Severe shortfalls in funding are curtailing recovery efforts in Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta, which was worst hit when Cyclone Nargis battered the country in 2008 leaving 140,000 dead, aid
agencies said on the eve of the disaster's second anniversary.
The cyclone, which was the worst natural disaster to hit Asia since the 2004 tsunami, left 2.4 million people destitute in the army-ruled former Burma. It flooded paddy fields with salt water, damaged irrigation systems and destroyed seeds.
Despite the widespread damage done to the delta which is considered Myanmar's rice bowl, the latest U.N. figures show that a three-year $690 million recovery plan launched at the
start of 2009 is only 25 percent funded.
"The consequence of insufficient funding is that there are serious unmet needs for more sustainable shelter and agricultural support," Bishow Parajuli, the United Nations' resident coordinator in Myanmar, told AlertNet.
"Programmes have been scaled back, cut or cancelled and staff numbers have been reduced. And the recovery process has slowed down," he added.
The funding crunch is also being felt by established aid agencies such as Save the Children and the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration (IOM). And insiders say the lack of funds has prompted many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to
leave the delta and means that the recovery period will take much longer than the three years originally anticipated.
Save the Children's country director in Myanmar, Andrew Kirkwood, told AlertNet the agency has shut six of its 14 offices in the delta and halved the number of staff in the area from 1,200 to 600.
Yet recovery is already uneven.
Kirkwood said although there had been some improvements in the former capital Yangon, commercial centres and small towns of the delta, a large number of survivors, especially
landless labourers, are facing a grim time.
"They have not been able to replace assets needed to make a living. Farmers are not making enough money farming paddy so they're reducing their input including labour," Kirkwood said.
"We have lots of evidence to say people are sharing jobs that used to be their own. And many people have taken on a lot of extra debt to get them through the past two years."
SHELTER TROUBLES
IOM is appealing for $12.5 million to provide shelters for an additional 50,000 households who are living in poor housing conditions, according to Dr. William Sabandar, the secretary general of regional bloc ASEAN's special envoy for post-Nargis recovery in Myanmar.
"If the appeal is not met, IOM will be forced to close down their operations in the delta," he told AlertNet.
Only 12 percent or less than $22 million of the $176 million needed for shelter over a three-year period, has been received, Srinivasa Popuri, head of the U.N. housing agency UN-Habitat in Myanmar, told AlertNet.
This has left around 800,000 survivors or 160,000 families in 11 townships facing a third monsoon without a proper roof over their heads.
Shelter has consistently been one of the least funded areas, mainly due to perception that housing is the government's responsibility and many donors do not want to be seen as supporting the junta. Aid agencies said they are frustrated with aid being politicised this way.
Popuri said in the aftermath of Nargis, the shelter sector had about 45 NGOs working in it. However, only six of these NGOs continue to operate in the delta, and by May, only three will
remain active, he added.
"The reason for many agencies to close their shelter operations is purely due to lack of resources and not any restrictions on them by the government," Popuri said.
Alasdair Gordon-Gibson, head of operations in Myanmar for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies said there might be a lack of understanding of the shelter needs in Myanmar, which are different to those in the
aftermath of the Asian tsunami.
Rather than huge municipal infrastructure reconstruction projects, the focus in Myanmar is on family households and simple, basic, sustainable shelter for them, he said.
The Red Cross said it is currently the biggest shelter provider with its plans to build 16,000 shelters by the end of 2010 fully funded.
Another pressing problem is access to clean water.
Around 180,000 people face severe water shortages. Access to drinking water in the delta during the dry season is a chronic problem, according to World Vision.
Cyclone Nargis left ponds and wells contaminated with salt water, human and animal corpses and all sorts of debris.
The water sources have to be pumped, treated, the
foundations rebuilt and it could take up to five years before they meet World Health Organisation standards on safe drinking water, WV's Jenny Macintyre said.
"There is a need to fund rehabilitation," she said. "Good practice in donor-ship is to give people back the livelihoods they had before the disaster, and if you do that, then you have
a community that can reclaim their dignity."
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