Tsunami Relief Coordination

"With a large number of relief organizations now becoming active in the Indian Ocean regions, it is becoming more and more apparent that without some collaboration among organizations their efforts may not be very effective," writes Amiya K. Chakravarty of Tulane University in an essay published on the Digital Divide Network. "There are already indications that right supplies in right quantities are not reaching the right areas – while some regions starve, others “struggle” to manage the excessive, and even irrelevant, quantities of supplies they receive. The organizations, moved by tales of harrowing human suffering, are beginning to move huge quantities of supplies to wherever they are able. However well intentioned, this has started to become the problem."

"There are two major causes: Independent decisions by organizations with different capabilities, and the sketchiness of information used for assessing relief-needs of regions," he continues. "First, different resource endowments cause organizations to make different decisions. Resources possessed by these organizations can vary widely. Some possess large transportation fleet (air, land and water), some have developed efficient distribution systems (warehouses, and schedules), some specialize in products (food, medicine, clothing, blankets, personal-hygiene, etc.), and some have well-trained and motivated personnel. Second, organizations are finding it hard to obtain reliable information from affected regions because of the damage to the infrastructure – roads, rail lines, and telephone lines. This is complicated because of two other factors: the regions did not start with equal resource endowments (pre tsunami), and the tsunami did not cause equal devastation everywhere. For example, there are reports that in some parts of Sri Lanka there are adequate amount of rice, though they need things like matchsticks."