A new report out earlier in the week says that governments must learn lessons from last year’s Asian tsunami and carry out aid work differently.
The report by the Christian relief and development agency, Tearfund, said governments must change the way they do aid work and commit billions of pounds to disaster prevention in the wake of what it called thousands of needless deaths in the tsunami.“We are wrongly wedded to aid spending which ‘bandages wounds’ rather than ‘prevents injuries’,” said Tearfund’s Sarah La Trobe, author of the report. “This must now stop. We must re-think and learn the lessons of the tsunami and other recent disasters.”
According to Tearfund, at least 10 per cent of government humanitarian budgets must be redirected to reducing the risks of disaster faced by millions of people in the developing world.
The report, Learn the Lessons, claims that thousands of lives could have been saved in the tsunami as well as other recent disasters if simple, cost effective measures like evacuation training and storage of food and medical supplies had been put in place to protect vulnerable communities.
“Rich countries spend billions of pounds protecting their people from floods, earthquakes and droughts. But we spend very little of our international aid budgets helping poor communities to do the same,” said La Trobe.We are wrongly wedded to aid spending which ‘bandages wounds’ rather than ‘prevents injuries’. This must now stop. We must re-think and learn the lessons of the tsunami and other recent disasters.
Tearfund's Sarah La Trobe
She added: “We have heard much about the need for a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean. But there are dozens of other steps that we are not taking that would similarly protect millions of people throughout the developing world.”
