International Recovery Platform

The tsunami of 26 December 2004 was one of the worst natural disasters in recent memory. Six months after the tragedy, the rebuilding and recovery process has provided an opportunity for the health sectors in the affected countries, assisted by the World

In the year after the carnage, significant progress has been made in feeding and housing survivors and clearing debris from fish ponds and fields to allow farmers to resume work. Much remains to be done as emphasis shifts from relief to reconstruction and

More than 220,000 people dead in 12 countries and 1.6 million people displaced. Numbers alone cannot provide a true sense of the devastation wrought by the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Nor can numbers tell us what it will take for the region to recover. In the weeks that followed the tsunami, Grameen Foundation USA took immediate action by providing $25,000 to ASA, our long-time partner in Tamil Nadu, India, to support its innovative approach to participating in the immediate relief effort. The Jameel Group committed all of the funds required to undertake a comprehensive, multi-country survey to determine how microfinance could be best used in the post-tsunami recovery effort. This report synthesizes the lessons learned from the survey teams.