IMMEDIATE AID AND ASSISTANCE:
With governments currently announcing massive new pledges of donations to the aid effort almost daily, there are expectations this will continue at the conference.

But there will be little time during the one-day meeting for the dozens of prime ministers, presidents, foreign ministers and international and aid agency officials attending to discuss the most pressing concrete issues of getting food, clean water, and sanitation to the most needy.

Aid experts say, however, it is vital that the aid effort is better co-ordinated, between the United Nations, the aid agencies, donor organisations, and private donors, to ensure that the aid is given in an effective way and gets speedily to those in most pressing need.

The meeting "is an opportunity to take stock of what is really known in terms of numbers. It is an opportunity not so much for new pledges, but at least to take stock of what kind of scale of resources are available," UN Children's Fund chief Carol Bellamy told AFP.

More than two million people were displaced by the disaster and relief agencies have warned the death toll could rise sharply above its near 150,000 unless aid reaches them soon.

The most urgent needs are for a clean water supply, medicines, shelter and food, the UN and relief agencies have said.

RECONSTRUCTION:
After the immediate aid effort, the process of reconstruction will have to take place. The most devastated areas are in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, with the
northern Indonesian province of Aceh by far the worst hit area.

Major economic damage has been light, with companies estimating insured damage at between five and 10 billion dollars.

But many uninsured properties in towns and villages in remote areas, like large parts of the coastal region of Aceh, the Indian Andaman Islands, and in Sri Lanka, have been virtually wiped off the map.

The towns and villages in the region around Meulaboh in Aceh are among the worst hit.

In other badly-hit areas, like southern Thailand and southern India, reconstruction can be expected to be relatively rapid. In Thailand, in particular, funding for much of the reconstruction will come from either insurers or the tourist industry. Meeting the challenge in Indonesia will be far harder, aid experts say.

WARNING SYSTEMS:
Indonesia said Monday it had already begun work with its neighbours to create an early warning system for the Indian Ocean region to ensure that the huge death toll from the savage tsunami will never be repeated.

Such a system already exists for the Pacific Ocean region, but, while the technical side of the system would be easy to put in place in the Indian Ocean region, it will still be a major challenge to make it work.

Experts say that to make such system effective, a major task will be training the public around the region on how best to respond to warnings and mobilising sometimes creaking bureaucracies to ensure warnings received are put
out.

COMMUNITY-BUILDING AND TRAUMA SUPPORT
The victims, besides requiring immediate aid and assistance, will need long-term support in rebuilding shattered communities and broken lives, disaster recovery experts say.

Like the reconstruction efforts, these are likely to be major and long-term tasks.

Some governments have started to fly in trauma-counsellors and also to look for lessons from elsewhere in the world about seeking to rebuild communities shattered by disasters whether natural or man-made.

Regional experts warn, however, that this effort will be made particularly complex by the complicated political situation on the ground. Insurgencies are taking place in parts of southern Thailand, in Aceh and there has been a long-running civil war in Sri Lanka and this is likely to complicate government responses to the regions, experts warn.