Media headlines have been dominated by the Burmese Government’s reluctance to let in foreign aid and aid workers despite the huge humanitarian needs in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, which hit nearly three weeks ago.
Director of Operations at World Emergency Relief, Alex Haxton, said that the vast majority of charity appeals for Burma, including the major Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, were attracting donations well below what they were expecting.
“For a tragedy like this we would have expected at least double what we are getting in at the moment,” he said.
Mr Haxton said that many people he had spoken to were wary of giving money because they feared that aid would be confiscated by the Burmese Government and that their donations would end up being put to other uses by recipient charities.
The credit crunch, he added, had led to a “noticeable squeeze” in average donations over the last few months.
“It’s not so much a disaster fatigue,” he said. “Worldwide and especially in this country, we are certainly noticing that people have got an income fatigue in the sense that they are finding it harder and harder to live for themselves, and so they’ve got less disposable income that they feel able to release,” he said.
Mr Haxton assured, however, that WER and a number of other charities like World Vision and Tearfund were successfully bringing emergency aid to cyclone survivors through established partners, made up largely of Burmese nationals, working on the ground.
WER had, he continued, also found ways of circumventing the restrictions on foreign aid.
“In the shipment of pharmaceuticals, we’re using scheduled airlines as normal freight cargo so that it is in a sense coming below the barrier, and we are not sending big quantities,” he explained.
“So we can guarantee that aid is getting through but you have to be much more sophisticated as to how you do it.”
Mr Haxton admitted that he viewed with some scepticism the news that the Burmese Government had agreed to allow in all foreign aid workers.
