Oxfam closes tsunami response

Mohanasram Shanthini, 23, secretary of an Oxfam gender group, outside her transitional shelter, built by Oxfam in Ralodai camp, north of Batticaloa. She says her committee tries to settle disputes in families and to ensure that women are treated equally: "We have an awareness program to stop men drinking, and a program to find work for women-headed households. Whenever new cash-for-work projects come, we see how they can be implemented so men and women can participate equally. There is a problem of violence against women but because of our efforts, it's being reduced. Oxfam has brought great changes in our lives." (Photo: Howard Davies/Oxfam)

Oxfam International is preparing to formally close its response to Indian Ocean tsunami at the end of this month, four years after the disaster. Oxfam and its local partner organizations assisted 2.5 million people in seven tsunami-affected countries in the largest emergency program in its history. It has now moved into longer-term programs in these areas.

Staff from Oxfam and partner Kinniya Vision construct an 11,000 cubic meter water tank in 'CTB camp', Trincomalee District in the weeks after the tsunami. Oxfam was one of the first agencies on the ground, delivering some 700,000 litres of clean water a day to more than 60,000 people. (Photo: Tori Ray/Oxfam)

Barbara Stocking, the chair of the Oxfam International Tsunami Fund Board, said: “What has been achieved is astounding. Hundreds of thousands of people are now living in better conditions than they were in before the tsunami thanks to the generous support we received from the public, the dedication and hard work of our staff and local partners and the efforts of the affected communities themselves to rebuild their lives”.

Oxfam received $294 million in donations to help affected people – more than 90 per cent of it from the public. “The money we received allowed us not only to help meet the immediate emergency needs of tsunami-affected populations, but also to try to address the factors that made them vulnerable: not least poverty and a lack of influence over their own lives,” Stocking said. “The less visible interventions are just as important. We have helped to give people better access to markets for their goods. We have helped them gain the knowledge they need to protect themselves against future disasters and the confidence to demand a say in decisions that affect them.”

“There are still far too many people in tsunami-affected countries living precarious lives. Poverty limits their opportunities and reduces their ability to cope with future disasters and ongoing conflict. Oxfam will continue to work with them in longer-term development projects,” Stocking said.

Oxfam hopes that the world's generous and speedy response to the devastation wrought by the tsunami will be regarded as landmark. There are processes in place to keep improving the coordination between international agencies. Thanks to the money it has been able to invest in research and evaluations, Oxfam itself has extracted many lessons from the tsunami response which have already been applied in subsequent disasters.