Clinton: Tsunami Aid to be Model for Future Crises
Date: 26-Apr-05
Country: USA
Author: Evelyn Leopold
Clinton, the UN envoy for tsunami relief, told a conference of senior American industry executives that the recovery stage from the Dec. 26 tsunami was just beginning in diversifying seafront economies and building schools and houses.
More than 228,000 people were killed or went missing when the underwater earthquake sent huge waves into a dozen Indian Ocean nations. Some $6 billion to $8 billion has been pledged or spent.
"If you do something that works well, then other people will copy it," Clinton said. "If you don't focus on doing one project well (then) we won't have a model we can then use to do the same thing in other areas."
Clinton said he was chosen by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the job because "he thought I could guilt-peddle my former colleagues better than anyone else he could think of."
"Countries have a notorious reputation for committing massive amounts of money when people are dying on television," he said. "Then when the TV cameras turn off, they don't give the money."
Hank McKinnell, CEO of pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. who helped organize the meeting, said it was important that the partnerships forged during the tsunami prepared business for the next calamity and that people in the United Nations and in industry knew who to contact.
"I can only say that we in the private sector want to do the right thing and in times of crisis we want to do it quickly," said McKinnell, who is chairman of the Business Roundtable of 160 leading corporations.
Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator, however, tried to harness business participation in the tsunami to other crises in the world.
"For example, each and every day, 1000 people die in the (Democratic Republic of) Congo from largely preventable causes -- a tsunami death toll every few months for years on end," Egeland said.
But McKinnell said the tsunami relief effort included concrete plans that made it easier for people to participate and know where the money was being spent.
"In the Congo, as a business person, it not clear what the problem is, much less the solution," he said. "Absent a roadmap to success, I don't think you're going to get the private sector engaged the way you did with the tsunami."
