development is a complex and continuous process. Thoughtful, sustainable projects empower people and communities to rise up on their feet and take control of their lives and livelihood. Their struggle with disaster and disadvantage will continue for years. In this context, reconstruction projects, to have a lasting impact on the living standards for many people, must have local ownership and participation, and they must contribute to a larger policy framework supported by the local governments and the wider development donor community. For instance, instead of supporting stand-alone projects, the development community is now encouraging aid agencies to work within nationally-driven reconstruction plans and sectoral frameworks that address poverty, conflicts, poor governance, scarce resources and diseases. Before aid agencies build a school, we have to ensure that it will be used to deliver effective services to the local pupils, and it will be well run and adequately staffed by local people long after the internationals leave.

The well prepared and committed international volunteer can be a positive presence in a community, a source of inspiration and empowerment. But the outsider's role can also be disruptive and burdensome. There have been countless examples of outsiders who impose their cultural norms, force their own agenda, and initiate projects without the participation of the local community. The results can range from inappropriate to disruptive or destructive, and the local people are left to put the pieces back together long after the well-intentioned visitor has left. Overseas volunteers must bear in mind that much of the services that foreigners fly in to provide can also be more efficiently provided by locals at a fraction of the cost. A senior official from the Singapore Red Cross commented at the recent Singapore Humanitarian Conference that it was “a mistake” to send a first group of volunteers to Aceh during the immediate rescue phase, largely to meet the volunteers' strong pent-up interest to get to the ground zero to offer help. The volunteer teams were sent in the first quarter of 2005 to Meulaboh to perform physical work of clearing debris and erecting temporary structures (tasks that could be more efficiently provided by Acehnese).

It was not for a lack of volunteers that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the US-based Mercy Corps have a special scheme to hire local people (especially former fishermen) to work on various projects in Banda Aceh. There is a concern that young Acehnese men will leave town and further weaken the affected communities' cultural fabric and the prospects for sustainable long-term recovery.

Whether to comfort the sick, help the needy or raise money for charities in our local community, domestic volunteers typically perform a service in a familiar local context. Often, disaster-affected communities are recovering from shock, their support systems decimated, and structure for their day-to-day survival threatened. Overseas aid workers, hence, must be prepared to take on challenges far beyond the simpler tasks of domestic volunteering. An extraordinary degree of tolerance and cultural sensitivity must be observed. Military officers learned to take off their sunglasses when they speak to locals, and aid distributors found it helpful to mark their rations clearly marked with halal certified signs. To make a positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people, international volunteers must ensure that contributions are welcome and are effective in the cultural context. Beneficiary communities expect and deserve nothing less.

Hence, volunteers for overseas humanitarian and development missions can take heart in the fact that not all Samaritans should be deployed overseas. We could take comfort in the fact that local people can do much of the work, given time and the right resources and opportunities. And the humanitarian community has a responsibility to work with local peoples and support their initiatives to meet their needs and empower them to rise up to overcome disaster and disadvantage in a sustainable way. While volunteers may be fueled by passion and the strong urge to help, volunteer managers have to a take a dispassionate and calculated perspective of the reconstruction challenges ahead.

Much Is Given, Much Is Expected

Voluntary welfare organizations are posed two types of questions: one relating to volunteering overseas in disaster situations and the other concerned with how money donated to the Tsunami disaster has been used. Now, we turn to the issue of money for tsunami relief and reconstruction. Singaporeans have seen news reports and television footage of displaced and needy people are still suffering. How can that be, when so much money was donated? Are there funds “lost” to organizational overheads, or worse, corruption?

The Tsunami was an unusual disaster in recent history because of the unprecedented international impact and international response. Twelve countries were affected, with about a quarter million killed within the span of just a few hours, offering very little lead time for evasive action and response. Some eight thousand kilometers of coastlines were devastated, and these included three conflict zones in Aceh, Sri Lanka and Somalia. This was truly an international disaster, with people from more than 35 nations affected in Phuket alone (the Tsunami caused the greatest loss of life of any natural disaster in faraway Sweden 's modern history). Flash appeals during the immediate aftermath saw billions of dollars pledged, with a sizable proportion from the private sector. There was extremely strong media coverage, with dramatic images of the mayhem broadcasted straight into our living rooms. By any yardstick, this was a disaster characterized by the unprecedented scale and speed of the international response. UN officials called it “the biggest relief operation launched by the Organisation”.

Singaporeans poured out their hearts and dug into their pockets, and organisations of every stripe and colour raised funds for disaster relief. In the ultimate count, some S$86 million was raised for the Asia Tidal Waves Fund in response to the Singapore Red Cross Society's public appeal. The appeal specifically called for donations in cash as it is the most efficient means of providing relief assistance; the needed relief items could be purchased in bulk and then delivered and distributed quickly to the victims.

The international donor community, too, is concerned about the effective and accountable use of the money given for Tsunami reconstruction. In Indonesia, a Multi-Donor Trust Fund for Aceh and North Sumatra (MDTF) of US$500 million fund has been specially created to pool donor resources to finance projects and programs to assist in the reconstruction. The MDTF pools donor resources to support a portfolio of projects and programs within the Government's Master Plan for recovery in Aceh and Nias. It also serves as a forum for donor coordination for the various projects to regenerate communities and community infrastructure, restore livelihoods and rebuild governance in Tsunami-affected areas. The MDTF helps to fund the work of the Indonesian government's Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi (BRR), the body established to oversee reconstruction and rehabilitation work in Aceh and Nias. The BRR holds ministerial level authority and has the capacity to eliminate bureaucratic or organisational laziness and undertake autonomous planning and delivery. For probity, BRR has established an Anti-graft Task Force with a budget of Rp 10 million (S$170,000) to monitor corruption.

Questions have been raised over international involvement in reconstruction efforts after previous natural disasters. For instance, USAID assistance to El Salvador following an earthquake there in 2001 raised questions as to the safety of building materials and techniques used in the reconstruction of homes. Risks exist for the post-Tsunami rebuilding as well – from the suitability of the design to the quality of materials used. Asbestos is a commonly used construction material in Sri Lanka, and building contractors resort to sub-quality materials in a practice called “reverse mark-ups” in Indonesia. Will projects be well carried out when the international spotlight has long since moved on to the next disaster or terrorist attack? How do we guard against these reconstruction pitfalls? Singapore cannot be complacent in the use of the donated reconstruction funds.

Hence, a new structure to oversee the funds' use and monitor the progress of various reconstruction projects was set up. The monies contributed by the public were consolidated in the Singapore Red Cross' Asia Tidal Waves Fund. To allocate and disburse the funds, a Tsunami Reconstruction Facilitation Committee (TRFC, an unwieldy name for a group of heads of civil society organizations) was created to receive, assess and award project funds to civil society groups. The Committee, chaired by the Singapore Red Cross and represented by heads of various local NGOs/VWOs was set up in January 2005 to help coordinate the people sector's involvement in the reconstruction efforts in the Tsunami-affected countries by evaluating project proposals to tap on the money donated to the Singapore Red Cross. Apart from people sector projects, the Committee also works with other agencies in supporting key reconstruction projects, such as the building of a barge-pier, a hospital and schools in Aceh and the construction of several schools and a clinic in Sri Lanka.

The committee reports progress in the use of the public donations for the Tsunami reconstruction projects by providing information on the approved projects, by country, sector and amount approved for the project. Thirty-four projects have been approved so far by the TRFC. These include projects by Singapore Red Cross, Mercy Relief, Habitat for Humanity, YMCA, Central and Southwest CDC, and the Singapore International Foundation. The repertoire of projects reflects the broad representation of civic, corporate, religious and special interest organisations in Singapore, and their work focuses on diverse sectors, ranging from community development and housing to health, education and economic recovery. The Singapore Red Cross Society's website lists the funded projects and regularly reports progress in the projects.

To ensure that the funds are effectively and efficiently allocated, the projects have to undergo strict eligibility requirements for funding evaluated by the TRFC. The Committee had also engaged Integrated Project Systems (IPS), an international consulting firm, to develop a tracking, monitoring and reporting system for the disbursement of funds for projects. To date, close to $50 million or over 50% of the donated money has been allocated to reconstruction efforts in Aceh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives by the ratio of 65%, 30% and 5%, respectively. This leaves only about $36 million for new reconstruction projects as we enter the height of the reconstruction phase. For those who asked why is there still so much money undisbursed, there is actually precious little left for the remaining reconstruction work just nine months into the job. Reconstruction is a very complex and long-drawn process that takes years. The BRR (established only in April 2005) has a mandate to work in Aceh and Nias for four years based on the assessed scale of infrastructure reconstruction and livelihood rehabilitation.

Hence, the rate of disbursement of the donations by the Singapore people must be judged not by public expectations, but by the assessed needs and desired outcomes in the affected communities. Gradual and deliberate use of funds would be a sign of effective and accountable stewardship of public donations. However, this is not to be an excuse for allowing red tape and inertia to slow down the stream of aid. Just recently, the agencies responsible for rebuilding in Aceh were criticized for the slow pace of their efforts, as 65,000 people were still living in tents nine months from the disaster (“Wake-up Call for Aceh Donors”, Straits Times , 5 October, p. 13). In today's world, there are not many disaster mitigation and developmental challenges that require unplanned international interventions. Good management of donations must balance the race against time to shelter the homeless and feed the hungry with prudent allocation of money and careful planning and implementation of projects.

Learning for the Future

So what lessons has the recent Asian Tsunami offered to individual volunteers and donors as well as humanitarian agencies? The first is that there is a time for swift action and rapid response; this is best left to the military and the most essential humanitarian services during the emergency rescue and relief phases. The actions of the survivors and affected communities themselves can also make a great difference. International volunteers offering non-essential services, albeit well-intentioned, may be more of a burden than a blessing at this early stage. Aid agencies can help by doing a detailed needs assessment to guide Samaritans at home on what to give and how to help. Typically, giving in cash is most appropriate as it can be easily stored and converted into needed items.

And when volunteers are mobilized in the rehabilitation and reconstruction phases, they should be well prepared and their activities well coordinated with the overall development plan advanced in partnership with and owned by the local communities and authorities. Given the need for sustained funding and external support to restore economic activities and rebuild infrastructure, the pace of disbursement of funds should be dictated by the development needs and absorptive capacity of the affected communities. A UN official from the Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recently reflected: “Relief agencies are notorious for not learning from the experience of previous disasters. They tend to respond to each disaster as if it was the first time.” Let us hope we do not lose the lessons from this last year.

With all our advanced technology, humankind still cannot prevent some natural disasters, or even accurately predict them. But we can learn to be better prepared and to respond better when they hit. When we fail to learn from past disasters and take their lessons to heart, then lives may be lost and suffering prolonged needlessly. This would be an even greater catastrophe.

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Dr Tan Tay Keong is the executive director of the Singapore International Foundation, a Singapore-registered not-for-profit organisation involved in Tsunami reconstruction in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. He serves as a member of the Tsunami Reconstruction Facilitation Committee responsible for coordinating the Singapore people sector's involvement in the reconstruction efforts.