Typhoon Haiyan Statistics as of Monday Morning

The challenges that confront governments and agencies as they try to get aid to the desperate people and the devastated communities are immense. No one wants people to suffer and to feel completely alone and helpless in that suffering, but when transport routes have been destroyed and vehicles and fuel are in short supply - it is not easy to get adequate supplies to people.

Latest statistics:

• 13 million people affected (OCHA)
• 5 million children affected (OCHA,15 Nov)
• Official death toll – 3,976 (NDRRMC)
• 1,597 people missing (NDRRMC)
• 10,000 feared dead in one area– Tacloban (Leyte province)
• 18,175 injured (NDRRMC)
• 3 million people displaced (OCHA)
• 4,460 evacuation centres hosting 433,300 people (OCHA)
• 2.5 million people in need of food assistance (UN)
• 285,993 houses destroyed (OCHA)
• 4.4 million students affected: 11,919 primary and secondary schools impacted, 9,648 day care centres and over 300,000 pre-schoolers have been affected
• Livelihoods of 2 million people have been destroyed
• Severe damage to infrastructure, agriculture as well as telecommunications.
• Economic losses US $6,819,629; this is expected to increase as further reports come in (NDRRMC)
• US $301 million required to fund typhoon response plan (OCHA)
• 26% of UN appeal funded (US $79 million received, $222 million gap)

World Vision Distribution Sunday, 17 Nov (second distribution)

Daan Bantayan, northern tip of Cebu approx. 1,200 families (approx. 6,000)

A convoy of trucks delivered more than 50 tonnes of rations – including 30kg rice, sardines, beans, cooking oil, water and hygiene kits – to many of the worst-hit communities.

• Balance of initial distribution (120 families/600 people) received their relief supplies.
• Team of 11 operations staff, departed Saturday to conduct assessments and distributions of food and hygiene kits in Leyte. They will go to 9 Barangays in Ormoc and Tacloban. The distribution in Ormoc is planned to benefit 5,500 households (27,500 people).
• Distributions are planned for early this coming week, food kits and hygiene kits are expected to benefit 2,823 households (14,115 people).
• Sector specialists participated in the distribution today: they will continue to conduct sector-specific assessments in Cebu, Panay and Samar and Leyte over the coming weeks.
• Logistics structure is in place; there have been offers of service-in-kind donations of transportation, including the use of a C130 (plane), and warehouse space.

Australia: The Spoilt and Selfish Country

It's a dry, hot, dusty day in Chavakachcheri (Northern Sri Lanka) when I am taken to meet some of the families that have returned to their home communities after 30 years of civil war. Many of the children I meet have lost their Dad in the war, and the lucky ones - their Dads are amputees, or suffering from mental distress. Female headed households, (that's the official term) are the norm here.

But the community suffers, not just a human cost, but also from a lack of water, sanitation, food and economic opportunities to change their reality. Among the many challenges facing the area, much of the infrastructure in the Northern Province was destroyed and water sources were neglected.

In Chavakachcheri the people bought me bottled water - but this wasn't the $1 bottle you buy and throw, this was a bottle of the water they use for cooking, drinking, cleaning, bathing and gardening. (The picture to the right.)

Over the last year I have been working with a team in Sri Lanka to design a project that will "enhance the health and quality of life of the poor and vulnerable by improving sustainable access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene."

Our plan will transform the lives of 3,800 households, (15,960 people) and 4,500 students (in 15 schools) in 10 villages (with a bias towards female headed households and households with a disabled person). Our plans include:

• Constructing 10 water supply units which will improve equitable access to households and schools.
• Develop (with the government and community) new water supply options including: rainwater harvesting, household level solar treatment facilities and community tanks piping water to universally accessible stand points
• Sanitation and hygiene behaviour change will occur as a result of the provision of affordable latrines and solid waste disposal management which will result in the communities becoming open defecation free (ODF).

BUT IT'S ALL JUST ACADEMIC NOW. 

On Friday, the Liberal Government's decision to axe AusAID came into effect and an email arrived telling us that the funding (and the two other similar projects planned for PNG and Zimbabwe) has been withdrawn.

Tony Abbot's promise to balance the budget includes a $4.5 billion cut in the projected foreign aid budget over four years to help fund ''essential infrastructure'' in Australia. ''We can't continue to fund a massive increase in foreign aid at the expense of investment in the Australian economy,'' Hockey declared. Abbott added insult to that injury: ''We will build the roads of the 21st century rather than shovel money abroad.''

(It's much bigger than this; I am reducing the issue greatly, but to try and paint a realistic picture). Despite last year telling us that we had $2.5 million and the mandate to proceed - 12 months of discussions and planning with government and community, making promises on behalf of the Australian people, and with the approval of the Australian Government - on Friday night I had to ask the Sri Lankan team to begin to break the news that it is not going to happen. We do not have the promised money to help them get safe, clean water, or to assist them to build improved sanitation facilities. We do not have the people to help them, because we do not have the money. 

Why? Because the Australian government, on my behalf, told them that they are not a good investment. Julie Bishop (Foreign Affairs Minister) says 'that the new order was about making aid a tool of diplomacy and trade promotion'. So, investing in the lives of 4,500 students who have no safe drinking water at school has no economic advantage for Australia. It is more important that I have a nice road with a neon super-sculpture to brighten up my trip than 15,960 people in post-war communities have clean, safe water. (The number is actually much bigger than that because the whole program is actually 20 NGOs, in 12 countries.)

Mark Baker, (Editor, The Age: The shame that is Abbott's foreign aid policy) says: "The cuts... will also reinforce growing perceptions throughout the Asia-Pacific region and beyond that Australia is a spoilt and selfish country that's indifferent to the moral obligations of the richest nations to the poorest." (The Great Southland? Not so much!)

What Abbot's us-first approach to aid fails to acknowledge is that investing in the development of Northern Sri Lanka could actually have a dramatic impact on one of his other election promises - Stop the Boats. The best way to stop Sri Lankan's getting on boats and causing us discomfort on our boarders is to help them get water, sanitation, safety, jobs, hope and the same rights you and I demand at home - I suspect that it would be a lot cheaper too.