SPOTLIGHT: TSUNAMI ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY
In this section:
Relief and Reconstruction Continues One Year
After Tsunami
Tsunami Survivors on India’s Southeast Coast
Return to Work
Coconut Fiber Machines Help Boost Sri Lanka Coir
Industry
Sri Lanka Tourism Returns After Tsunami with
industry Reform
Thai Coastal Villages Rebuild Boats, Homes,
Fish Farms
Indonesians Plant and Harvest on Tsunami-Washed
Soil
Tsunami: One Year Later
Relief and Reconstruction Continues One Year After Tsunami
In December 2004, a major earthquake followed by a tsunami
hit Asia and Africa, devastating many coastal areas. At least
280,000 people in eight countries perished in a few hours,
and over 100,000 are still missing. Many more had their homes
and livelihoods swept away.
The coastal areas of Indonesia and Sri Lanka and two Indian
island chains bore the brunt of the calamity and require significant
repair and reconstruction.
U.S. goverment assistance for tsunami recovery and reconstruction
totals $841 million. Some $656 million was allocated for USAID’s
Tsunami Recovery and Reconstruction Fund. That has helped
pay for immediate life-saving food, water, medical care, and
shelter.
As the situation stabilized and survivors were provided
with shelter and other needs, rebuilding communities began.
Cash-for-work programs give families incomes. Loans, business
advice, and training in job skills help develop new businesses
and sources of income. Longer-term projects to reconstruct
water systems, roads, and other critical systems are under
way.
In their tsunami report card published in the December issue
of Foreign Policy, three experts give the relief effort a
grade of A, citing both a quick response and sustained commitment.
“The disaster spurred into action governments, international
organizations, and hundreds of nongovernmental organizations,”
wrote the three—Karl F. Inderfurth, a former assistant
secretary of state for South Asian affairs; David Fabrycky,
a professor at George Washington University’s Elliot
School of International Affairs; and Stephen P. Cohen, a senior
fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution.
“Relief operations proceeded quickly and effectively.
…The remarkable response prevented the widely anticipated
‘second tsunami’ of disease and malnutrition,”
they concluded.
Tsunami Survivors on India’s Southeast Coast Return
to Work
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Kavitha, left, is operating a machine that she and
Muthamma (facing camera) are using to make rope.
SPAN New Delhi
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Nagapattinam, India—In a fishing hamlet in Tamil
Nadu state, Revathi binds books and weaves baskets, earning
about $45 a month—money that is welcome to her family
hit hard by the tsunami. This extra income has helped them
to cope during periods when fishing is slow.
Loganathan, a fisherman with poor eyesight, has formed a
group that, after a month-long training program, began making
rope. Now they make 500 to 600 kilograms of rope a month and
earn $266. Rope is in such high demand among fisher folk that
they plan to expand their business to serve neighboring villages.
Revathi and Loganathan are residents of the coastal district
of Nagapattinam, which bore the brunt of the tsunami in India
last year. USAID carried out immediate cleanup and reconstruction
efforts in the area, and then began working with affected
groups. Since then, a loan program and skills training have
helped thousands of Indians rebuild their lives.
Revathi, a mother of two, got a loan and purchased a machine
to bind books. Then she began training neighbors in basket
weaving and bookbinding. She is one of 4,000 women to receive
a loan through the program.
Through September 2005, USAID provided emergency services
such as temporary shelter, water and sanitation, physical
and mental health surveillance, daycare centers, recreational
activities for youth, boat repair, and small loans for women.
Cash-for-work programs infused money into the local economy
and gave people an income, while providing clean-up and reconstruction
services.
The Agency is now working on maintaining the conditions
in new settlements. Some 100,000 people now have access to
clean water, and toilets have been built for some 40,000 local
residents.
USAID partners raised floors of shelters in the Nagapattinam
District and provided tarpaulins and other materials to prepare
the shelters for the anticipated annual monsoon, which turned
out to be much heavier than normal.
Local authorities and villagers are also working on disaster
preparedness in over 22,000 of India’s most vulnerable
coastal villages. Public awareness campaigns are under way,
and villagers willing and able to lead local preparations
and response are being identified.
Coconut Fiber Machines Help Boost Sri Lanka Coir Industry
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A local tradesman demonstrates the new decorticator,
which vastly reduces the time it takes to remove husks
from coconut shells.
Zack Taylor, USAID
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THALARAMBA, Sri Lanka—Work has been slow since
the 2004 tsunami for cabinetmaker Jayananda Nanayakara, but
without the tools he received from USAID he wouldn’t
have any business at all, he said.
“These tools let me stand on my own two feet and provide
for my family again,” Nanayakara, 43, said as he presented
a replica of the USAID shield with clasped hands he had carved
to an Agency official. “This gift shows my appreciation
for USAID, and that of my family, who harvest coconuts and
produce coir,” a fiber used to make rope.
He is among the participants in REVIVE, an 18-month project
that helps small entrepreneurs get back to work in the hard
hit south and east. It encourages Sri Lankans to rebuild through
grants to local NGOs that use the funds to help individuals,
families, and small businesses.
Grants are restoring the traditional spinning of coir and
weaving as well as funding a new coir processing center equipped
with motorized machines.
Coir is made from the fibrous husk of coconuts, which traditionally
must be soaked for seven months in saltwater until soft enough
to be separated by hand. Using new technology, workers can
extract coir fiber from fresh coconut husk in a single day.
“The REVIVE project provides commodities, grants, and
training as a package,” said REVIVE’s David Dyer.
“We have awarded 60 grants together with training, because
we’re not just giving people a gift and walking away
from them. In this case, we are making sure people understand
how to use equipment.”
The new center will play a key role in income-generating
activities in the Matara District. Initially, REVIVE delivered
coir fiber for 300 yarn spinners unemployed due to lack of
fiber. Other new equipment will help produce products for
export, such as twine, rubberized padding, and rugs. Small
community producer groups will manage the process.
The project distributed processing machinery, new coir spinning
wheels, lace drums, bicycles, and sewing machines.
The U.S.-supported Coir Council International will assess
the compatibility of the new technology with other small industries
such as yarn spinning and geo-textile weaving.
Sri Lanka Tourism Returns After Tsunami with industry Reform
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Sri Lankan tourists and elephants travel the same path.
Gemunu Amarasinghe, USAID |
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka—With more than 1,600 kilometers
of palm-shaded beaches, breathtaking vistas, and iconic ruins
of an ancient civilization, Sri Lanka has tremendous potential
as a tourist destination.
Year after year, however, the tourist industry failed to
reach its potential. Despite the presence of some of the oldest
Buddhist archaeological sites in Asia, game parks full of
exotic animals, and rainforests to delight ecotourists, Sri
Lanka couldn’t break out of its long-time identity as
a cheap beach destination.
It took the December 2004 tsunami, which destroyed much
of Sri Lanka’s beach-tourism infrastructure, to bring
the issue to a head and push through major policy reform.
The government, which had a meager budget for tourism to
begin with, has essentially handed over the job of boosting
this business to the tourism industry.
Visitor numbers have begun to climb back to pre-tsunami
levels. Between January and September 2005, there were more
than 400,000 visitors to Sri Lanka, 8 percent more than in
the same period last year.
That may be due, in part, to the Bounce Back Campaign. Once
the country was able to accommodate tourists again, USAID
provided $3 million for Bounce Back in key international markets.
As the name suggests, the campaign initiated by the private
sector was aimed at countering the image that Sri Lanka wasn’t
yet safe or healthy for tourists after the tsunami.
Bounce Back is among the latest of USAID’s efforts at
boosting tourism in Sri Lanka through The Competitiveness
Program (TCP), which started in 2001. TCP brought key industry
players together into a “tourism cluster” to show
the value of linking tourism businesses and associations.
For the first time, the industry had a forum and could address
common issues and engage the public sector with a prepared,
unified voice.
TCP provided the cluster with specialists to advise on evaluating
its strengths, weaknesses, and potential; prioritizing its
needs; and crafting a strategy to make the most of what the
country had to offer. A major part of the plan included policy
reform that improved both funding and spending on tourism
promotion. It required the government to draft legislation
to revamp and reform the policies of the Sri Lanka Tourist
Board.
“USAID helped us to formulate a new strategy of diversifying
the product into niche markets such as culture, nature, and
adventure,” said Prema Cooray, chairman of the cluster.
“Bringing this new act together is something we’ve
been fighting for over many years, but the fact that we were
able to bring the industry together gave us a forum to fight
much more strongly for what we felt was better for the industry.”
By 2002, the cluster presented draft legislation to parliament,
which agreed to raise the airport tax and collect revenues
from the industry. The industry proposed a 1 percent tax on
hotel and other tourism receipts, and a doubling of the airport
exit tax from $5 to $10. The budget for tourism promotion
ballooned from less than $500,000 a year to approximately
$10 million annually.
“If the Tourism Cluster hadn’t thought of itself
as a leading force for both the industry and the nation, this
never would have happened,” said John Varley, chief of
party for TCP. “Sri Lanka traditionally relies upon government
rather than the private sector to take the lead and the risk
in industry development—especially in tourism.
“TCP planted the idea for more self-reliance and private
sector leadership.”
Thai Coastal Villages Rebuild Boats, Homes, Fish Farms
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A villager digs trenches for pipelines to connect newly
built homes to a new water system.
Chris Dunbar, USAID |
BANGKOK, Thailand—Scores of new homes are built
for tsunami survivors in remote villages along the Thai Andaman
seacoast here.
One project involved contributions from the American Refugee
Committee, which donated a water system, while USAID is carrying
out a cash-for-work project with 34 villagers who dug trenches
for water distribution pipes leading from the main system
to individual homes throughout a resettlement community.
The villagers donated their earnings from the cash-for-work
project to buy the water pipes, and local authorities helped
install the pipe system. USAID’s $3 million program aims
to restart and diversify livelihoods in five target villages
in Ranong Province, southern Thailand. It helps communities
set up low-cost projects.
Since March, the program donated boats and equipment to
20 fishermen and employed nearly 300 villagers in cash-for-work
programs. It paid villagers to collect mangrove seeds and
plant them in tsunami-affected areas. Villagers cleaned up
the sewer line and have now to set up recycling systems to
turn trash into products.
USAID also launched a microfinance initiative and held two
trainings in late September for 250 microentrepreneurs. Some
50 loans were disbursed in October, and another 25 are being
made at the start of the new year.
It also trained freshwater aquaculture entrepreneurs on
fish seedling production using artificial breeding techniques.
A hatchery is being built for these villagers to restart catfish
raising businesses. Several demonstration projects are being
held: on “cage culture” raising qroupers, oysters
and mussels in cages.
A year after the tsunami, USAID is also supporting the construction
of a new community learning center focused on “greenbuilding.”
It will offer educational materials about the environment
so villages can make better use of resources like sea and
land. The center will also offer computer and internet services
to schools and businesses.
Indonesians Plant and Harvest on Tsunami-Washed Soil
JANTANG, Indonesia—This small coastal village
in Aceh Besar district, badly damaged in last year’s
tsunami, had its first harvest this year, earning nearly $10,000
in income.
The village is one of 56 where USAID worked on cultivating
and replanting crops. Schools have been fixed, and community
health workers have been promoting nutrition and health practices
among surviving families.
In June, Jantang villagers started sowing 90-day cash crops
in 12 hectares of tsunami-affected soil. Many did not believe
that crops could ever be grown here again—that the soil
would be too salty after the tsunami.
Cash-for-work programs also allowed communities to participate
in the recovery process while earning immediate income.
Agency programs that work with communities promote just
governance and increasing income. Projects help communities
lead the reconstruction process and help them draw up development
plans.
Indonesia is the largest recipient of U.S. tsunami assistance.
Across Aceh, cash-for-work programs provided income to some
58,000 workers and their families.
Aceh’s economy contracted by 14 percent this year.
About a quarter of the population is unemployed. USAID is
creating jobs and reviving businesses through loans and training,
especially for women. Grants are also replacing lost assets
and creating community-managed loan funds.
An alliance with Chevron provides three-month scholarships
to a vocational facility where 100 students learned masonry,
construction, electrical installation, welding, computers,
and bookkeeping.
As of November, USAID in this region had also reopened 80
kilometers of road. The Agence will ultimately fund reconstruction
of 240 kilometers of the road from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh.
Tsunami: One Year Later
Administrator Andrew S. Natsios visited Indonesia as White
House special envoy just days before the one-year anniversary
of the South Asia tsunami to mark progress in the country
and the region. In his final Notes from Natsios column, the
Administrator, who is stepping down from USAID this month,
remembers the devastation of the tsunami and reports on the
Agency’s ongoing efforts to help the region recover.
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| Betina Moreira, USAID |
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