25 months have passed since the devastating tsunami in Banda Aceh fatally disrupted the region’s socio-economic rubric. Natural and man-made calamities in other corners of the globe have since diverted the attention of the media and donor agencies.

However the scale of devastation wrought in Indonesia and the nature of the victims that it created, remains unparalleled in recent years. Nearly one-third of the “casualties” of the 26 December 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia were children.  If child “victims” are added to the “casualties” – i.e. children that survived at the cost of becoming orphaned, homeless, injured or lost, the ratio increases as nearly 20,000 children became orphaned or displaced.  The seemingly disproportionate number of child victims can be attributed to Indonesia’s demography where high birth rates have resulted in 35% of the population being under the age of 18. 

Short-sighted donor policies of immediate emergency relief assistance followed by cutbacks of promised aid over time result in disaster zones receiving far less than what is needed to operate long-term humanitarian relief projects effectively. In the case of Indonesia, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) rejected such a course, mobilizing, coordinating and phasing contributions over time to draw a balance between short-term relief and long term projects that targeted the tsunami’s vulnerable victims – children.   

Since 2004, OIC entities and Member States have raised US $1.3 billion to assist tsunami victims in Indonesia – the largest contribution by any group.  The foresight invested in coordinating and planning such an undertaking was equally significant. Setting the stage for Joint Islamic Action (a strategy that has been heavily emphasized in the OIC’s Ten Programme of Action - also known as the New Vision) a large number of OIC Member States coordinated their relief efforts under the umbrella of the OIC General Secretariat. While Saudi Arabia, UAE and Turkey have provided the lion’s share of the funding , Least Developed Member States like Afghanistan, Bangladesh  and Mozambique  also contributed significant levels of material and financial support.

To minimize any duplication in relief efforts, the OIC has taken steps to collaborate with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),  thereby maximizing the scale, effectiveness and reach of relief efforts. Furthermore to ensure a continuous presence to coordinate relief and aid distribution as well as guide long-term humanitarian activities, the OIC opened a representative office in Banda Aceh. 

To aid child victims on a long-term basis, the organization established in January 2005 the OIC Alliance to Rescue Tsunami Child Victims (ARTCV) with the participation of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), a number of OIC Member States, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).  The ARTCV coordinates and focuses the efforts of OIC Member States with regards to children orphaned and displaced by the tsunami and provides them with care, shelter, and foster families in the Islamic World.  Since its inception, it has allocated US $30 million per month and will continue to do so over the next 15 years for 25,000 orphans in Aceh and North Sumatra.  The coordinated response to the tsunami marks a watershed period in the OIC’s progression into a proactive and key global player in humanitarian assistance.

The OIC’s unprecedented and overwhelming response to the tsunami also set the stage for the injection of a new vision and renewed sense of motivation and purpose for the organization under the leadership of the Secretary General H.E. Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who responded to the crises with unprecedented foresight in his very first month in office and has since taken it upon himself to ensure that effective humanitarian assistance to the region is sustained. 
 
In this regard, the Secretary General has just concluded a four-day official visit to Indonesia from February 12th – 15th 2007 to follow-up on ongoing humanitarian efforts. He met with the country’s leaders to review the prospects of the OIC Humanitarian Forum and the establishment of an OIC coordination and emergency network against natural disasters.  Additionally, to attain a first-hand review of the impacts of humanitarian assistance, he visited the region of Yogyakarta which was hit by an earthquake in 2006 and attended the inauguration of the OIC Village comprising 100 houses, a school and a mosque. As a follow through of the OIC’s commitment to protect the tsunami’s most vulnerable victims – children – the Secretary General also visited Banda Aceh for the inauguration of the OIC Alliance Orphan Program. 

A year ago, during the first anniversary of the Tsunami, the Secretary General stated unequivocally that “despite the passage of one year since the tragedy, the great majority of the population is still living in temporary camps, denuded of the most basic necessities of a decent life, and the reconstruction process is still way below our expectations”.  Two years on, what remains clear is that much remains to be done to guarantee these basic necessities of a decent life. OIC Member States and the donor community must follow H.E. Professor Ihsanoglu’s lead in keeping Indonesia at the forefront of global humanitarian relief efforts.