For more on M. Nigel Fisher’s interview, visit MINUSTAH’s website.

Read the article from the Newsletter of the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office

10 PROJECTS FOR A TOTAL AMOUNT OF USD 127,680,000

Government ownership and community engagement

Four out of 10 programmes directly focus on capacity development of government institutions

Approximately 30% of funds transferred to Government entities for direct implementation

16/6 project and Milk Processing initiative fully inserted in Government structures

Extension of the geographical coverage of the South Coast Initiative from 10 to 18 communes at Government request

Strong government engagement in the Support to Housing and Neighborhoods reconstruction project and the initiative on Seismic Reduction in the North

IHRC capacities strengthened to fulfill its mandate, which ended in October 2011

Although the camp population has declined dramatically since 2010, almost half a million people still live in camps, exposed to cholera outbreaks and risks of flooding that will be exacerbated by the upcoming rainy and hurricane season from May to November. The nationwide cholera epidemic, officially diagnosed on 20 October 2010, has already killed more than 7,000 people and sickened some 500,000 Haitians.

The US$ 382 million funding request made in 2011 by the humanitarian community through the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) only received 55 per cent of funding
required, resulting in the progressive – and continuing – withdrawal of many partners providing critical services in camps and cholera-affected areas. Today, the 2012 CAP of US$ 231 million is funded at 8.5 per cent.

Due to this funding shortfall, Haiti was selected to receive an emergency allocation of US$ 8 million dollars through the United Nations Central Emergency Fund (CERF) window for underfunded crises. This grant will enable partners to address urgent priority needs, but it will not be sufficient to match the many challenges faced by humanitarian actors in 2012.

The humanitarian community is urgently requesting US$ 53.9 million for the April-June period. This will allow the Haitian government, UN agencies and partners to:

• guarantee services for those who will not be able to move out of camps before the rainy season;
• protect camps vulnerable to flooding and respond to damage caused by climatic hazards;
• protect the most vulnerable from sexual abuse and violence perpetuated in camps;
• coordinate and respond to cholera outbreaks;
• provide potable water, solid waste management and hygiene promotion activities in targeted isolated camps where the displaced are not able to access water, hygiene and sanitation services from nearby neighborhoods;
• increase the pace of return and relocation initiatives for camp residents via the construction of transitional shelters and the provision of rental subsidies;
• continue the preparations currently under way ahead of the next rainy and hurricane season, which aim, inter alia, to ensure that enough stocks of relief items will be available and that schools used as evacuation shelters can sustain heavy rains and strong winds.

Underfunding threatens to stunt growing relocation initiatives to safe housing that already benefited hundreds of thousands of IDPs. It threatens to reverse gains achieved in the fight against cholera through the promotion of sanitary and hygiene practices. It threatens the very existence of hundreds of thousands of IDPs still living in camps.

For further information, please call:

OCHA-Haiti: Emmanuelle Schneider, +509 3702 5176, E-mail: Schneider1@un.org;

OCHA-New York: Amanda Pitt, + 212 963 4129, E-mail: pitta@un.org

OCHA press releases are available at http://www.unocha.org/ or www.reliefweb.int

Port-au-Prince, 23 March 2012—In her second visit to Haiti after the devastating January 2010 earthquake United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark said she was impressed by the visible progress seen in the capital Port-au-Prince two years after the devastating earthquake that rocked the country killing 200,000 people.

“I saw a huge difference from the desolation I saw four days after the earthquake: The streets of Port-au-Prince are alive again,” Helen Clark said. “I feel very confident in the capacity of the Haitian people to rebuild their own country.”

More than 60 percent of the 10 million cubic metres of rubble caused by last year’s Haiti earthquake has been removed in one of the largest-scale clearance operations of its kind by the United Nations and partners, coordinated by UNDP.

Over 80,000 buildings in the capital city Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas collapsed after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti on 12 January 2010 leaving a mass of concrete, steel and other debris, equivalent to 4,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

UNDP helped the Government develop a National Strategy for Debris Management and created a Debris Stock Exchange to coordinate the reuse of rubble to rebuild buildings houses and infrastructure.   For this year a total of 25,000 cubic metres have been allocated to several projects and organizations through the Debris Stock Exchange.

“Rubble removal has been very impressive,” UN Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator Nigel Fisher said. “More than half the rubble has been removed at a much faster rate than in Aceh, Indonesia, after the tsunami and in lower Manhattan after 9/11.”

While meeting with government officials, Helen Clark stressed the need to continue UNDP’s long-term partnership with the government to beef up civil protection and reduce risks of future disasters, while continuing to enhance Haitian institutions’ capacity to deliver quality services to the population.

The UNDP Administrator also met with a group of Haitian women leaders from the private sector, government and civil society. The women ranged from agribusiness leaders in the fruit exporting business and the minister of tourism to powerful head of national non-governmental organizations advocating for women’s issues.

Even though women head more than 40 percent of Haitian households, they hold only four percent of seats in parliament and almost 60 percent of women cannot read or write.

Haiti also has the highest fertility rate in the region: 4.8 per woman (between the ages of 15 and 49), and the highest maternal mortality rate in Latin America and the Caribbean: 670 deaths for every 100 thousand born.

“With more than half of the Haitian population being women and with over 50 percent of the Haitian population being below the age of 25, it is time to transform this potential into real opportunities,” said Maryse Penette-Kedar who is a senior consultant to Royal Caribbean and president of its Haiti affiliate.

Helen Clark also visited Place St. Pierre, one of the six priority internally displaced camps whose residents have all been re-housed through the Government of Haiti’s flagship “16/6 Project”, which seeks to  revamp quake-damaged communities to boost the safe return of camp residents.

Today, Helen Clark will inaugurate the Northern Seismic Risk Plan Project in the northern coastal town of Cap Haitien along with Minister of Interior and Local Development Thierry Mayard-Paul, Departmental Delegate Yvon Alteon and Cap Haitien Mayor Wilbreon Bean.

Yesterday, the Administrator took part of the national launch of “Haiti Rebuilds: A Journey of Hope”, a 20-minute ‘road movie’ produced by UNDP and created by Cine Institute—Haiti’s only professional film academy based in the southern coastal town of Jacmel.

To wrap up her four-day visit, the UNDP Administrator will visit the Community Support Centre for House Self-Repairs, known locally by the French acronym CARMEN. The Government of Haiti-UNDP initiative has been empowering quake-affected communities in Port-au-Prince and the western town of Léogâne to directly take charge of house reparations, with engineering assessments and construction trainings.

Eight thousand families have already registered to take part of the project, benefitting 19,000 people. Five thousand participants have been trained in construction techniques and 3,000 damaged houses have already been evaluated.

More than 2,000 mobile money transfers are planned in the next three months to 1,000 low-income families receiving subsidies totaling US$500 to purchase construction materials such as cement, iron and wood at selected project-certified stores for high-quality assurance at affordable prices.

For more information, please contact:

In Port-au-Prince: Chirine El-Labbane,  chirine.el-labbane@undp.org; +509 3600 7455

In New York: Carolina Azevedo, carolina.azevedo@undp.org; +1 212 906 6127

D’après le Cluster Abris d’urgence et Coordination et Gestion des camps (CCCM), des actions d’urgence ont été entreprises pour apporter une première réponse aux familles victimes à travers entre autres la distribution de tentes, de kits d’hygiène et de bâches. En termes de prévention aux inondations et glissement de terrain, l’OIM, parmi d’autres agences, a fourni 1130 bâches, 45 tentes et des matériaux de mitigation (brouettes, piques, pelles, sacs en polyéthylène) aux populations de 14 camps.Un travail nécessaire dans la prévention et la limitation des dégâts.

À l’heure actuelle, plusieurs actions rapides sont indispensables afin de répondre aux besoins des familles qui vivent dans des conditions précaires notamment :

-        l’accroissement des travaux de curage et réhabilitation des canaux de drainage ;

-        l’augmentation des efforts pour la prévention des inondations à travers la distribution de matériaux destinés aux travaux de mitigation ;

-        la réponse à la détérioration des abris d’urgence.

« Les personnes déplacées vivant encore dans les camps et dans les autres endroits à haut risque restent toujours exposées alors que les mesures adéquates de réduction des risques de désastres sont insuffisantes », indique Luca Dall’Oglio, chef de mission de l’OIM Haïti.

Le Bureau de la Coordination des affaires humanitaires des Nations Unies  (OCHA) est fortement préoccupé par le sous-financement des besoins critiques en vue de la réponse aux urgences. Depuis son lancement en décembre 2011, l’Appel global consolidé (CAP) de 2012, d’un montant de 231 millions de dollars, n’a été financé qu’à hauteur de 7%.
Avec ce niveau de financement, la communauté humanitaire ne sera pas en mesure de fournir le soutien nécessaire au gouvernement haïtien pour la préparation à la saison des pluies et la saison cyclonique.

Selon le Cluster Abris d’urgence et CCCM, sur près d’un demi million de déplacés, près de 360.000 personnes pourraient être encore dans les camps à la fin de l’année 2012 en l’absence d’une accélération des solutions de retour et relogement.

Les pluies récentes font également craindre une recrudescence des cas de choléra, particulièrement dans les zones rurales où les services de santé sont précaires.

Pour avantage d’information veuillez contacter:

OCHA-Haïti: Emmanuelle Schneider, +509
3702 5176, E-mail: schneider1@un.org

OCHA-New York: Amanda Pitt, + 212 963 4129,
E-mail: pitta@un.org

OCHA press releases are available at http://www.unocha.org/ or
www.reliefweb.int

The United Nations system in Haiti works with the Ministry for the Condition of Women and Women’s Rights and national non-governmental partners to advocate with national authorities and the population for women’s rights (political, economic, cultural and social) according to the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women ratified by Haiti in 1981.

Find out more about the activities of the United Nations in Haiti for International Women’s Day:

Read about the National Forum organized by the Ministry for the Condition of Women and Women’s Rights and other UN-supported efforts for the 8th of March

Launch of a UNDP-supported initiative for Haitian women’s entrepreneurs (press release in French)

Read the special issue of Chimen Lakay on sexual violence against women, produced by the United Nations joint programme on conflict prevention and social cohesion in Haiti. Chimen Lakay is a free magazine in creole for a wide dissemination among the population.

Watch videos featuring Haitian women’s entrepreneurial spirit

Read the message of the UN Secretary-General on the occasion of International Women’s Day (also available in in French)

Read the message of the Executive Director of UN WOMEN on the occasion of International Women’s Day (in French)

Additional UN documentation and resources on women’s rights and situation in Haiti available here

View the Full Report Online

Download the Reports in PDF Format:

• English version
• French version

Port-au-Prince, 10 January 2012 – Despite numerous difficulties and structural challenges, signs of progress and positive results multiply in Haiti as the country marks the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake that hit the country on January 12, 2010.

“These achievements are real and their impact shouldn’t be underestimated” said Nigel Fisher, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti. “They were made possible through the contribution of countless ordinary Haitians, civil society organizations, government institutions, the private sector and the country’s many international partners.”

Between July 2010 and November 2011, the number of persons living in camps has decreased by 65 percent, to 520 000. Every month, programs such as the 16/6 Project, launched last year by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission and President Michel Martelly, allow thousands of families to find alternative, often permanent housing solutions and resume a more normal life. More than 5 million cubic meters of debris have been cleared from the streets, half of the amount generated by the earthquake. The rate of clearance has been indisputably faster than in post-tsunami Aceh or at the post-9/11 World Trade Centre site. There are now more children in primary school than before the earthquake. Child immunization rates today are significantly higher than they were at mid-decade. A national disaster management contingency plan exists as well a contingency plan for each of the ten departments of the country.

Under the leadership of the Ministry of Public Health and Population, a national cholera alert system is in place; large-scale awareness campaigns and a nationwide network of treatment centres have translated into an overall decrease in both infection and case fatality rates. Various UN-supported programs have created much-needed employment while contributing to rebuilding essential infrastructure. With the assistance of Haitian and international experts seconded by UN organisations to various ministries and institutions, long-term recovery and development plans are being developed, adopted and implemented in areas as diverse as agriculture, education, health, housing and nutrition.

These results and many others are detailed in the Report of the United Nations in Haiti 2011 which is officially released today. “While we recognize the reality of progress”, added Nigel Fisher, “we should not be distracted from the enormous tasks confronting Haiti. Massive and sustained efforts are still required. Short-term assistance must continue to be provided to more than half a million displaced persons still stranded in camps. There are numerous longer-term challenges such as reinforcing central and local governance institutions, strengthening the rule of law, creating a sound, enabling economic environment, accessible social services, improving water supply and sanitation facilities, supporting Haiti’s rich network of civil society organizations, and helping Haitians emerge from poverty. International partners will need to invest in strengthening national institutions so that Haiti can be effectively governed by Haitians, but clear ground rules are needed to guide that partnership and to provide a foundation of mutual trust and accountability.”

“The crisis that followed the first round of elections and the political stalemate that ensued between May and October of last year constituted major obstacles which limited the capacity of the government and its partners to reach several of the objectives they had set for themselves in 2011” concluded Nigel Fisher. “Now, with a new government in place, Haiti is – once again – at a moment of opportunity. While the country’s political and economic leaders bear the prime responsibility for leading their country towards sustainable development, they cannot do so without the accompaniment of international partners. The United Nation System remains a committed partner and will continue to work alongside the government and with the people of Haiti. ”

Contact information:

Emmanuelle Schneider
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Spokesperson/Public Information Officer
Mobile: +509 3702 5176
Email: schneider1@un.org

Sylvie van den Wildenberg
Spokesperson
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
Office: +509 2244 2050 (Ext.: 2691)
Mobile: +509 3702 9042
Email: vandenwildenberg@un.org

Elisabeth Diaz
Office of the Resident Coordinator / Humanitarian Coordinator
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Mobile : +509 3791 9481
Email: elisabeth.diaz@undp.org

In this introduction I will look at the context of earthquake and impact of the cholera epidemic – and at the progress made as well as the tremendous challenges still facing the country and people of Haiti.

For Haitians, 2010 will long be remembered as the year of multiple crises – the year of the earthquake and the displacement of 2.3 million people; the year of the cholera epidemic; a year of political instability and election-related challenges.

But beyond these images, the devastating impact of the 2010 crises further highlighted decades of chronic political instability lack of basic social services and economic opportunities that left so many Haitians in deep poverty and chronic vulnerability.

Before January 12, 2010, Haiti was already the poorest country in the Southern hemisphere:

• 75% of Haitians earned less than $2 a day
• 70% did not have stable jobs
• 85% of schools and hospitals were private, charging much more than the average Haitian could afford to pay. This resulted in more than 50% of children being denied an education.
• The great majority of the population (70-80 %) had no access to electricity and relied on charcoal and wood for cooking.
• Only 5% of the roads were in good condition.

The earthquake exacerbated pre-existing levels of extreme vulnerability. It also severely affected the response capacity of the Government of Haiti and its partners: the government lost thousands of civil servants and most of its key infrastructure was destroyed. 102 United Nations personnel perished and many more suffered terrible personal losses.

Despite these very difficult circumstances, the humanitarian response was one of the largest ever mounted and continues to help survivors of this tragedy – the most destructive urban natural disaster in recent history – rebuild their lives and their country.

A number of large-scale recovery projects were launched in 2010 and many more in 2011, and their impact is starting to be visible. 

Some numbers:

Post-earthquake displacement:  Public sector bilateral and multilateral donors have committed or disbursed approx $2.4 billion for the humanitarian response to the January 2010 earthquake, the cholera epidemic, hurricane and storm preparedness and response, and the food insecurity facing the most vulnerable Haitians.

In July 2010, there were 1.5 million Haitians sheltered in camps, regularly provided with clean water, food, medical care. Many of them had access to latrines for the first time.

• Today there are under 550,000 people left in camps – a drop of 2/3, which represents real progress.

But still a huge caseload. As  housing and resettlement programmes accelerate, many hundreds of thousands of camp dwellers still have life-saving needs at a time when humanitarian funding is decreasing and too many partners are closing essential operations – cleaning latrines and waste removal from camps, for example – as their funding runs out.

Cholera: As you know, more than 6,700 Haitians have succumbed to the cholera epidemic so far and  almost 500,000 have been infected.

If we can take any encouragement, it is that:

• National cholera response and alert systems are now in place in a country that had no such infrastructure before the cholera outbreak.
• The monthly case load has dropped from a 84,000 high in November 2010, to 19,000 in April of this year, to 13,500 in October.
• The case fatality rate has also dropped markedly, to just over 1% today. This still has to be brought down further.

The epidemic will continue into next year, albeit at a reduced rate and resources will continue to be needed for prevention, treatment and longer term measures to improve water supply protection and sanitation. 

Early recovery and development

At the New York Conference, held on March 31, 2010, 55 public sector donors made pledges in support of the Government of Haiti’s Action Plan for Recovery and Development to the amount of $4.60 billion in aid for Haiti in 2010 and 2011 (in addition to approximately USD 1 billion in debt forgiveness).

• To date, 88 percent of these funds – that’s about $4 billion – have been either disbursed (43 per cent) or committed to specific programmes and projects (45 per cent).  

This is a lot of money in Haiti, a country with an estimated GDP in the 2010/11 fiscal year of $8.6 billion.

I would like to put it into some kind of context: $4.6 billion promised for two years, for the poorest country in the hemisphere, a country of almost 10 million people, which requires regeneration on every front.  $4.6 billion over two years. Let’s average that out to an annual $2.3 billion average.

New York City has a population of 19.4 million – about twice that of Haiti. What is the New York City operating budget for 2012? It is $69.5 billion – exactly 30 times more than that annual $2.3 billion average committed to Haiti. 

There has been much criticism of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission about what it has not done. But what has it done?

During the first 18 months of its mandate (April 2010-October 2011), the IHRC approved 89 priority projects – for a total budget of $3.2 billion, covering key priority sectors, such as transport and infrastructure, public administration, debris removal, education, energy, health, housing and urban development, job creation, water and sanitation and cross-sectoral projects.  More are in the pipeline.

There has been uncertainty about the future of the Commission, but last Friday both President Martelly and PM Conille made clear their desire to renew the mandate and to work with parliament to do so.

Recovery/development examples

It is a myth that no reconstruction has take place in Haiti. A number of key reconstruction projects are underway.

> Just yesterday, the Northern industrial park project was launched. There is already sufficient investment in place to assure 20,000 new jobs and with additional investment now being sought, the aim is to increase this to 60,000 jobs.

> President Martelly’s new Investment Commission is also seeking to tackle the legal and bureaucratic impediments that currently make investment in Haiti so difficult.

> More than 400,000 people have been employed in labour-intensive jobs, including rubble removal, irrigation works and and community infrastructure development.

If we look at housing:

• Post-earthquake, nearly 414,000 houses have been subject to damage assessment.
• More than 21,000 houses have been repaired.
• Almost 100,000 transitional shelters have been built, with another 11,000 on track to be completed in December. This means that in 2011, almost 7,000 transitional shelters a month have been completed, building on the 31,000 completed by end-December 2010, one year after the earthquake.
• If I can make a comparison: in Aceh, one year after the tsunami, just over 6,000 transitional shelters had been built – compared with 31,000 in the first year in Haiti.

How about debris removal?

• Much earthquake debris remains. BUT, almost 50% of it has now been cleared – that means 5 million cubic metres of debris have gone.  That is much faster than the rate of removal of debris at the World Trade Centre site after 9/11. 
• Again, compare with Aceh: there, it took five and a half years to remove 1.3 cubic metres of debris and waste.

Road infrastructure:

In a small country, 200km from north to south and from east to west, with hardly 5% of its roads covered in hard top before the earthquake, some 430 kms of roads have already been constructed or rehabilitated since the earthquake, necessary infrastructure for economic recovery.

Education:

Only half of Haiti’s children were in primary school before the earthquake – that’s about 1 million children. Already there are now more children in Haitian schools than before the earthquake, and the ongoing “Back to School Campaign” aims to push the numbers up even more. 

• 1.1. million school children are receiving a midday meal every day.

• Over 650 schools have been repaired.
• 75% of children of families still living in the camps are going to school – that’s higher than the national average, and these children are from the poorest families.

Important efforts in the health sector are enabling the reconstruction of dozens of hospitals and health centres and training of medical personnel.

Agricultural production increased in 2010 and again in 2011; new agricultural credit facilities and micro loans are reaching tens of thousands of rural Haitians.

…..

I could go on, but my point is: however justified criticism is that aid disbursement is slow or that reconstruction should be moving faster – and it will never be fast enough for Haiti’s long-suffering population – the narrative of failure and lack of progress goes too far.

And bear in mind that what we face in Haiti today is not just a task of rebuilding after a major earthquake. It is about rebuilding an entire country whose basic economic and social infrastructure was effectively broken well before the earthquake – I gave you the data at the outset.

Some last comparisons again:

The 7.2 magnitude Kobe earthquake in Japan in 1995 claimed the lives of 6,400 and left 300,000 homeless. With all the resources available in Japan, it still took seven years for the population, income levels and industrial sector of Kobe to recover to pre-earthquake levels.

In 1998, Hurricane Mitch took the lives of an estimated 8,000 people. It took approximately four to five years for full recovery in the various countries affected, countries much more well-endowed than Haiti, Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere, is starting from a much lower base than any of these countries.

In closing, let me make my point again:

Of course Haiti faces enormous challenges today – of improving governance and public sector reform, of developing its social infrastructure, of housing, of strengthening its police force and rule of law institutions, of economic growth and job creation, of creating better conditions for investment, of cholera, continued displacement and food insecurity.  

But to suggest that no progress is being made is to paint a false picture.

It creates a narrative of failure which will drive attention and support away from Haiti at a critical time – still possible a turning point – in its history.

We cannot give up on Haiti.

Thank you.