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Tsunami Tsunami Tsunami FileReconstruction aid after the tsunami Who organises the aid provided by the Netherlands? Where can I find more information? On 26 December 2004, a massive seaquake occurred off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. This triggered a tidal wave that caused great damage, not only in Sumatra, but in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Maldives, parts of Bangladesh and southern India. The province of Aceh on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, was the hardest hit. As soon as the scale of the disaster became clear, embassy staff in the affected regions made an all-out effort to get the first emergency aid flowing. A crisis team was set up at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One of its key tasks was to assist Dutch people in the affected regions, providing medical care, transport to the Netherlands and counselling for relatives of missing persons. International emergency aid also began to flow immediately. The Netherlands, which still held the presidency of the European Union at that time, played an important role in coordinating the first flow of aid. Now that the first phase of emergency aid is complete, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working at international level on the reconstruction phase. This page contains the most up-to-date information on this topic. How many Dutch casualties have there been? Thirty-six Dutch citizens have died as a result of the seaquake in Asia. Who organises the aid provided by the Netherlands? The Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation immediately devoted much attention to the disaster. By 6 January 2005, Minister for Development Cooperation Agnes van Ardenne had already committed considerable amounts for emergency and reconstruction aid at an international donor meeting. In January, Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Bot began preparing a visit to the region. Between 2 and 9 February 2005 he visited Indonesia and also went to Sri Lanka and Thailand. Early October, Minister Van Ardenne visited Aceh again, to monitor progress in reconstruction. The Netherlands Embassy in Jakarta has been actively involved from the very beginning. The Embassy identified activities to be supported, both with regard to humanitarian assistance as to reconstruction initiatives. The Embassy helped set up the Multi-Donor Fund for Aceh and Nias (MDF) that pools funding of 15 donors in order to lower transaction costs and be more effective and efficient by joining forces among donors. The embassy closely monitors the progress of all these activities and takes part in related policy discussions with the government of Indonesia. How much has the Netherlands contributed to emergency aid? The Netherlands has contributed generously to the humanitarian effort in Aceh, by granting € 17,6 million for emergency aid, of which € 13 million to UN-agencies and € 4,6 million to NGO’s. Furthermore, the Netherlands provided assistance through air transport of medical staff and equipment, as well as through the supply of flight traffic control equipment for the airports of Medan, Meulaboh and Banda Aceh. The Netherlands also facilitated the transport and hand-over of 850 meters of NATO-bridges in Aceh and North Sumatra and provided training to representatives of the Ministry for Public Works. What are the basic principles for reconstruction aid? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has established a number of criteria for deploying aid as effectively as possible.
The standard development cooperation criteria also apply to reconstruction aid: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, feasibility, sustainability and gender sensitivity. Available channels and instruments will be employed as much as possible. How is reconstruction aid deployed? The Netherlands has a general preference to channel its reconstruction funding through multi-donor trust funds, the objective of which is to pool the resources from all donors. The recipient government has a prominent role in deciding how the money is spent, and the funds are managed by international institutions such as the World Bank. The Netherlands prefers multi-donor trust funds because they enable donors to join forces and minimise the administrative burden on the recipient government. Money is spent more efficiently if it is managed centrally. Centralisation also facilitates better coordination, so programmes and projects are carried out more effectively, and allows donor countries to monitor one another more closely. Multi-donor trust funds reduce the visibility of the participating countries in the recipient countries, but the Netherlands feels coordination and efficiency are more important than publicity for the projects it implements. In Indonesia, a multi-donor trust fund has indeed been set up, the Multi Donor Fund for Aceh and Nias (MDF). The Netherlands played an active role in its establishment. The Dutch commitment of $100 million constitutes a significant portion of the total amount pledged by donor countries. In fact, the Netherlands is the second largest donor in the Fund. During her visit in October 2006, the Minister for Development Cooperation, Agnes van Ardenne, announced an additional contribution of € 58 million to the MDF. Is aid also provided in an EU context? The EU plays an important role in providing aid. It has earmarked €473 million for post-tsunami aid, of which €350 million is intended for reconstruction in the medium and long term. Of this amount, € 207 million has been reserved for Aceh. What reconstruction initiatives has the Dutch government already taken? In support of the reconstruction process, the Netherlands has committed US$ 100 million to the Multi-donor Fund and has announced an additional contribution of € 58 million for the following years. The Netherlands in fact is the second largest donor in the Fund. The Netherlands is an active member of the Steering Committee of the Multi-Donor Fund and a significant number of large reconstruction programs are under implementation. These programmes are amongst others in the areas of community recovery, housing, land administration, infrastructure, waste management, drainage, environmental protection, support to civil society and technical assistance. (For more information on the Multi-Donor Fund go to In addition to the MDF, the Netherlands granted about € 8 million to the rehabilitation of the port of Malahayati in Banda Aceh. A consortium of Dutch companies carried out the design and reconstruction. The reconstruction of the port was completed 1,5 months ahead of schedule and Minister Van Ardenne officially inaugurated the port in October 2006. The Malahayati port is vital for the large-scale supply and transit of materials necessary for the recovery of Aceh and also for the future economic development of the province. In the drinking water and sanitation sector, the Netherlands has provided US$ 5 million to the Community Water Services and Health Programme through the Asian Development Bank and has contributed € 5 million to a drinking water and sanitation programme (SAB-SAS) of Dutch “water” organisations for reconstruction and rehabilitation of drainage, sanitation and drinking water. Furthermore, the Netherlands is funding (€ 8 million) the Sea Defence Project which develops a strategy and selected activities for protection against tsunamis and river floods and an early warning and refuge system. How can the Dutch business community contribute to reconstruction? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is often approached by businesses that want to offer assistance. Development cooperation has many facilities for working with the business community: the Development-Related Export Transactions programme (ORET), Programme for Cooperation with Emerging Markets (PSOM), Economic Cooperation Projects Programme (PESP) and Netherlands Management Cooperation Programme (PUM). These will therefore also be deployed for reconstruction. The implementing services (the Agency for International Business and Cooperation (EVD), the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) and the Netherlands Management Cooperation Programme (PUM)) ( These facilities have a major benefit in that they allow the local authorities to set priorities and call for tenders. This is done in one place rather than in several places by individual donor institutions. The employers’ organisation VNO-NCW has agreed to act as a channel for initiatives from the business community. Is debt relief included in reconstruction? The Paris Club decided in March to grant Indonesia a debt moratorium for one year allowing the country to make payments for 2005 at a later stage. The Paris Club is a consultative body for creditor nations. It was founded in 1956 to regulate the external debt of countries with balance-of-payments difficulties. Indonesia’s debt service for 2005 is €68.5 million. Indonesia is permitted to pay these amounts later. The Netherlands stipulated that the resources freed as a result are to be spent on reconstruction in a transparent manner and should benefit the victims in the affected areas directly. It also believes that donor countries should not regard debt relief as an alternative to making funds available for reconstruction aid. In other words, the debt moratorium should be additional to this. How does the Netherlands account for how the funds are spent? It has been decided that the secretariat of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD/DAC) will register the OECD member states’ pledged and paid tsunami aid contributions. The United Nations is currently setting up a system in cooperation with Price Waterhouse Coopers to chart the financial resources released in humanitarian aid. The aim is to be able to determine whether the countries meet their commitments and whether the moneys reach the proper destination. On 1 March 2005, former president of the United States Bill Clinton was appointed UN special envoy for post-tsunami reconstruction. His task is to ensure that the financial commitments are met. The Dutch government regularly gives account to the House of Representatives through letters to Parliament. Why does the reconstruction process take so much time? From time to time the slow progress of the reconstruction process draws public criticism. Two years after the disaster, there is still a lot that remains to be built: houses, infrastructure, schools and hospitals. This is because reconstruction is a complex process and has an entirely different dynamic than the emergency assistance that was provided with such efficiency in the first few months. Different rules apply to reconstruction. The first order of business is to draw up a clear inventory of the damage. Priorities are set on the basis of that analysis: what has to be restored and what doesn’t? Next a financial plan is drawn up stating all the costs involved in the reconstruction plan and how much money is available. Then choices have to be made: what should be done first and what can wait? This needs to be done in close consultation with the local population. Several foreign donors have expressed a wish to execute or fund a specific project, based on their comparative advantage in a particular sector. To limit this form of reconstruction aid, the Netherlands has decided to participate with other donors in a multi-donor trust fund, which will give local authorities more input in how priorities are set. So it takes time to plan the work and apportion the funds. There are also logistic, legal and practical limitations. For example, there are proposals calling for restrictions on construction immediately on the coast due to the potential risk of another tsunami. This means that houses destroyed along the coast have to be built further inland rather than on the same site. Also, very often it is not clear anymore who actually had title to a piece of land. Before you can start building new houses, you have to make sure that the land titles are in order. This involves starting up a time-consuming process of land distribution and reassigning land rights. There are additional procedural aspects that cause delays in large-scale infrastructural projects. Large projects must be contracted out on the basis of a public tendering procedure so that companies from different countries have the opportunity to bid for them and the best value for money can be obtained. All the proposals that are submitted need to be evaluated. In a public call for tenders it can take up to six months before construction begins. It is important to realise that the reconstruction process takes time. The authorities have decided to allow five years for reconstruction. Some parts of the process will be completed more quickly, but the full period will be needed for complex projects. This has nothing to do with the fact that the projects are being carried out in developing countries. In Europe and in the Netherlands it can take years to complete complex projects. The high-speed train connection, the Betuwe Line and the reconstruction following the firework disaster that devastated parts of Enschede are prime examples of such longer term projects.
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www.multidonorfund.org
