At the risk of sounding like a typical libertarian crank, it bears emphasizing that government aid is not the only aid. Of course that doesn't get as much attention because it's harder to get a nice round number together like "15 million" from a bunch of decentralized NGOs. Any idea where to get the numbers on that sort of thing, short of going around to all their websites with a calculator?

Here's my take on how this whole process works in terms of the interaction of government and private sector. They work quite closely and rely on each other extensively. In the broadest terms of "division of labor," most often it's the NGOs that are geared up to do the on-the-ground assistance delivery and the governments to mobilize the resources for the NGOs to deliver. In this case, the NGOs logistics are going to be overwhelmed in terms of their own warehouses and distribution centers. And they're also going to have to rely a lot on governments for transport, equipment and some emergency stocks.

The people who have somewhat of a handle on what's being pulled together internationally are sitting in conference rooms at the UN, Intl Red Cross, CARE, and other int'l NGOs, and the World Bank and some of the aid agencies like USAID, and their affiliated foreign ministries.

They're geared up on 24/7 and right now aren't worrying too much about where cash is coming from in the future. They're trying first and foremost to mobilize the stuff that's available one place or another, or make sure that resources for search & rescue, transport, etc. are sent where needed. Another part is planning for getting things that will be critical shortages into a pipeline moving toward the region. If there need to be big buys of things like medicine, it's very useful to have chunks of funding that someone like USAID can provide.

The comment from prak about Pacific Command is that, given the incredible geographic magnitude of the catastrophe, the supply and coordination of transport and logistics is probably the biggest constraint in getting urgent timely assistance to people. And it's the area that our military clearly has a decided comparative advantage -- as well as very good relations with the navies in the region, such as India's. If we want to talk about improving US "public diplomacy," here's a perfect case. The potential of the US military to play a unique and totally positive role can be communicated in a highly visible -- but real, not just spin -- manner.

As for having a "handle" on private and public sector donations. The "handle" on the totals of both dollars needed and dollars available isn't great at the moment. It's more trying to set up triage and figure where the biggest gaps are between what's needed and the logistics of getting things to people. So the folks at the big agencies talk to each other, share info on local initiatives, keep in close contact with the national reps to their institutions from the affected countries, etc.

Right now, no one in the NGOs is really worrying about the total sums that have been raised. They know will need vast amounts of money, and so they're just calling for funds as loudly as possible. They'll be moving resources out of planned programs to emergency response, with the hope that over time new donations will replenish their planned programs.

Eventually, as part of PR campaigns to make people feel their funds are well-used and so they'll be willing to give in the future, some efforts to tally will occur. A few interim "America has given $---, thank you for your generosity, and keep up the good work!" may be used in fund-raising over the next few days, to keep spirits up, but I wouldn't rely on the accuracy of those sorts of figures.

The agencies like the UN will also do some big-picture tallying. First on the back-of-the-envelope to prepare the big donors for what sorts of funding and assistance they'll be called upon to provide, so they can get requests in the pipeline to their agencies or legislatures. They'll also try to identify major funding gaps that might be required to be covered via loans to the affected countries for reconstruction efforts from the multilaterals, like the IMF, World Bank or Asian Development Bank.

Iin the medium-term the UN and the big international NGOs will do overviews -- what was needed, for what purposes, where did it come from, how did pre-positioned stocks of medicine, food, supplies work, etc. Again, so they can report on what went well and what should be improved in the future.

Here is where libertarianism falls down (among other instances).

As nadezhda said, no NGO or combination of NGOs has the capacity to deal with a problem of this magnitude. To be sure, the NGOs are a vital component of any releif effort, but they are by nature scattershot and choosy rather than comprehensive. And they don't have the funds, the lift capacity, or the manpower to bring in massive amounts of blankets, water, and food in a hurry. PACOM does. Then there's the bunchball problem--without coordination, everybody's going to throw too much effort at the same places, while other areas get nothing. That's why someone needs to get a read on the big picture and allocate resources more evenly. I'm not confident the UN can do that, but I think that PACOM with the help of the Indian Navy (and the UN) can do a far better job.

Here's just one example of what I'm talking about:

MSF has sent 12 humanitarian aid workers, including doctors, surgeons, nurses, and logisticians, to Sri Lanka. Additional aid workers are on stand-by. A full charter plane with 30 tons of aid supplies is leaving Wednesday for Colombo, Sri Lanka. In addition to relief materials, among the cargo is all the equipment and supplies to set up a hospital to assist 10,000 people for a period of three months.

Twelve people, one cargo plane.

There are, by some accounts, one million homeless people in Sri Lanka right now. The "free market" for humanitarian aid isn't going to do the trick.

NPR: Indonesia's Outlying Areas Difficult for Aid Workers to Reach

Don't misunderstand me, I pretty much agree with you and personally don't object to government aid to things like this (libertarian by day, Tom Barnett disciple by night). I wish "my" own government* would get off its ass and pitch in a little faster. It just sticks in my craw when twits like Jan Egeland act as if that $15 million is the only thing "America" is giving. It would be nice to be able to quickly tally up the numbers of private donations, but such is the nature of decentralized systems. Though I saw the Amazon thing too, so you can't quite say this is where libertarianism falls down! ;) (This is just where being an "I got mine Jack, so screw you" type falls down, and that's an attitude I abhor as much as you.)

* I live in Canada, but am also an American. Whoo dual citizenship.

This is pretty cool: Amazon raising more funds than many governments, including the dastardly French.

Reuters has compiled a list of relief efforts from countries and organizations.

Heh. Rent-seeking pays dividends for South Asia: Pfizer kicks in a cool $35 million of its own. (via John Robb)

AFP has a recent overview of contributions for the tsunami catastrophe. More info on the Europeans (esp the Swedes!) than N America. I'm sure more info will be forthcoming.

Donation surge sends tsunami aid to over 350 million dollars

LONDON (AFP) - A surge in both private and government donations in wealthy nations brought to over 350 million dollars the funds raised or pledged for relief in Asian countries swept by tidal waves that killed at least 118,000 people.

Sweden led the field after Development Aid Minister Carin Jaemtin announced a massive donation of 500 million kronor (75 million dollars, 55 million euros) in emergency aid to countries around the Indian Ocean.


Sweden was likely to be one of the Western countries hardest-hit by the disaster, with up to 4,500 Swedish holiday-makers missing or unaccounted for, mostly in Thailand.


Elsewhere, private donations were particularly high, even "phenomenal" in Britain and Italy, while contributions were strong also from the governments of France, Britain, the Netherlands, the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, and Saudi Arabia.
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Ah, my people. Sullen throughout the winter, but generous to a fault in a pinch.