Yangon, Myanmar ? A 50-nation conference to pledge funds for survivors of Myanmar’s cyclone convened today after the country’s xenophobic junta promised to open their doors to critically needed foreign assistance.

Three weeks after the cyclone struck, frustrated foreign aid workers were ratcheting up preparations to finally go into the Irrawaddy delta with food, drinking water, medicine and other relief.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who had won permission from the ruling generals to allow in foreign relief workers, arrived in Myanmar early today to attend the conference of some 50 countries along with U.N. and non-governmental aid agencies.

After weeks of stubbornly refusing assistance, Myanmar’s ruling generals have told the United Nations they are now willing to allow workers of all nationalities to help survivors of the storm that left about 78,000 people dead and another 56,000 missing.

The ability to assess the situation will be critical in securing pledges from foreign governments, and the junta’s about-face was seen as a concession to get more aid when the potential donor nations meet in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city.

Myanmar’s generals have a long history of making promises to top U.N. envoys, then breaking them when the international spotlight on their country fades.

The world body has repeatedly failed to convince the military to make democratic reforms and to release opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose five-year period of house arrest expires this week.

Nyan Win, spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy, said today there has been “no sign at all” whether she would be released. He said the decision on whether to free or continue her detention would probably come Monday.

Today’s donor conference in Yangon was aimed at finally bringing desperately needed help to homeless and hungry survivors of the cyclone.

An estimate released Saturday by the U.N. said that while about 42 percent of the 2.4 million people affected by the storm had received some kind of emergency assistance, only 23 percent of the 2 million people living in the hardest-hit areas had been reached.

Ban said Myanmar’s ruling generals had told him that international aid workers will be able “to freely reach the needy people,” a pledge the junta has not publicly acknowledged.

The United Nations has launched an emergency appeal for $201 million. That figure will likely increase once disaster relief experts are able to survey the stricken Irrawaddy delta.

So far, the U.N. has received about $50 million in contributions and about $42.5 million in pledges in response to the appeal, said Stephanie Bunker, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Myanmar has estimated the economic damage at about $11 billion.