New World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz urged the international community on Friday to deliver on the outpouring of aid pledged for tsunami victims, one of the biggest charitable fund-raising efforts in history. "It is a challenge for the international development community because we have been given this great opportunity with a lot of resources to do good and if we can't deliver it will be tragic for future efforts," he told Reuters.
Wolfowitz was speaking after his first meeting as head of the World Bank with former US President Bill Clinton, recently named the US special envoy for tsunami recovery, representatives of tsunami-affected countries, and UN and aid groups.
"It is extremely important now to deliver on what in many ways will be an even harder part - even harder than immediate (humanitarian) relief - the reconstruction efforts," Wolfowitz noted.
"It is important because there are so many people in need who deserve to get the right resources in the right places for the right results," he added.
The World Bank is one of the lead agencies in the rebuilding of tsunami-devastated areas and ensuring that the billions in dollars in aid is not wasted on corruption.
The tsunami killed more than 176,000 people and left about 50,000 missing and hundreds of thousands homeless in countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and the Maldives.
Governments and victims have complained that the tsunami recovery effort and disbursement of $9 billion in private and official aid to rebuild is moving too slowly.