Excuse me, Mr Clinton….

Last week, Mr Clinton was on a tour of Indonesia, Thailand and India. He was there in his capacity as UN special envoy for tsunami aid.

He made some comments which are potentially very damaging. Mr Clinton said that only about a third of those affected by the disaster were back in permanent housing. The insinuation being that the relief effort had somehow run aground. He said more action was needed.
More action needed. That is easy to say when you parachute into a situation and then jet off again.

This week, I sat in a session with Christian Aid’s staff from India and Sri Lanka. They were in London to report back on the lessons learnt from the relief effort and remind people exactly what has been achieved. They had read the Sunday Times stories about tsunami victims being left high and dry. They wanted to put the other side of the story.

Their record of achievement is extraordinary. Christian Aid’s partners have build 45,000 homes since the tsunami. The policy has been ‘build back better’ so the concrete structures are much bigger, stronger and safer than those washed away on Boxing Day 2004.

Last year alone in Sri Lanka, the numbers of homes built was 20 times that of a normal year. Put another way, that is 20 years’ worth of construction completed in one year. When you consider the skills base available for that sort of work in Sri Lanka, that is remarkable.
It is true as Clinton suggests that not everyone is in permanent housing. To achieve that in 2 years was always going to be very ambitious. However, according the Christian Aid’s staff on the ground, very few people are still in emergency shelter. Nearly all have been moved to temporary housing (which is still a better standard than the homes that were washed away) while the building of the permanent homes are completed. Thousands of families have been provided with bikes, fishing nets, micro-loans, sewing machines and IT training to secure their livelihoods in future.

It is so important that people here this message. The money wasn’t squandered by bureaucracy and corruption; it did reach tens of thousands of victims. Your generosity did make a difference.

Not everything went smoothly of course. When 200,000 people are killed virtually over night and millions left homeless, no relief effort will be perfect. The scandalous discrimination against groups like the Dalits (who were excluded from getting emergency aid because they are considered untouchable in Indian culture) went unnoticed by NGOs at first. Christian Aid is still the only International NGO focusing its efforts on providing sustainable livelihoods for the Dalit community.

I like Mr Clinton. He is someone trying to make his influence count. However, his comments played into the hands of the cynics. He should have applauded what has been done and then encouraged all concerned to finish what has been started.