The Washington Post

Old and poor in Haiti suffer mightily after the quake

By William Booth
Saturday, March 13, 2010; A06

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — It was always hard to be old in Haiti, but after the earthquake, to be old and poor feels like a curse, say those who are both.

“We struggle to maintain a little dignity, but look at us,” said Lauranise Gedeon, who sat, embarrassed, in soiled sheets in the ruins of the municipal nursing home here in the capital.

Residents are bathed outdoors with a bucket and try to cover their nakedness. They spend the long, hot afternoons in hospital beds lined up side by side, six to a tent, fanning themselves with pieces of cardboard. They beg for water to drink.

“No water today. We are waiting. We are waiting for medicines, for the doctors, for God to help us,” said nurse Yolette François. “I am serious. These old people have a lot of troubles.”

Her patients, about 80 men and women, were scooping rice and beans from dented metal bowls. Asked what they needed most, one resident said, “Something for the flies.” Another complained that her spoon had been stolen and held up her fingers, sticky with food. “Look!”

The nurse whispered, “We have run out of diapers for them.”

In Haitian Creole, the old are called “gran moun,” and they are relatively few. Those 65 and older make up just 3.4 percent of Haiti’s population, compared with 13 percent in a developed country such as the United States, because to attain such seniority in a nation beset by high infant mortality, poverty and disease is an accomplishment.

But in the weeks after the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake, the elderly appear to have been forgotten.

“They are invisible, and we need to do more to help, because they are desperate,” said Ronald Blain, a Haitian government official working for the U.N. Human Settlements Program.

This week, a working group of U.N. experts has been created to look into the situation of Haitians with disabilities, especially the elderly, who have been disproportionately affected by the disaster.

In a statement, the chairman of the U.N. committee, Mohammed al-Tarawneh, said that “while relief workers are struggling to provide aid to the people of Haiti and while the situation remains difficult for everyone, persons with disabilities are particularly affected by the crisis,” especially those whose caregivers were killed or injured.

The elderly hobble through the daily chaos of Port-au-Prince, forced into rubble piles by speeding convoys of aid workers in their big white SUVs. There are few sidewalks now, and no ramps, no rails. To use tap-taps, the ubiquitous public transport that is a pickup truck with a bench in the bed, the old are lifted like luggage.

With a cane and a sack, Pierre Louis Pierre crossed a busy road near the airport, helped by a random younger man who had watched as Pierre tried, repeatedly, to make his way. Pierre said he is not certain of his exact age, as most births and deaths in Haiti are not recorded. “I am old!” he said and opened his mouth wide to show missing teeth. Where does he sleep? He pointed at the ground. “On the earth,” he said. In a tent? “When they let me in,” he said.

Old women sometimes appear in the food lines, but since the wait for the heavy sacks of donated rations — what Haitians call “disaster rice” — can be five or six hours, the frail ones cannot compete with the younger, stronger and just as hungry.

Most elderly Haitians live with family or with caretakers who are paid a few dollars a day by faraway relatives in Miami or New York or Montreal to care for a grandmother or elderly uncle in a back room. The earthquake killed at least 220,000 people in all, according to the Haitian government estimates, and especially disrupted the tissue-thin safety net that protected the elderly.

“They don’t really have retirement homes. They are being taken care of by families, and those without families have neighbors or their church. Sometimes they go to the nuns and sometimes the government,” said Cynthia Powell of the London-based group HelpAge International, which has begun to deliver food and medical care to a municipal nursing home here and pay workers’ salaries.

Before the earthquake, the city-run nursing home was not too bad; there were men’s and women’s wings, an administration building and a wall that protected a garden. The women’s unit was destroyed, and four patients died on that day, and three more later. In the days right after the disaster, the residents slept on the ground, surrounded by rats. Now they sleep five or six to a tent, among clouds of mosquitoes. The ground floods when it rains. A few elderly women have moved back into the hallways of the men’s unit, which is still standing, but the edges of the darkened hallways are filthy, littered with excrement and used condoms.

After the earthquake, with no security to stop them, refugees swarmed into the garden compound, where they have now established a rough camp of several hundred people. The elderly have some protections, but not many. “The walls fell down, so people come and go as they like,” said Nickson Plantin, a security guard. “It is my personal opinion that if you want to give one of these old people something, you put it in their hand — and don’t give too much.” The neighborhood is surrounded by gangs.

Food in the early days came from the charity World Vision, but the soy-enriched bulgur wheat was hard for the elderly residents to digest. So the cooks now buy food at local markets.

Clervana Mondesir said proudly that she is 87 years old. “I’ve seen a lot,” she said. “In 13 years, I will be a hundred.” Mondesir said she came to the nursing home a few years ago, when she became confused and despondent after the death of her daughter, who was pregnant and allegedly beaten by her husband. “She fell down and died,” she said.

Mondesir said she has two sons who visit. She said that when the earthquake struck, she hid under her bed. “They were surprised when I came out alive,” she said. Her worldly possessions are now in a pillow case. Asked whether she needed anything, Mondesir said some milk and malta, a rich carbonated nonalcoholic drink made of barley and hops.

“Look at us. We’re getting skinny and weak,” she said, pulling at her arm muscles, “and now you need to be strong to survive.”

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MY Times March 12, 2010

Editorial

Haiti, Two Months Later

With every day that passes in the mud and rubble of Haiti, the failures of the relief effort are heartbreaking. There are four main strands to the campaign to make sure 1.2 million homeless people are sheltered and safe as the weather turns fierce. All are inadequate.

THE MAJOR PLAYERS The United Nations and foreign countries and aid organizations have dispatched tents, tarps, food, water, medicine and doctors, as they should. They have done a lot of good, particularly the United States, which rushed supplies, a troop force that peaked at about 20,000 and a hospital ship. Many lives were saved. After meeting with Haiti’s president, René Préval, this week, President Obama pledged continued aid.

But after nearly two months, it’s not enough. Only half of those displaced have received even the crudest means of emergency shelter: plastic tarps and tents that will hardly protect them when floods start in earnest next month, and the hurricanes come in June. In hundreds of crowded settlements around the country, like the ones sheltering more than 600,000 in Port-au-Prince, food, water, medical care and security remain spotty.

Large swaths of the earthquake zone remain untouched by aid. They are choking in rubble, and trucks and volunteers have barely begun to scratch out safe places in the wreckage for people to live.

Relief agencies have overcome staggering obstacles, starting with the fact that the quake demolished the United Nations mission, killing much of its leadership and employees. The United Nations is in high gear now, but it has been rightly criticized for disorganization. Last month, in a scathing e-mail message, the emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations, John Holmes, blasted his colleagues for having been too slow to step up to the challenge. Weeks after the disaster, he said, several of the agency “clusters” in charge of handling needs like food and shelter had not even developed a basic overview of what they had to do, much less a plan.

THE HAITIAN GOVERNMENT The quake ruined the presidential palace and the best managers and workers were still on the job when the tremors hit. President Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive have not been able to resume strong or even visible leadership.

The government has not made decisions or has made confusing ones. It has, for instance, refused to allow undamaged or lightly damaged schools to reopen with a full curriculum until all schools can reopen — letting children languish. Mr. Préval was visible at the White House on Wednesday, but in Haiti the question “Where is Préval?” draws a shake of the head.

THE N.G.O.’S Existing charity mechanisms have been revved up to try to match the staggering scale of the earthquake, and new ones are being invented. The big multinational nongovernmental organizations are providing vital support to the United Nations.

But there are thousands of others, like the small rural mission churches and other groups that right now are offering just pinpricks of relief.

THE PEOPLE Haitians are eager to help themselves. Refugees are forming settlement councils and electing representatives to collaborate with the nongovernmental organizations. They are building homes themselves, clearing rubble themselves, burying the dead themselves, organizing security brigades themselves. But they are as overmatched as everyone else by the scale of the disaster.

There is a burning need to tap the energies of Haitians — not just the devastated national government. That means at the grass-roots, church, business and neighborhood groups that know the country, speak its languages, and are deeply committed to its rebirth.

Efforts to do so have been negligible so far. A report by Refugees International, an advocacy group in Washington, says that Haitians have been excluded from major planning at the United Nations compound because they don’t know about meetings, aren’t allowed in or don’t have the staff to send. The United Nations Development Program has hired more than 70,000 Haitians to clean debris. Much more is needed.

Haiti should be able to count on American technical expertise, security and money, especially as energy shifts to rebuilding. Everyone should keep improving basic efforts to keep refugees safe and in good health. But, ultimately, it is the United Nations that must take responsibility to lead and coordinate the relief efforts.

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March 11, 2010

Earthquake’s Burdens Weigh Heavily on Haiti’s Elderly

NY Times March 12, 2010

By IAN URBINA

LÉOGÂNE, Haiti — Junie Sufrad, 110 years old, stopped suddenly as she described what life was like in the Haitian countryside before electricity, paved roads and cars.

“I don’t know if it makes me lucky or unlucky to still be here,” she said after a long pause, adding that although she was missing no limbs, the January earthquake had made her an amputee. “It’s like part of me is gone.”

Ms. Sufrad is a monument to the past in a nation that has been severed from it.

Like other aged survivors of the earthquake, she is a rare repository of this country’s history and culture, but she said she considered her memories as much a painful burden as a proud legacy.

No strangers to hardship, elderly Haitians find themselves distinctly vulnerable and emotionally burdened these days. They have grown old in a place where so many people die young. With longevity comes survivor’s guilt.

“You’re not supposed to outlive your children and grandchildren,” she said.

A preliminary census released last month by an aid organization found that roughly 7 percent, or about 84,000, of the estimated 1.2 million Haitians who had been displaced by the earthquake are over 60 years old.

The United Nations also released a report last month stating that despite the privation facing younger women and children in Haiti since the earthquake, it is the elderly who are now by far the most at risk. Older people have been overlooked in relief efforts because they are more frail, less mobile and less vocal in their demands for food and water, United Nations officials explained.

But the needs of the elderly that are proving most elusive, advocates say, are intangibles like security, continuity and hope.

Alongside the cracked remains of the Municipal Nursing Home in the Delmas 2 neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, nearly 3,000 homeless people have taken up residence in what used to be the nursing home’s tranquil courtyard.

“I just want to go home,” said Jacqueline Thermitis, 71, a nursing home resident, as she looked out at a sea of corrugated tin, draped sheets and plastic netting.

Already disoriented by age, a man in a wheelchair seemed even more confused as he asked her when they were going to return to Port-au-Prince. “This place is terrible,” he said.

Routine, which for so long has been a guide to the 75 former nursing home residents, is gone. So too is privacy and dignity as bathing and defecating are now done using buckets in public.

About half of them said they were too scared to go back inside when the nursing home was repaired. That means that many of them who are already sick will be weathering the coming rainy season in shabby tents.

To avoid violent scrums, relief workers have stopped the dumping of prepackaged meals and bottled water from trucks as their method of distribution. Instead, they have been handing out supplies in bulk to women who wait in long lines that stretch around the block.

But the system is still ill suited to older people, advocates say.

“Does it really make sense to ask a 70-year-old to carry a 50-kilo bag of rice or to wait in line for two hours?” asked Jonathan Barden, an emergency program manager for HelpAge International, an advocacy group for the aging.

A disproportionate number of the more than 200,000 fatalities of the earthquake were people over 60 years old, according to the United Nations. That is primarily because the elderly were more likely to have been indoors rather than coming home from work or school when the disaster struck that early evening on Jan. 12, officials say.

The older residents who survived — or at least those who came through with their faculties intact — seem acutely aware of the historical scale of the damage.

At Champ de Mars park, Michel Fretond, 82, pointed out that Haiti was the world’s first independent black republic. “Now, the clock has been set back to zero,” he said, with a scoffing laugh.

Not far away, the National Palace and the Ministries of Justice and Finance lay in various states of ruin.

At the Direction Générale des Impôts, the national tax office, men in blue jumpsuits used jackhammers to drill through a pile of concrete slabs and tangled rebar. Buried there — they hoped — were the remains of logbooks and paper ledgers with vital information used for driver’s licenses, passports, license plates and identity cards.

“It doesn’t make sense that I’m still here,” Mr. Fretond added, describing how his two children and three grandchildren were all killed in the earthquake.

Indeed, Mr. Fretond, and others of his age, are a rarity here.

Roughly half of Haiti’s population is under the age of 18 and life expectancy is 61 years, compared with 78 in the United States.

And yet, because of the impact of H.I.V. and AIDS on middle generations, and because parents often leave the country to seek work, the elderly have historically played an important role in Haiti in caring for younger family members.

More recently they have been serving other purposes.

“In the villages, the elderly end up being the ones who know who lived in a particular house, who was the parent of a certain child and who owned what land,” said Michel Bonnardeaux, a United Nations spokesman, adding that the United Nations has called on elderly villagers for help in starting a national registry of birth certificates or property deeds.

“Their memory is a national resource,” he said. “At least to us.”

Cindy Powell, an aid worker with HelpAge who is collecting oral histories from older Haitians, said that on occasion she overheard the elderly escaping the present by sharing a laugh about fonder days. But those moments were fleeting, she said, and those conversations drifted into a melancholy silence.

Back in Léogâne, the epicenter of the earthquake, Ms. Sufrad was fielding questions again last month about her childhood.

Dates escaped her. But she recalled traumas of the past five decades: earthquakes, hurricanes and the “men with machetes” in the Duvalier years.

She smiled widely as she told about her first taste of ice cream and about getting in trouble for sneaking out as a teenager to go dancing at Carnival.

Her fondest recollection was of marrying, “sometime when Borno was president,” she said, referring to Louis Borno, who governed from 1922 to 1930. Her saddest memory was of seeing one of her sons go to prison.

Asked why she thought she had survived so long and what the future might hold, Ms. Sufrad shrugged.

Rather than looking forward or back, she said, she preferred looking up.

“To God,” she said, pointing to the sky. “He keeps me here, now.”

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Port-au-Prince (8 March 2010) – Just under two months after the earthquake that devastated southern Haiti and left an estimated 1.3 million homeless, humanitarian agencies distributing emergency shelter-materials have reached more than 650,000 people – the halfway mark.

Tens of thousands of tarpaulins, tents, ropes, timber uprights and toolkits continue to pour into Haiti, helping to put some shelter over people’s heads ahead of the rainy season, which peaks in May.

“This is a great milestone,” said Gregg McDonald, who leads the Haiti-based team of specialists coordinating the shelter agencies on secondment from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).  The IFRC last month took over as coordinator for shelter under the inter-agency humanitarian cluster system. “To have reached so many people so quickly, especially in the conditions we’ve all had to contend with, is an achievement that should not be underestimated,” McDonald added…..Agencies working within cluster coordination have reached more than 80,000 people a week since the quake on 12 January. It’s hoped that two-thirds of those left without shelter by the quake will have been reached by 1 April, which agencies are taking as the on-average start of the rainy season. The shelter cluster is on track to reach all 1.3m people on or before the original target date of 1 May. …..

Source: International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

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13 dead in Haiti flooding: officials

Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP)

Date: 01 Mar 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Weekend flooding in a part of Haiti untouched by January’s devastating earthquake claimed 13 lives and forced the evacuation of 3,000 people, emergency service officials have told AFP.

Another three people are listed as missing after the heavy rains Saturday in and around Haiti’s hird biggest city of Les Cayes, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of the quake-ruined capital Port-au-Prince.

The natural disaster put added strain on humanitarian aid distribution in Haiti because the 3,000 people evacuated from their homes were in need of water and food, officials said.

Crops and roads were badly damaged by the downpour and flooding. Several mudslides also occurred.

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Haiti’s Futile Race Against the Rain

By LAWRENCE DOWNES

NY Times Published: February 28, 2010

There were floods on Saturday in Les Cayes, in southwestern Haiti. It rained in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, and again on Saturday and Sunday night, long enough to slick the streets and make a slurry of the dirt and concrete dust. Long enough, too, to give a sense of what will happen across the country in a few weeks, when the real storms start.

Mud will wash down the mountains, and rain will overflow gutters choked with rubble and waste, turning streets into filthy rivers. Life will get even more difficult for more than a million people.

New misery and sickness will drench the displaced survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake — like the 16,000 or so whose tents and flimsy shacks fill every available inch of the Champ de Mars, the plaza in Port-au-Prince by the cracked and crumbled National Palace, or the 70,000 who have made a city of the Petionville Club, a nine-hole golf course on a mountainside above the capital.

The rainy season is the hard deadline against which Haiti’s government and relief agencies in Port-au-Prince are racing as they try to solve a paralyzing riddle: how to shelter more than a million displaced people in a densely crowded country that has no good place to put them.

The plan after the quake was to move people to camps outside the city. But in a sudden shift last week, officials unveiled a new idea. They would try to send as many people as possible, tens of thousands, back to the shattered streets of Port-au-Prince before the rains come. The prime minister approved it on Friday.

It if it sounds insane, insanity is relative in Haiti now. Consider the choices:

¶Let people stay in filthy, fragile settlements where no one wants to live, and pray when the hurricanes hit.

¶Build sturdy transitional housing in places like Jérémie, in the southwest, that can absorb the capital’s overflow.

¶Encourage people to return to neighborhoods that are clogged with rubble and will be for years, where the smell of death persists. In areas like Bel Air and Fort National, near Champ de Mars, people whose homes still stand are sleeping outside, in fear of aftershocks. They were still pulling bodies out of Fort National over the weekend, burning them on the spot.

The first plan is intolerable. The second may come true only several years and hurricanes from now. The third is merely absurd.

Officials believe that if they clear just enough rubble from certain areas of the city and improve drainage in flood-prone areas, they can ease the pressure on the camps and save lives. It makes some sense to keep people near their neighborhoods, holding on to what remains of their lives and livelihoods.

But when what remains is nothing, it’s hard to make sense of that idea. Harder still when you realize that the Haitian government and aid agencies are still overwhelmed by the crisis. The government hasn’t even figured out where to put the rubble, and doesn’t seem to know who is living where.

Official word was that 80 percent of refugees in Champ de Mars were from Turgeau, where debris-clearing is to begin. I talked with about 40 people throughout the Champ de Mars. They were from Bel Air, Fort National, St. Martin. Nobody was from Turgeau. Several knew of the plan and a few had registered for it. But nobody had been told where, when and how they would leave.

Pascal Benjamin, a 29-year-old huddled with family on the edge of the Champ de Mars, is from Bel Air. “I heard they were going to find a place, but they never came to talk to us.”

I spoke with Selondieu Marcelus, his brother, Sony, and nephew, Ricardo. They were standing beside a yellow tent marked with sardonic graffiti. “Donnons le pays aux Français,” it said. “Let’s give the country to the French.”

Mr. Marcelus once lived on Rue Macajoux in Bel Air. He lost his wife there. He didn’t know where he would end up. As long as the place has work, jobs, electricity, I don’t mind, he said. He was unusual. Most of those I met, in Champ de Mars and in the vast blue-and-orange tarpscape blanketing the Petionville Club, said they dearly wanted to go home.

It seems certain that this plan for Haiti’s displaced is going to be ineffective, and that people will suffer and die for lack of anything better. The only rational plan for Haiti is to disperse the population of a city that filled to bursting years ago. Making it easier for people to shoehorn back into Port-au-Prince, looking for jobs and space that don’t exist, is ludicrous.

It’s a sign of the scale and perplexing nature of this disaster — and the fix faced by the government that is too slowly confronting it — that the ludicrous option is the only one available.

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The Direction for Civil Protection (DCP) estimates that 222,517 people died following the 12 January earthquake, an increase of 5,000 people since the last estimate given a week ago.

- The most urgent priorities for assistance continue to include shelter and sanitation.

- There is also a critical need for rubble removal as well as for the identification of suitable land for the construction of transitional shelter. This is a major challenge for the decongestion of overcrowded sites.

- The Ministry of Education has indicated that children in affected areas should resume school by early April.

- The number of people who have left Port-au-Prince for outlying departments has increased to 597,801 people from the previous figure of 511,405. An estimated 160,000 persons have come from Port-au-Prince to the border area with the Dominican Republic.

-As of 21 February, some 6,558 m3 of safe water was trucked to over 341 storage and distribution points in Port au Prince, Leogane, Petit Goave, Grand Goave, Gressier and Jacmel by WASH Cluster partners, under the direction of the national water authority (DINEPA). This volume of water has reached approximately 1,311,600 persons with 5 litres of water per day, representing 119 percent of the interim WASH target.

Although it is positive that this target has been met and exceeded – the volume of water delivered to sites remains below SPHERE standards and certain sites have received a greater volume of water than others. Ensuring a greater volume of safe water, equitable distribution and an improved monitoring mechanism to ensure that deliveries consistently reach their destinations, are the new priorities for Cluster partners involved in water service provision.

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BBC News-

Haiti is marking a national day of mourning on Friday for the victims of the earthquake that devastated their country exactly one month ago.

Up to 230,000 people were killed in the 12 January quake, 300,000 were injured and one million made homeless.

Masses are being celebrated nationwide, and a ceremony will be held at the ruined National Palace in the capital.

And at 1653 local time (2153 GMT), Haitians at home and abroad will be asked to kneel and pray.

Television screens

The BBC’s Christian Fraser in the capital, Port-au-Prince, says that services have been ongoing since 0600 local time, with many people dressed in white as a mark of respect.

President Rene Preval is expected to lead a Mass at Notre Dame University at about 0930 local time.

The main ceremony will be in the capital’s centre, amid the ruins of the National Palace.

The government plans to set up large screens at some of the tented relief camps to allow people to follow the ceremony.

Haitians have been urged to wear either black or white to show their respect for the victims.

The BBC’s Mike Wooldridge in Port-au-Prince says the act of national reflection comes as one of the largest humanitarian operations ever mounted grapples with challenges on many fronts.

He says a heavy downpour on the eve of the anniversary provided a foretaste of the misery that lies ahead for the many people who still have only the flimsiest shelter in impromptu camps, if the pace of getting out more tents and stronger shelter materials is not stepped up before the start of the rainy season.

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U.N. seeks donations for Haiti schools

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 6 (UPI) — Only 85 of 1,500 schools surveyed in the Haitian areas hit by the earthquake survived without major damage, U.N. officials said Friday.

The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization or UNESCO appealed for international donations for school rebuilding and teacher training. The agency said Brazil, Bulgaria, Israel and the Norwegian Refugee Council have already made significant contributions to UNESCO programs in Haiti. Brazil has donated $400,000 specifically to train teachers in disaster awareness.

The United Nations has also provided temporary work space for the Ministry of Education. The ministry building was one of many in Port-au-Prince destroyed by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake Jan. 12.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2010/02/06/UN-seeks-donations-for-Haiti-schools/UPI-11411265461585/

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Aid Agencies Race to Shelter Haiti Quake Victims Ahead of Rains, Overhaul Coordination

Source: International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Date: 05 Feb 2010
A network of 55 humanitarian agencies is currently racing to provide tens of thousands of tents, tarpaulins, ropes and toolkits to 1.1 million displaced Haitians before the onset of the rainy season – which could begin as soon as the end of February. Rains have already begun to fall in the southern town of Jacmel.

Distribution is gathering pace both in Port-au-Prince and beyond, with a system now in place for the town of Leogane (west of the capital), and in the planning stage for other major centers of displacement.

To date, agencies have worked with the Haitian government to distribute at least 15,000 tarpaulins and 12,000 family sized tents, with a further 52,000 tarpaulins and shelter kits ready to go. Humanitarian agencies are providing materials for Haitians to construct their own transitional shelters, given the need to establish sturdier structures before the hurricane season begins in June.

Earthquake in Haiti: WFP External Situation Report,

3 February 2010

Source: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)

Date: 03 Feb 2010

Overview

Earthquake Caseload: 2 million people

Cost of WFP Earthquake operations in Haiti: US$279 million (Food operations US$246 million, Logistics US$33 million)

Time frame: January to December 2010

WFP Staff in Haiti: 225 + 207 surge personnel (between Haiti and Dom. Rep.)

Current Situation

- Distributions continued smoothly on the fourth day of fixed site food distributions led by WFP, in close cooperation with government and NGOs under the food cluster and with support from MINUSTAH and US forces deployed to support the humanitarian effort in Haiti. Through the distribution network, WFP and partners aim to provide a two week food ration to an estimated 2 million Haitians through 16 fixed distribution points across the most populated sites in the city.

- Thirteen of the distribution sites were activated by Wednesday, including those in Cite Soleil, where, despite tensions in the preceding days, partner World Vision conducted successful distributions, supported by Brazilian and US forces.

- Food prices are reportedly still rising and people are apparently having difficulty in the North and North-Est Departments in meeting their basic food needs. Even those people in regions previously considered “food secure” reportedly face difficulties and prices of wheat and bread are increasingly unreachable for the general population.

- Major repairs to the port have begun with two large pontoons with 200 metric tonne cranes being put in place.

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Lessons learned from Past Experience for International Agencies in Haiti

Source: CDA Collaborative Learning Projects

Date: 03 Feb 2010

External aid can facilitate or hinder long-term peace and development. In light of the massive on-going relief effort in Haiti, it is critical to minimize harmful impacts and maximize positive impacts. Aid can worsen polarization and violence, often inadvertently, or can have positive effects on conflict and social cohesion. Although Haiti has not experienced a civil war or a war with neighbors, nevertheless, it must be considered as an active conflict zone, in which the level of violence has been high for decades. We highlight here a number of lessons drawn from several initiatives led by CDA Collaborative Learning Projects over the last 20 years, in partnership with thousands of colleagues in humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding organizations. As we continue to learn more about the current context in Haiti, this document will be continually updated—please see www.cdainc.com for the most recent version.

How can the disaster response contribute to long-term development? Key Lessons from Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies at Times of Disaster

1. Even the most devastated communities retain capacities. Even if the physical/material infrastructure is destroyed, the communities still have strong relationships, personal skills, organizational abilities, important norms and values, effective leaders and the ability to make decisions.

2. Hold relief work to development standards. Every disaster response should appreciate and draw upon local capacities—and should be designed to support and increase them.

3. Relief efforts can be designed to address long-term vulnerabilities and to further the long-term development agenda. Short-term labor intensive projects can address ecological and environmental issues by undertaking needed mitigation measures. Similarly, housing reconstruction can adopt disaster reduction standards for earthquake-resistant homes and buildings.

4. Relief and reconstruction programming should not be preoccupied solely with meeting physical/material needs. It must also integrate measures that support and enhance social and organizational elements (relationships, leadership, decision making, group capacities) and motivational factors (sense of hope, ability to affect their world, feeling that efforts will lead to change, sense of community and social cohesion).

For more information, see Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Times of Disaster (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998).

In the biggest of the camps that sprang up in the capital after the earthquake, people are still living under sheeting strung across wooden poles.

The government says the seasonal rains could be the biggest threat now to the nation’s attempts at recovery.

The European Union has proposed a military mission to step up the provision of shelter before the rains worsen.

This week’s Haitian government figures suggesting up to 230,000 dead means the quake toll is approaching that of the 2004 Asian tsunami, which killed 250,000 people

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