With two major natural disasters in less than two weeks the response of the governments of China and Burma could not be more different.

Burma's military junta is refusing to permit the steady flow of foreign relief supplies into help the victims of Cyclone Nargis. In China, the response has been quick and transparent, but many challenges lie ahead to help the survivors.

Jim Middleton speaks to members of three aid agencies for their views on the difficulties in the respective disaster zones: James Ensor, the director of public policy at Oxfam Australia; Graham Tardif, an emergency specialist with World Vision, and Paul Cawthorne, of Medecins Sans Frontieres' (MSF) who is coordinating MSF's efforts in Burma.

Jim Middleton, Presenter: Paul, I'll start with you. Have you ever seen anything like the Burma experience, hundreds of thousands dead, millions left homeless and close to point blank cooperation from the government, refusal to allow free access for aid agencies, anything like that you've seen before?

Paul Cawthorne, Medecins Sans Frontieres, Thailand: Well, the tsunami was obviously the big crisis previously, but there, aid agencies were able to get in there very, very quickly. They had no problems with visa restrictions, et cetera. Here, the frustration of our teams both on the ground and the teams waiting to get in is just enormous. We're getting some aid into Yangon. We've had five charter flights in this week. We're getting a few expatriate experts, water sanitation experts in, but everything is moving very, very slowly compared to any other relief organisation that we've been involved in the past.

Jim Middleton: With disaster relief, it's difficult at the best of times, even with the best will in the world, how do you coordinate it, how do you go about it?

Graham Tardif, World Vision: We'll coordinate with the United Nations groups in the particular sectors we're working in and they will assign geographic or camp locations or particular subset operations to particular organisations that have expertise in those areas so that we're not duplicating.

Jim Middleton: And Paul Cawthorne in Bangkok, when notice came of this, of Cyclone Nargis, just exactly what did you have ready to go? Do you have supply dumps of food and mosquito netting, that sort of stuff, or how did you actually manage to respond, or try to respond so quickly?

"We need to get more aid in, more quickly." Paul Cawthorne

Paul Cawthorne: Well, we were very lucky because we already have quite large operations based in Myanmar (Burma). Before the cyclone hit we already had over 40 expatriate staff and over 1,200 national staff in country. We already had big warehouses for exactly this kind of emergency situation. So we could actually get moving quite quickly. The problem is now the teams on the field…they're getting tired. We're beginning to need to reinforce these teams. We need some additional expertise, as I was saying earlier, particularly water and sanitation engineers, which we didn't have a big number of prior to the cyclone. So we could get moving rapidly, we now need to reinforce the actions that are already ongoing and for that, we need to get more aid in, more quickly, and we need to get more expertise in the field.

Jim Middleton: With so many people in country in these circumstances, does that imply that you have an ongoing dialogue with the Burmese authorities, that you are in constant contact with them in normal times, let alone when something like this cyclone strikes?

Paul Cawthorne: We've had programs in Myanmar for well over 15 years and of course, constantly in contact with our partners in the government to try and ease the situation. Of course, at the moment we're continuing to try and have contact with key people within the government, both to talk to them about getting cargo and aid shipments in, and also we're trying to talk to them to ease the restrictions of visa restrictions and get some of these desperately needed experts into Burma and out of Yangon and actually down into the Delta where they're needed. We are actually having some problems...

Jim Middleton: It is weeks now since this cyclone struck and it does appear that in terms of trying to get these experts, sanitation engineers and the like, you're not having a great deal of success, are you?

Paul Cawthorne: We're getting people in slowly. We're getting a few people in each day. I've just been informed that another emergency coordinator's been issued a visa and will be flying into Yangon tomorrow. We managed to get six people in yesterday, so it's slowly, slowly, but not in the numbers that we really need. Aid and people, we're not getting them into the country in the numbers that we need and the amounts we need, and then the difficulties of moving both the materials and the experts down to the Delta from Yangon is another massive challenge.

Jim Middleton: James Ensor, just going back to that question of the logistics, just how do you organise things? Do you have stuff already on the ground in areas like South East Asia ready to go in case something strikes, or do you have to build it all from the ground up?

"We know without fresh water and sanitation…that the risk of death through water-borne disease escalates enormously." James Ensor

James Ensor, Oxfam Australia: No, we have warehouse facilities in various parts of the world. Oxfam's specialty is in water and sanitation, so everything from buckets to pumps to tanks. However, in a situation such as the situation in Burma, we have around 90 technical experts who are available, who are ready to go… who are not able to obtain visas and the frustration here is that we know without fresh water and sanitation, very quickly after cyclones that the risk of death through water-borne disease escalates enormously. And we know we can be pumping water to ten of thousands of people within about 60 hours of having those visas approved. We can move material out of warehouses in country within hours.

Jim Middleton: GrahamTardif, in terms of, you've got long experience in dealing with natural disasters, how do you judge when an operation has been a success? For example, is what happened with the Pakistan earthquake a good example of the way in which things should be done and achieved, what about the tsunami?

"We would normally, to judge the success of an operation, bring in some external evaluators."

Graham Tardif: I think the tsunami was generally successful. It was a much, much larger operation because we did a significant amount of construction in that and that's always very difficult. We would normally, to judge the success of an operation, bring in some external evaluators, go across the community for a month or two asking, conducting surveys, qualitative and quantitative surveys to find out, what the communities themselves thought about the success of the response, and in the tsunami's case it was a couple of years into it. I think from World Vision's perspective, the independent evaluations were very successful and very positive. We would rely on those independent valuations to determine the success of an operation.

Jim Middleton: Better get close to wrapping it up. James Ensor, if you were going to give yourselves a score out of 10, just in the case of China, how would you rate Oxfam's efforts in terms of meeting the challenge of a massive and tragic disaster?

James Ensor: Very early to tell. At this stage, our initial response, I think, has been timely. Having teams in there within 24 hours, however, the ultimate assessment is not to be made by Oxfam but it's to be made by those people who are receiving assistance from us, and that's the way we judge our performance, ultimately.

Jim Middleton: And Paul Cawthorne in Bangkok, how would you rate what you've done, what you've tried to do and what you've achieved and what's the priority now?

Paul Cawthorne: For Myanmar, I think we've managed in very, very difficult circumstances to do quite a lot. I mean, we already have 20 teams down in the Delta. We have trucks moving every day from Yangon, then loading on to boats. So I think with the restrictions we've been facing, the difficulties we've been facing, our teams are doing a great job, but they're getting tired, they need reinforcement, so we need to get more people and equipment in there.

Jim Middleton: Paul Cawthorne in Bangkok, thank you very much. And in the studio, James Ensor from Oxfam and Graham Tardif from World Vision, thank you both gentlemen for being here.