The Tsunami Relief Effort

In January 2001, a devastating earthquake in the state of Gujarat, western India, killed more than 20,000 people, injured 200,000 and flattened hundreds of villages. The British government allocated £10m, and the leading UK charities raised more than £24m for the emergency.

One year later, the disasters emergency commitee (DEC) - the grouping of 11 major UK charities that has now raised more than £100m for the tsunami appeal - asked four experienced humanitarian aid experts to do an independent analysis of how well the money was spent. They talked to more than 2,300 people, and what they found should make everyone working in the present tsunami disaster relief think hard.

In the first relief phase, says the report, too many goods were imported rather than using locally-sourced goods, there were unnecessary flights, and expat staff were employed where local organisations would have been more effective and efficient. Many of the expats had only limited knowledge of the area and went out only for a short time, which also led to mistakes.

The authors also found duplication of resources, with some some agencies bringing far too much and distributing goods well after they were required. Equally worrying, there was concern that aid was distributed not so much on the lines of need but according to caste and, to a lesser extent, religion.

The British charities, say the authors, were "insufficiently aware" that the local non-governmental groups (NGOs) with which they worked were linked to specific caste groups. Moreover, women felt that their views had been ignored.

Perhaps the two most serious charges against the overall relief effort was that the money raised benefited the rich rather than the poor, and that areas with less spectacular damage received disproportionately less relief. It may be almost a fact of life in the heat of disasters that those with influence and money get more aid because they use the system better, but, says the report, British charities could have ensured that compensation for the destroyed homes was more equitably distributed.

"The overall effect of the disaster is likely to be that the rich become richer and the poor poorer," the authors say.

According to some reports, many of the same problems are repeating themselves. "Importing bottled water and food from Britain does not make any sense, except at the very start of the emergency," says one former emergency aid officer, who has asked not to be named. "It's crazy. There is also plenty of food available from nearby cities."

A spokesman for the DEC said this week that after every disaster there is a meeting of people involved in the humanitarian response. "The lessons should have been learned," he said. "The vast majority of procurement is being done locally."

Siddo Devu, an Oxfam policy adviser, says the Gujurat emergency contributed to a fundamental change in the way some charities work.

"The lesson we learned was that we didn't listen to our regional staff," he says. "HQ took command, and Oxfam India got very cross. That has all changed. The balance of power has now shifted to our regional offices. Oxfam, Christian Aid and Action Aid now all work very differently to how they did."