Spanish airmen unload packages of aid in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Canadian aid agencies are worried that aid going to tsunami victims will divert funds from ongoing crises.

If 2005 marks the beginning of an era in generosity, aid analysts and relief organizations are hoping that Canada's $425 million contribution to the victims of the Asian tsunami won't mean less money for ongoing crises around the world.

Despite assurances by senior government officials that money would come from funds accounted for in the March budget, the Canadian Council for International Cooperation wants to see the increase in tsunami relief translate into more money for development aid for other humanitarian causes.

Promises to provide long-term development aid have been hijacked before by unexpected crises, according to the CCIC, an umbrella organization that works with several Canadian aid agencies.

"When you look at the commitments to Africa in Kananaskis it was supposed to be a priority, but it's been side-swiped by commitments to Afghanistan and Iraq," CCIC spokesperson Katia Gianneschi said, referring to the 2002 meeting of G8 countries held in Kananaskis, Alberta.

Aid analysts believe that more money is needed for foreign aid if the federal government intends to meet its promise to fulfill the United Nations target of allocating 0.7 per cent of national income to the world's poorer countries by 2015.

While Canada has always delivered the aid it has pledged for past emergency relief efforts, the government needs to ensure that the monies directed to the tsunami don't take away from core aid budgets, and that more money would go to international aid.

"Quite often ministers will make a pledge and not know where it's going to come from," Mark Fried, spokesperson for Oxfam Canada said.

Of the $425 million Canada has committed, $160 million would be spent on long-term development assistance over a four-year period - an amount that Oxfam Canada is hoping would be "new money."

While Canada has added $248 million to international assistance in last year's budget, increasing Canada's foreign aid contribution to $3.3 billion, funds for development aid have been decreasing among the G7 countries, according to the Montreal-based Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI).

Yet, the federal agency responsible for distributing foreign aid says Canada is still committed to providing long-term aid.

"Disasters happen, wars happen, and Canada will continue to commit to increasing official aid," said Suzanne Quinn, a spokesperson for the Canadian International Development Agency.

"What we've committed in 2002, we've not strayed from."

In the weeks following the tsunami, U.N humanitarian chief Jan Egeland and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have also expressed their concern that international attention to the victims of the tsunami would divert relief efforts, particularly in Africa.

"We have the world's eyes focused on the tsunami of the Indian Ocean, but the world continues to overlook the silent tsunamis of deaths from malaria which take every month the number of people that died in the Asian tragedy," Director of the U.N. Millenium Project Jeffrey Sachs told Associated Press on Monday.

The tsunami death toll pales in comparison to the millions of people dying from AIDS, with 2.2 million people dying of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa alone in 2003. Twelve million children are also ophaned by the epidemic.

In Darfur, where the decades long civil war in Sudan has just ended with the signing of a peace agreement last week, over one million people have been displaced in the region.

Yet, the federal government's current donation to victims of the tsunami is over half of the $600 million CIDA has committed to the AIDS epidemic since 2000.

The tsunami commitment is also 10 times the amount Canada has pledged to the ongoing refugee crisis in Sudan through CIDA.

But, the CCIC warns that comparisons shouldn't be made between government commitments for ongoing crises and emergencies.

"We can't make comparisons of apples to oranges. This is a response to a human crisis. You have to respond quickly" Gianneschi said.

The magnitude of the disaster, which affected up to 12 countries and killed over 162,000 people, exceeds "any human disaster in recent memory."