Britain Criticises Un Aid Effort

The UN's response to the long-term reconstruction of Indonesian provinces devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami has been inadequately coordinated and needs to be improved, Britain's minister for international development, Gareth Thomas, said yesterday.

Mr Thomas said during a visit to Indonesia to assess Britain's contribution to the recovery efforts, it was "fair criticism" to say the world body has performed less than optimally.

"The [immediate] relief effort was well run," he said. "But the UN needs to step up its response now. There has to be some delay while you plan what each agency has to do but the systems [for this planning] could have been stronger."

Inadequate funding disbursement, insufficient competent staff and poor communication have been the primary problems, Mr Thomas said.

Indonesia was by far the worst affected nation. More than 168,000 people were killed or are missing, and more than 500,000 were left homeless.

Michelle Lipner, head of the UN's humanitarian coordination agency in Aceh, rejected the criticism and said the UN programmes were "on track".

"We were on hold pending the launching of the [government's reconstruction] master plan," she said. "That's now happened and we are enthusiastic about moving forward."

Ms Lipner said the UN accepted there were lessons to be learned, and to address this a conference on the tsunami emergency relief operation is taking place this week in Indonesia. Britain is lobbying for the quality of UN staff to be improved and for a $1bn (£550m) emergency fund to be put at the disposal of UN humanitarian aid coordinators.