OCHA Situation Report No. 21
Myanmar: Cyclone Nargis
26 May 2008


Source:
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

This situation report is based on information received by the clusters, 
whose partners include UN Agencies, national and international NGOs, the 
Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and IOM.

HIGHLIGHTS

1. An ASEAN-UN International Pledging Conference on Cyclone Nargis was 
held on Sunday 25 May in Yangon. Fifty-one countries were represented at 
the meeting, where there was universal recognition of the unprecedented 
magnitude of the disaster for Myanmar. There was unanimous agreement on 
the need to scale up urgently and very significantly the current relief 
efforts to ensure that those in desperate need are reached quickly and 
with adequate life-saving relief supplies, and that an effective flow of 
these supplies is maintained for as long as necessary.

There was strong agreement that a major extra effort would be needed from 
all quarters to achieve the immediate objective of preventing further 
unnecessary deaths. There was strong support for the decision reached at 
the Special ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting held on 19 May 2008 in 
Singapore to establish an ASEAN-led coordinating mechanism. To realize 
this, an ASEAN Humanitarian Task Force for the Victims of Cyclone Nargis 
has been established, composed of senior officials and experts from ASEAN 
countries, and led by the Secretary General of ASEAN. There was a warm 
welcome for the proposed creation of a Yangon-based Tripartite Core Group 
comprising representatives from the Government of Myanmar, ASEAN and UN as 
a working mechanism for coordinating, facilitating, and monitoring the 
flow of international assistance into the country. This should begin its 
work immediately to ensure full information exchange, close coordination 
of relief and recovery efforts, and resolution of any problems that may 
arise.

For the longer term, the Government of Myanmar focused on the scale of 
rehabilitation, reconstruction and recovery efforts likely to be needed, 
and the immediate requirement to ensure that farming and fishing 
activities could be resumed as soon as possible. The international 
community was ready to consider helping the Government of Myanmar in these 
and other areas. For these purposes, a comprehensive rapid joint 
assessment of recovery needs, and development of a shared post-disaster 
recovery and reconstruction plan are indispensable steps.

2. The Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr John Holmes, reminded the 
conference that the crisis was still clearly in the emergency relief phase 
and that an effective relief supply operation will be needed for many 
months to come. Flights are currently arriving at the rate of around 10-15 
per day, and these still need to be stepped up further to meet the need. 
The crucial question remains how many people of those in urgent need of 
major assistance have not been reached at all. It is clear that delivery 
needs to be scaled up at the far end of the chain as fast as possible in 
these areas to avert the risk of extra and unnecessary deaths due to 
diseases and nutritional deficiency. The critical danger remains of a 
potential second wave of deaths among those not so far reached or only 
reached with small amounts of assistance. Forced returns of any kind are 
completely unacceptable. He concluded by reiterating that the only test at 
the end of the day is whether lives have been saved, more unnecessary 
deaths have been avoided, and those still in desperate need have been 
helped.

3. Two interagency teams comprising UN, INGO and national NGOs returned 
from an assessment mission to Bogale and Labutta Districts, visiting a 
number of townships to assess the current status of coordination. The two 
groups presented their findings in Yangon today, including 
recommendations. These findings will feed into current planning to 
operationalize five coordination centres in Labutta, Bogale, Pyapon, 
Mawlamyinegyun, and Pathein. In the same vein, the Humanitarian 
Coordinator requested Cluster Leads to identify counterparts in these five 
locations, stressing that these counterparts need not be from the lead 
agency. The Humanitarian Coordinator advised leads to identify in 
particular national and international NGO counterparts with appropriate 
operational capacity in these locations.

4. Identifying the need to further strengthen the participation and 
information sharing with NGOs in the clusters, the Humanitarian 
Coordinator and Cluster Leads agreed to identify NGO focal points for each 
cluster.

5. The Humanitarian Coordinator advised Cluster Leads today that dedicated 
coordination and information management capacity for each cluster was a 
priority. The Humanitarian Coordinator agreed to request support from 
Global Cluster Leads where required.

6. There has been no update to the official figures for dead and missing 
since 16 May. 77,738 are reported dead and 55,917 missing.

Attachments: 
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/retrieveattachments?openagent&docid=95B01AD65633FE04852574550057DE55&file=Full.Report.pdf


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