PRESS CONFERENCE BY DEPUTY SPECIAL ENVOY FOR TSUNAMI RECOVERY

Press Conference By Deputy Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery

The big challenge now facing the international community in moving forward with the tsunami recovery effort was ensuring continued, effective management and coordination in the transition between humanitarian assistance and development, Eric Schwartz, the United Nations Deputy Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, said at a Headquarters press conference today. 

Humanitarian response, recovery and reconstruction did not occur in strict sequence, he noted, and the United Nations system and others in the international community needed to sustain the focus on life-saving issues, even as they moved towards development throughout the affected areas.

He said that a complex recovery process required empowered leadership, in addition to developing effective links with the villages, and providing adequate personnel and expertise to manage an overwhelming recovery process hindered by the thousands of civil servants killed in the tragedy.

Focusing on recovery strategy, he said that a host of exceptionally complicated issues must be integrated.  “You can’t build houses without providing for sanitation... for sewage and other services”, he added.  Getting recovery right meant a great deal of discipline and perseverance.

Noting that the recovery process should be ensured against inequities, he said that the donors in Indonesia needed to define tsunami-affected communities broadly so that displaced victims from the conflict areas would not be deprived the benefits given to those directly affected by the tsunami.  In Sri Lanka, the Government needed to ensure that benefits were distributed evenly to tsunami victims in the north and the east -- the areas of conflict in the country -- as in the south of the country.

Responding to a question about the recent meeting -- convened in Washington last week by former United States President and United Nations Special Envoy for Tsunami Relief Bill Clinton -- of the Global Consortium for Tsunami Recovery, he said that the group endorsed a stepped-up effort to get durable temporary shelter, largely for those in Aceh, Indonesia, to get as many people out of tents as possible.  The session, held with international financial institutions, United Nations agencies, affected donor countries and bilateral donors, reflected the Special Envoy’s intention to sustain the focus of the international community, after the media had left the region to focus on other disasters.

Addressing a question about the possibility that Governments were intentionally divvying up assistance unevenly within their own countries, he said that the Global Consortium meeting made Governments very much aware that equity was a very important issue for donors and the international community.

Asked how the recovery effort would deal with the training and replacement of those civil servants killed in the tsunami, he said that the resources were available, and there were programmes to train people.  But that was a national Government challenge.  The United Nations recovery team would be there to help with ongoing development programmes, but more assistance would be needed and that would be an important objective for his office in the months to come.

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For information media • not an official record