The world's response to the tsunami could serve as a blueprint for future disasters, but only if donors don't give up on Southeast Asia which still needs help, former US president Bill Clinton said.
Clinton, the UN envoy for tsunami recovery, told a conference of US executives on Monday that there is still much to be done to help the region after the Dec. 26 disaster. He said now was the most difficult time -- initial relief efforts are over but the region has a long way to go until it fully recovers.
"If you do something that works well, then other people will copy it. We need to leave something here that will be copied," Clinton said. "We have got to prove that we can see this through in an honorable and effective way."
The conference at the UN saw the emergency relief officials meet with the Business Roundtable, an association of 160 leading US chief executives. They discussed coordination among companies that wanted to contribute to relief efforts and the UN agencies and non-governmental organizations doing the work.
Hank McKinnell, CEO of the drug company Pfizer and chief of the roundtable, said the most important thing to learn was speed -- how to get companies to respond as fast as possible when disasters happen.
"I can only say that we in the private sector want to do the right thing and in times of crisis we want to do it quickly," McKinnell said.
An earthquake of at least magnitude-9 off Indonesia triggered a tsunami that traveled across the Indian Ocean, killing at least 126,000 people in Indonesia, and another 48,000 in 10 other countries.
So far, the UN says, there have been US$6.7 billion in pledges, about US$2 billion of which has been been guaranteed or distributed, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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