World-wide aid pledges near €3bn
The United Nations said today that donations for victims of the Indian Ocean disaster were arriving faster than they could be recorded, pushing the amount pledged toward €3bn.
“We are recording pledges of between three and four billion dollars, which shows that indeed the world is coming together in a manner we have never ever seen before,” UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said in New York.
He described the pledges made today by Germany of €510m and by Australia of €575m as “phenomenal” and thanked all the donors.
“Be with us in the long term,” he urged.
So large were the pledges, Egeland said, that his staff had to ask donors to repeat their offers to make sure they heard correctly the number of zeros.
“Germany and Australia, if I can believe the breaking news, will alone give more than a billion dollars. This is just incredible. It comes on top of the $2.5bn we had confirmed as of yesterday. We are just not able to record all the generous offers, they are coming in so often and they are so big,” he said.
Asked to explain why the response had been so great in the case of the tsunami crisis, Egeland said there were “many reasons” but highlighted the media coverage of the disaster.
“It’s what we see at our TV screens which is the driving force,” he said.
He also said the involvement of nationals from many donor countries in the disaster may have also contributed to the high levels of giving.
“In some countries it means a lot that they have lost their own citizens.”
Donors in the region were also motivated to help their neighbours, he said.
