JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – The outpouring of pledges for victims of the Asian tsunami has been huge. But some donors have failed to make good on their promises after past disasters, and aid groups say they will keep the pressure on to make sure the help recently announced with great fanfare doesn’t evaporate.

World leaders who gathered in the Indonesian capital this week vowed they’d stand by survivors for the long haul. Nearly $4 billion has been promised so far.

It’s reminiscent, on a larger scale, of donors’ promises of more than $1 billion after an earthquake killed 26,000 people in Bam, Iran, in December 2003. A year later now, Iran says it’s gotten only $17.5 million.

In Central America, the story was the same after Hurricane Mitch roared through in 1998. The aid group Oxfam says payments fell $2 billion short of promises.

And critics chide President Bush for failing to win full funding for his Millennium Challenge Account program to help poor countries trying to open markets, promote democracy and abide by human rights standards. He promised $4 billion for 2005, then asked Congress for $2.5 billion and got $1.5 billion.

“There are grounds for concern because of what’s happened in the past,” said Oxfam Australia director Andrew Hewett.

But he and others were optimistic that things might be different this time because of the deeply felt public sympathy for victims of the huge Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that killed an estimated 150,000 across southern Asia and as far as Africa.

“Save the Children has been incredibly impressed, the goodness that has been shown all over the world,” said Mike Novell, the group’s deputy Asia director. “That public interest is going to put a lot of pressure on everybody to meet their commitments.”

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong urged leaders to act immediately, saying the world’s focus on the tsunami victims wouldn’t last.

“Before long, some other event elsewhere in the world, such as terrorism in Iraq during the election later in January, will grab the world’s attention,” he said. “But people living in … (tsunami-hit) regions will have to live with the hard problems for a long time to come.”

Hewett said Oxfam would try to track money pledged by governments. He also urged citizens of donor countries to hold their leaders accountable.

“Ordinary people around the world have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to assist the tsunami survivors,” said James Ensor, Oxfam’s policy director. “They have every right to be outraged if their governments’ promises made … in Jakarta do not materialize.”

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said at the meeting that much of the tsunami money has already arrived, but he pressed leaders to keep delivering.

“We need the rest of the pledges to be converted into cash quickly,” Annan said.

Visiting Indonesia’s shattered Aceh province with Annan on Friday, World Bank President James Wolfensohn said he was confident funds were on the way.

“The money is there,” he said. “Now we need a fast and transparent way to channel the billions of dollars pledged in Jakarta into the hundreds of dollars for a poor fisherman in Aceh to rebuild his boat … or for a community to rebuild its homes.”

Britain’s International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, in Jakarta after a trip to Aceh, said seeing the destruction there had driven home for him the importance of a long-term international commitment to help those whose lives were upended when the waves swept in.

He promised that his country, which has pledged $95 million to tsunami victims and says it will give more, will make good on its promises.

“I think there’s an obligation of everybody who has pledged support to ensure that that’s delivered in the form of practical commitments and practical help,” he said. “It’s for each country to hold itself to account.”

AP-ES-01-08-05 0517EST