Jasmine Whitbread: 'Disaster relief must help to lift people out of poverty'

From a speech by the International Director of Oxfam, given in Geneva

In order to improve our response to disasters, Oxfam often stages emergency exercises where we have to imagine calamitous situations. The one where 280,000 people are estimated dead, two million displaced across seven countries in two conflict zones, with poor communications and coming at Christmas when most staff are on leave, is not one we had anticipated.

In order to improve our response to disasters, Oxfam often stages emergency exercises where we have to imagine calamitous situations. The one where 280,000 people are estimated dead, two million displaced across seven countries in two conflict zones, with poor communications and coming at Christmas when most staff are on leave, is not one we had anticipated.

Yet this is exactly what happened. On 26 December 2004, the second largest earthquake in recorded history unleashed a devastating tsunami. Thanks to the unprecedented support of ordinary people - whose generosity inspired governments to follow suit - the relief and reconstruction has been phenomenal.

Within the space of just one month, the life-saving relief phase shifted to the reconstruction phase - helping people to rebuild their lives and get children back into schools. Long-term plans are geared not just to getting people back to where they were before, but to help them break out of the poverty that caused them to be so vulnerable to disaster in the first place.

Of course, in a disaster of this scale, the response is not without problems. When every aid agency in the world arrives on the scene, co-ordination is not straightforward and there is some real learning for the humanitarian community. But competition between agencies has had some healthy effects, driving up standards and giving local people the ability to hold aid agencies accountable.

The tsunami may go down in history as one of the world's most tragic natural disasters, but thanks to the generosity of the British public, the response could be equally historic. This must be the beginning of a real determination to do more to guarantee aid quality as well as aid quantity. In response to the tsunami, Oxfam is supporting 550,000 people and will spend £37m this year. This money has given Oxfam the resources to help people work their way out of poverty for years to come.

Having the finances to rebuild more than just the poverty of the past but something infinitely better must become the rule rather than the exception.