In Response to Tsunami, U.S. Must Be Smart About Its Generosity

In the indescribable tragedy of the Indian Ocean tsunami, the United States has an opportunity to show the world that it can be generous as well as tough -- and smart as well as generous.

By responding generously to the cataclysm, President Bush can demonstrate to the international community that America doesn’t pursue its foreign policy goals only at the point of a gun. After Iraq, that’s an insidious suspicion in many parts of the world.

Operation empathy got off to a slow start when the administration initially announced only a small aid package, and Bush waited an astounding three days to publicly express concern. But good works can overcome bad public relations. Words are important, but at a time like this, deeds count more.

The administration took a huge step toward undoing some of the early international damage Friday, when it announced it would add $315 million to its original pledge of $35 million in aid. Over time, the U.S. contribution is likely to grow much larger.

Amid the acrimony left by the Iraq war, administration officials insist that they recognize how important it is for the world to believe that the U.S. is pulling its weight in a recovery and rebuilding effort that will require enormous international contributions and cooperation.

Remaining at the forefront of donors as the costs mount is the best way for Bush to rebut critics around the globe who believe that his administration is more interested in taking lives than saving them.

But with such enormous sums involved, demonstrating that the U.S. can be smart is just as important as proving it can be generous.

After a natural disaster, the initial priority, understandably, is to provide relief with food, water, sanitation and shelter. But too often, development experts say, the planning for long-term reconstruction doesn’t match the heroic efforts to keep people alive in the immediate aftermath of calamity.

“What we tend to do is go in after something like this and put on Band-Aids and try to help with people’s very immediate physical needs,” says Steven Radelet, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington. “And that’s important. The United States actually does that very well.

“But we don’t then link that stuff to the next step of saying, ‘How do we make people less vulnerable when this happens again?’ ” he said.

The sheer scale of the tsunami tragedy in southern Asia offers an opportunity for a more integrated approach that focuses not only on rebuilding these shattered communities, but reducing their vulnerability to future dangers.

Such a strategy might begin by offering poor countries more help in assessing their exposure to the full range of ecological and environmental threats, including earthquakes and infectious diseases, said Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Such an inventory of the threat, Sachs says, can provide the foundation for the next step: more planning in poor countries to combat predictable risks and respond to unpredictable disasters.

The most obvious example of such an approach would be to develop a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean, a safeguard that exists in the Pacific. But the need for a more preemptive strategy extends to the much broader range of natural threats -- any of which could trigger the next tragedy to rivet global attention.

“Whether it is disease, poisoned water supplies, extreme weather events or earthquake ... scientists know a lot about mitigating risks,” Sachs said. “Finding proper locations for people to live, [controlling] disease, providing protection against water hazards -- there’s a lot that could be accomplished.

“But there is no funding for any of this right now,” he added.

Over the long run, reducing poverty may be the most important part of limiting the human and economic cost of events like the tsunami.

Natural disasters strike rich and poor countries alike. But poor countries and poor people are much more vulnerable to the effects. Their housing stock is flimsier; roads are less developed, making it tougher to escape a crisis or to reach survivors; health facilities are inadequate; communications are fragmentary.

That means using the reconstruction to promote long-term economic development is one key to protecting the countries staggered by the tsunami against future natural disasters. In that effort, Radelet says, he would give two measures highest priority: constructing better rural roads and building more hospitals and health clinics. Both, he says, would encourage economic growth (which among other things helps families move into sturdier housing) and make it easier for authorities to respond to disasters.

The rebuilding effort after this tragedy could also advance the changes in international aid that Bush and other Western leaders are promoting.

In a constructive global bargain, the rich nations are promising poor nations more aid, and more favorable trade and debt policies, in return for political and economic change and more rigorous proof that the countries are using their international money effectively.

In the U.S., this has translated into the administration’s new Millennium Challenge Account; if Bush meets his funding pledges, the program will provide significant new aid to poor countries that meet certain standards of governance and accountability.

This concept has deservedly won applause across the political spectrum, and the southern Asian reconstruction should provide an opportunity to test its principles.

Immediate relief, of course, must be distributed solely on basis of need. But later, reconstruction money could flow in varying proportions to the affected countries based on the performance of local officials in ensuring that aid reaches the needy -- rather than the connected.

In responding to a crisis this vast, good intentions aren’t enough. Using our head will be as important as opening our heart.

Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Monday. See past columns on The Times’ website at latimes.com/brownstein.