I came across an interesting Wikipedia page today as I read about the devastation in Haiti. It details the international response to the quake by the governments of the world. According to the article, the governments of over 50 countries so far have pledged various forms of assistance. The list so far includes: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guyana, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Macedonia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Phillipines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Republic of China (Taiwan), Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City, and Venezuela.

What's missing from the article? Any reference to private assistance. I'll be watching it to see if this problem is rectified in the days and weeks ahead. I did see a Reuters article which supplied a small, initial list of private donors. The list includes: UPS, Wal-Mart, Bank of America, UNICEF, Lowe's, Home Depot, National Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia, Abbott Laboratories, GoDaddy, Wells Fargo, Federal Express, Kraft Foods, American Red Cross, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, 3M, the Florida Panthers hockey team, Rogers Communications, and Walt Disney company.

I fully expect that second list will grow dramatically in the next few days. There are also reports that individuals are “tweeting” their own small donations in large numbers. Undoubtedly, human generosity will continue to jump to the fore in the face of tragedy.

The other thing I'll be watching is how well the international governments response gets coordinated, and how quickly it happens. One of the biggest complaints about the handling of Katrina is that the U.S., state, and local government responses were very poorly managed. What happens when 50 governments get involved in the same crisis?

Of course, the biggest question is: how many initial survivors can be rescued, and how quickly? That must be everyone's goal: to insure that the survivors really do survive.