By Puru Shah
[Note: This post has been edited since its first publication to include more data and analysis.]
As businesses, governments and organizations make announcements to donate large sums of money towards the earthquake relief in Nepal, what is your general reaction to it? Undoubtedly, most of us get a sense that more funds are flowing and ultimately the earthquake victims will get relief. Only if it were that simple, millions of Haitians would not be still living in tent cities despite more than $11 billion in aid relief.
More than $445 million has been pledged by various donors for the earthquake relief in Nepal out of which $139.3 has already been received (about 31%) as reported by UNOCHA Financial Tracking Service.
In conclusion, I reiterate that I am not advocating all national and international donors to channel all funds through the PM Disaster Relief Fund. Our team at One Stop Portal has developed a guideline to donate 40% to NGOs, 30% to INGOs and 30% to PM Relief Fund, as mentioned on our donate page. I suggest you to visit our donate page to read more about why we suggest a more balanced approach.
Based on my theoretical research of lessons learned from Haiti earthquake, a more balanced approach in donating funds through multiple channels is more likely to lead to a successful recovery. Similarly, channeling funds through country systems and local NGOs builds domestic capacity to handle calamities in the future.
In the next blog post, I will include lists of top global and Nepali corporate donors along with more details about who the top donors to Nepal's PM Disaster Relief Fund are. If you would like to see any data analysis in a different way using other parameters, please mention in the comment and I will attempt to accommodate your request in the next post.
Data Source: Multiple
1. All Donations - Financial Tracking Service of UNOCHA Nepal
2. Corporate Donations: (US Chamber of Commerce, Financial Tracking Service, PM Disaster Relief Fund, Wikipedia, Onlinekhabar) via earthquake.opennepal.net, current as of May 8, 2015.
Puru Shah is a team member of One Stop Portal. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Science (Electrical) from Trinity University in San Antonio, USA.
[Note: This post has been edited since its first publication to include more data and analysis.]
As businesses, governments and organizations make announcements to donate large sums of money towards the earthquake relief in Nepal, what is your general reaction to it? Undoubtedly, most of us get a sense that more funds are flowing and ultimately the earthquake victims will get relief. Only if it were that simple, millions of Haitians would not be still living in tent cities despite more than $11 billion in aid relief.
$445 million is a lot of money for aid relief and recovery for an impoverished country like Nepal. Should this news make Nepalese earthquake victims somewhat hopeful of a proper recovery?
The only problem (as shown in the graph below) is that most of the donations are bypassing national channels. And this is a big problem. It is the same problem that haunts Haiti till this day and has been attributed unanimously as being responsible for the recovery failure in Haiti after the earthquake.
The only problem (as shown in the graph below) is that most of the donations are bypassing national channels. And this is a big problem. It is the same problem that haunts Haiti till this day and has been attributed unanimously as being responsible for the recovery failure in Haiti after the earthquake.
Only 1.7% of total donations for earthquake relief have been deposited directly into the Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Funds. This is in sharp contrast to the 30% that our One Stop Portal team recommends on the donate page of our website.
Various big donors such as Asian Development Bank and Disasters Emergency Committee have pledged their donations to "various recipients", one of which could be PM Relief Fund. However, none of those funds have been deposited into the PM Relief Fund yet, according to the data published by PM Relief Fund.
It is not difficult to determine why the donations to PM Disaster Relief Fund are so low. The political system of Nepal has very low trust among its citizens and global partners. The donors fear that the allegedly corrupt Nepali political leaders will embezzle their funds instead of using them for relief.
Similar to Nepal, the country channels were bypassed in Haiti as well because the political system was deemed to be corrupt. This lack of trust forces donors to contribute to global charities instead who are often unfamiliar with local terrain, proper delivery channels and local needs. Often, these funds are not spent in its entirety by global charities in the destination countries because they run global operations and are not held accountable or overseen by any central authorities.
You may wonder well, if donations are not going to PM Disaster Relief Fund then, where are they going to? Take a look at the graph below for answers (data from UNOCHA FTS).
Almost half of the donations are going to "various recipients" and it is not clear who those recipients are. Besides various recipients, World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Disaster Emergency Committee UK (DEC UK), NGOs (both local and global charities), British Red Cross (British RC), World Health Organization are some of the largest recipients.
The Nepalese government has gotten only a tiny fraction, less than 2% of this donation, shown as "Bilateral (affected government) in the pie chart above. Most of this donation is "in kind" For example, Czech Republic, France, Greece and Indonesia provided search and rescue (SAR) teams. Similarly, Italy, Japan and Spain have provided relief materials.
Bhutan and Saudi Arabia are the only countries to send monetary assistance directly to Nepal via PM Disaster Relief Fund.
See below for a distribution of pledged donations to various recipients.
The pledged donations to "various recipients" is even larger, a whopping 93.8%. Asian Development Bank has pledged a soft loan amounting to $203 million to various recipients and represents a big share of this pledged donation. Its recipients are not publicly known at this point. $3 million will be used for immediate relief and $200 will be used towards reconstruction projects.
One of the largest recipients of pledged donations is Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies, expected to receive an additional $8.25 million (2.7%). This makes Red Cross a larger recipient of funds for carrying earthquake relief operations than the entire country of Nepal. PM Disaster Relief Fund has received only $7.8 million so far.
The global and local corporate donors have also shown a stark disparity in their preferred recipients. The local corporate donors seem to have a more balanced portfolio of their intended recipients than their global counterparts. See the graphs below for this claim substantiated with data.
The global corporate donors have chosen to give away almost 100% of their donations to global charities such as Red Cross, Oxfam, AmeriCares and others. Despite the failure of the earthquake recovery in Haiti where more than 90% of all funds were channeled through global charities, the global corporations seem to have taken no heed from the lessons learned.
In contrast, Nepali corporate donors have a more balanced portfolio of intended recipients, similar to what our One Stop Portal team recommends on the Donate page. A whopping 71% of the donations have been made to the Nepal PM Disaster Relief Fund and about 24% to various global charities.
While it is disheartening to see that the donations to Nepalese institutions (such as NGOs) stands at a meagre 5% by even Nepali corporate donors, it is encouraging to note that Nepali corporations trust their government more than the foreign corporations do.
Various big donors such as Asian Development Bank and Disasters Emergency Committee have pledged their donations to "various recipients", one of which could be PM Relief Fund. However, none of those funds have been deposited into the PM Relief Fund yet, according to the data published by PM Relief Fund.
It is not difficult to determine why the donations to PM Disaster Relief Fund are so low. The political system of Nepal has very low trust among its citizens and global partners. The donors fear that the allegedly corrupt Nepali political leaders will embezzle their funds instead of using them for relief.
Similar to Nepal, the country channels were bypassed in Haiti as well because the political system was deemed to be corrupt. This lack of trust forces donors to contribute to global charities instead who are often unfamiliar with local terrain, proper delivery channels and local needs. Often, these funds are not spent in its entirety by global charities in the destination countries because they run global operations and are not held accountable or overseen by any central authorities.
You may wonder well, if donations are not going to PM Disaster Relief Fund then, where are they going to? Take a look at the graph below for answers (data from UNOCHA FTS).
Almost half of the donations are going to "various recipients" and it is not clear who those recipients are. Besides various recipients, World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Disaster Emergency Committee UK (DEC UK), NGOs (both local and global charities), British Red Cross (British RC), World Health Organization are some of the largest recipients.
The Nepalese government has gotten only a tiny fraction, less than 2% of this donation, shown as "Bilateral (affected government) in the pie chart above. Most of this donation is "in kind" For example, Czech Republic, France, Greece and Indonesia provided search and rescue (SAR) teams. Similarly, Italy, Japan and Spain have provided relief materials.
Bhutan and Saudi Arabia are the only countries to send monetary assistance directly to Nepal via PM Disaster Relief Fund.
See below for a distribution of pledged donations to various recipients.
The pledged donations to "various recipients" is even larger, a whopping 93.8%. Asian Development Bank has pledged a soft loan amounting to $203 million to various recipients and represents a big share of this pledged donation. Its recipients are not publicly known at this point. $3 million will be used for immediate relief and $200 will be used towards reconstruction projects.
One of the largest recipients of pledged donations is Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies, expected to receive an additional $8.25 million (2.7%). This makes Red Cross a larger recipient of funds for carrying earthquake relief operations than the entire country of Nepal. PM Disaster Relief Fund has received only $7.8 million so far.
The global and local corporate donors have also shown a stark disparity in their preferred recipients. The local corporate donors seem to have a more balanced portfolio of their intended recipients than their global counterparts. See the graphs below for this claim substantiated with data.
The global corporate donors have chosen to give away almost 100% of their donations to global charities such as Red Cross, Oxfam, AmeriCares and others. Despite the failure of the earthquake recovery in Haiti where more than 90% of all funds were channeled through global charities, the global corporations seem to have taken no heed from the lessons learned.
In contrast, Nepali corporate donors have a more balanced portfolio of intended recipients, similar to what our One Stop Portal team recommends on the Donate page. A whopping 71% of the donations have been made to the Nepal PM Disaster Relief Fund and about 24% to various global charities.
While it is disheartening to see that the donations to Nepalese institutions (such as NGOs) stands at a meagre 5% by even Nepali corporate donors, it is encouraging to note that Nepali corporations trust their government more than the foreign corporations do.
In conclusion, I reiterate that I am not advocating all national and international donors to channel all funds through the PM Disaster Relief Fund. Our team at One Stop Portal has developed a guideline to donate 40% to NGOs, 30% to INGOs and 30% to PM Relief Fund, as mentioned on our donate page. I suggest you to visit our donate page to read more about why we suggest a more balanced approach.
Based on my theoretical research of lessons learned from Haiti earthquake, a more balanced approach in donating funds through multiple channels is more likely to lead to a successful recovery. Similarly, channeling funds through country systems and local NGOs builds domestic capacity to handle calamities in the future.
In the next blog post, I will include lists of top global and Nepali corporate donors along with more details about who the top donors to Nepal's PM Disaster Relief Fund are. If you would like to see any data analysis in a different way using other parameters, please mention in the comment and I will attempt to accommodate your request in the next post.
Data Source: Multiple
1. All Donations - Financial Tracking Service of UNOCHA Nepal
2. Corporate Donations: (US Chamber of Commerce, Financial Tracking Service, PM Disaster Relief Fund, Wikipedia, Onlinekhabar) via earthquake.opennepal.net, current as of May 8, 2015.
Puru Shah is a team member of One Stop Portal. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Science (Electrical) from Trinity University in San Antonio, USA.
No comments:
Post a Comment