ASIAN TSUNAMI: ECONOMIC IMPACTS AND THE POLITICS OF HUMANITARIAN AID

This article provides an analysis of the catastrophic Asian tsunami of December 2004, focusing on its economic impacts and the politics of humanitarian aid. It evaluates the scale of destruction across South and South-East Asia, with particular attention to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, and Thailand. The study reviews immediate humanitarian responses and longer-term reconstruction strategies, highlighting disparities in aid distribution. The paper argues that while the tsunami spurred unprecedented global solidarity, aid politics often reflected donor interests, geopolitical calculations, and domestic political pressures in recipient states. It concludes by assessing lessons for disaster governance and resilience-building.

The body opens with a chronology of the 2004 tsunami event and its devastating human toll. Section One assesses direct economic losses—damage to fisheries, agriculture, infrastructure, and tourism—quantifying impacts on GDP and livelihoods. Section Two examines the humanitarian response, contrasting swift global pledges with slower disbursement and implementation. Section Three explores the politics of aid: donor conditionalities, visibility concerns, and the uneven prioritisation of regions within affected countries. Section Four analyses long-term reconstruction, highlighting cases where international aid aligned with local needs and others where mismatches undermined sustainability. The conclusion argues that disasters reveal structural inequities in the international system, stressing the need for transparent, locally informed aid governance and stronger regional cooperation on disaster preparedness.