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February 2005                                                                            Volume 8 - Number 1

Tsunami Disaster Updates...

The US Response to the Tsunami: a Coordinated Effort?

By David Talbot

There’s a lot of information available describing military and private aid to South Asia. Information on how the massive effort has been coordinated is harder to find. The concerns of this report are: who makes the overall strategic decisions and provides oversight, how do the players make decisions and coordinate tasks, and how effective has this been? Conversations with Mr. Joseph Mettimano, from World Vision HQ, and with Mr. Mark Schnabel, the US Army Corps of Engineers liaison with US Pacific Command (PACOM) have significantly aided in answering these questions.

Soon after the tsunami hit, the Secretary of Defense authorized PACOM to head the military response. Especially during the initial response, the military worked directly in coordination with the US Embassies in each of the affected countries. The embassies maintained contact with the countries’ disaster coordination centers, which determined the necessary aid.

The coordination among NGOs in the early stages of the response was ad-hoc and chaotic. NGOs faced major logistical problems accessing remote locations, and supplies weren’t getting where they needed to be. At this stage, the response relied heavily on the military for logistical support.

The coordination of international aid comes from multiple sources, including Interagency Task Forces, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). However, it primarily comes from the host country governments. They have the ultimate authority to determine the aid they receive and no organizations can operate in the countries without their consent.

Interagency Task Forces are often formed at the local level as the primary relief agencies gather together on the ground to coordinate their efforts. All of the NGOs involved try to leverage each other’s resources to respond in the best way possible.

OFDA is USAID’s disaster relief arm. OFDA is the lead federal agency for foreign disasters, in the same way that FEMA is the lead federal agency for national disasters. It plays a prominent role in region-wide coordination of the US response, including the NGO work and the military effort. OFDA has its own funding to begin the initial stages of an international disaster response, and because it provides financial support to many of the US relief organizations, it has authority to make strategic decisions. It’s not certain whether Congress will continue to fund OFDA’s work in South Asia once funding runs out, because once the work shifts from response to recovery, other branches of USAID will lead the effort.

OCHA is the United Nations’ lead office for the response. Some countries donate directly to OCHA, so it has its own funding and helps with overall coordination. It may seem that OCHA fills the same role in the response that OFDA does, but their roles are actually separate and their efforts are not duplicated. OCHA doesn’t usually directly fund US NGOs, but coordinates UN relief. OCHA assists in identifying specific needs and can pass RFAs (Requests For Assistance) to OFDA, which in turn passes them to the military or other groups.

There has been some criticism of the coordination of the disaster. For example, a Washington Post article from January 23, 2005, entitled “Tsunami Effort Still Disorganized, Report Says”, points to lack of response coordination in the Aceh province of Indonesia, nearly a full month after the event. The report points to deficiencies of the NGOs to consider current needs or to coordinate their efforts with organizations providing similar services.

The fact that the media has played such a strong role in influencing the regions that have received aid also points to weaknesses in the overall coordination. The situation is reminiscent of the response to hurricane Andrew, when insufficient coordination from FEMA allowed the media to dictate the response. In South Asia the media has shifted its attention from Thailand, to Banda Aceh, and then to Mebulah, and while these areas were clearly devastated, the reports haven’t accurately shown the complete regional situation. Aid has flooded to areas like Aceh to the point where the aid became ineffective and cumbersome, and other regions have been neglected. This points to weak over-arching coordination.

This criticism aside, there are increasing reports of supplies are getting where they are needed, local produce being sold in the markets, and schools being reopened. Considering the magnitude of the devastation and the international complexities of the response, this is quite remarkable, and points to the effectiveness of the international response.

Several Internet sites provide useful information on the overall US response:

http://www.pacom.mil/ has up-to-date information on the US Military response.

http://www.apan-info.net/ has information on joint operations in the area.

http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/countries/indian_ocean/et_index.html details the region-wide response from multiple organizations.