The Indian Ocean tsunami generated record promises of help by scores of governments around the world.
Reuters Tsunami Aidwatch was set up to measure how much of the money pledged after the Dec. 26 disaster is converted into actual funding for relief and reconstruction in the region.
In previous emergencies donors have often failed to honour their pledges � for example the United Nations says donors paid less than half what they promised after Hurricane Mitch which killed 10,000 people in Central America in 1998.
Private aid
The tsunami response has been unusual in that members of the public have in many cases given almost as much as their governments, and in some instances - eg United States, Britain, Switzerland and Mexico - they have even given more.
The total aid figure also includes an estimate for these private donations. This figure can only be approximate as it is impossible to account for every dollar dropped into every collection box for every one of the multitude of agencies helping in the region.
Some governments have kept tabs on private donations but the majority have not so we have also used information from the larger aid agencies. The figure $0 next to private donations on the bar chart means no information was available.
In some cultures people may be loath to say how much they have given to charity as it could be seen as boasting. In other places, big private donors may not want to disclose how much they have donated for tax reasons.
Official aid
Government aid comes in many forms � outright grants, military logistical help, debt relief, in-kind donations and concessional loans.
Aidwatch pledge figures may differ from those given by donors where they include concessional loans. The reason is that donors tend to express loan pledges in terms of the sum lent whereas we have estimated the actual cost to the donor of lending that sum.
For example, Australia says it has offered a A$1bln aid package. But as half this is in the form of loans we have estimated how much it will cost Australia to lend A$500m. This works out at A$451.3. See below for more details.
Pledges and allocations are based on announcements and information from the donors along with official statistics. Totals may not always match totals stated by donors because of the inclusion of different categories of aid allocations. Explanatory notes for individual countries can be found by clicking on the tab marked "What's your country doing?" and then clicking on a country in the list.
Allocations include not only money that has been disbursed but also funds that have been formally approved for a specific purpose even if they have not been physically handed over.
Aidwatch data excludes routine contributions by governments to multilateral organisations such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Department. But it does include supplementary tsunami-related contributions where known.
Data includes debt relief or loans that borrowers are no longer required to pay back but not debt moratoria or changes in debt-repayment schedules.
Where possible, currencies were converted at mid-May rates.
How we worked out the grant element of loans
To create a consistent measure of tsunami aid, we have put concessional loans on the same footing as outright grants by establishing the "grant element" of the loans. This is done by calculating the "cost" faced by the donor - in other words, what the donor loses as a result of the transaction. For interest-free loans, the cost to the donor is that of the interest payments it would otherwise have got if it had lent the money at market rates. For a low-interest loan, it is the difference between interest payments received and market rates.
To calculate the grant elements both of Australia's zero-interest loans to Indonesia and the Asian Development Bank's loans we have used a discount factor of 10 per cent. This discount factor is used by the ADB in its internal calculations. In our estimates it is used both to calculate the value today of a repayment made in the future, and as the assumed interest rate the borrower would have to pay on the open market.
To calculate the grant elements of the floating rate ADB loans to Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India we have assumed they are equivalent to a fixed rate loan and made the conversion at the 30-year 'swap rate' at which floating rate dollar-denominated loans can be traded for a fixed interest rate (approximately 5.00 per cent as of mid-May, 2005).
Tsunami loans - Summary
* Converted at US$/A$ rate of 1.287 prevailing in mid-May
** ADB's standard discount factor and the rate used for calculations of interest foregone by lender
*** Involves assumptions about nature of loan yet to be clarified by ADB
Source : AlertNet
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