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“Future begins at the local level”
Berlin takes positive stock of tsunami aid
07/2005 |
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[ Tsunami partnerships ]
Special Representative reports favourably
The German Chancellor’s Special Representative for the Tsunami Partnership Initiative, Christina Rau, has delivered a positive progress report to the cabinet. According to the wife of former Federal President Johannes Rau, the initiative set up for the communities destroyed by the Asian tsunami has so far registered more than 1,300 offers of help. Along with 392 schools and 346 local authorities, 195 German companies have come up with offers to help rebuild affected communities. In his New Year’s address to the nation, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had made an appeal to engage in such partnerships.
This appeal, Ms. Rau stressed, has led to an impressive response from the people of Germany. The Partnership Initiative, an agency set up within InWEnt, has been entrusted with brokering contacts with South and Southeast Asia. It applies the principle that “quality takes precedence over speed” to ensure that German assistance is geared to the real needs of the countries affected and makes sense in development terms. As the former First Lady explained, needs assessments, careful project planning and processing by often overstretched local administrations in the disaster areas all take time. Therefore, placements have not yet been found for all German offers of help. However, close to 200 projects have already been initiated, in many cases with German partners teaming up in order to better focus their aid.
The projects are as varied as they are numerous. In Worms, a city in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, for example, local aid organisations joined forces in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami to launch a fund-raising campaign called “Worms hilft” (Worms helps). More than 300 companies, associations and businesses have joined the campaign and the sum of 85,000 euros has been raised in donations from the public. Less than three months after the tsunami struck, the alliance completed reconstruction of the outpatient department of Dickwella hospital in Sri Lanka. At present, this paediatric clinic is being remodelled to help it cater better to demand. A new water supply system has also been installed for all the hospital’s toilet facilities. For a new College, the campaign has acquired a site and work is about to begin. After the reconstruction of the three local schools, links between Worms and Dickwella will continue to be nurtured by school and kindergarten partnerships.
Concerted action is also being taken to help rebuild Permata Hati hospital near Banda Aceh in Indonesia. Support here is provided by individual donors as well as the municipal authorities of Cottbus, Guben, Enningerloh and Hohenstein, the district administration of the High Sauerland county and the German non-governmental group FIG Indonesia. The hospital has 50 beds. 30,000 euros have been pledged in donations and some of the money has already been transferred. New medical equipment has been purchased. At the end of May, the hospital was set to resume operations. The German medical aid organisation Action Medeor aims to ensure through drug donations that 20 percent of all treatments can be offered free of charge for the needy.
It will take years to rebuild all the villages, towns and infrastructures that have been destroyed. The regions affected will need long-term partnerships for sustained support. The Partnership Initiative supplements the German government’s efforts to promote reconstruction and development in the areas hit by the tsunami. In launching it, the German government drew public attention to an important area of One-World activity: development cooperation at the level of local government. The Partnership Initiative observes the principle of subsidiarity; counselling and brokerage are provided where no contact exists.
Support for the South and Southeast Asian tsunami victims is the greatest aid campaign ever seen in Germany. The Federal Government has earmarked 500 million euros of state development aid for the next three to five years. By the end of January alone, Germans had donated more than half a billion euros.
Ms. Rau is delighted at the compassion shown by the German public and its determination to help: “I am very grateful to all those who are trying to help alleviate the effects of the disaster. Every new partnership builds a lasting bridge between people here and those living in the areas devastated by the tsunami. That brings us closer together, now and for the future.” The crucial thing is that help should reach those who need it. “It will be a long haul. The reconstruction work will take years.”
Renate Wolbring
works for the InWEnt service bureau “Municipalities in One World”, which handles the Partnership Initiative.
renate.wolbring@inwent.org
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