Haiti: a new chapter unfolds

Today marks a new chapter in Haiti’s political history as Michael Martelly becomes the country’s 56th President. Waiting in the wings will be hundreds of international organisations and bilateral government donors, supported by millions of dollars of investments, looking to the new government to drive forward their human development strategies based on the fundamental tenets of economic opportunity and poverty reduction. These strategies, pledged in the wake of the devastating 2010 earthquake, will be critical to the physical and economic rebuilding of Haiti.

But as a new vision for Haiti is created, how can we ensure it is an inclusive vision which recognises the needs of the most vulnerable, 680,000 of whom are still living under canvas in camps in and around Port au Prince? What impact will a new government have on the work of the humanitarian community and how will it approach the difficulties which have held back the recovery process? The weight of expectation on the new government will be heavy, but now is not just a time to ask what the politicians of Haiti can do. We must all step up and push for a more effective way of working with local communities to support them in their recovery.

Make space available

This will mean facing the challenges with a sense of collective responsibility. The inevitable truth is that tens of thousands are likely to remain in camps and some larger camps are likely to become permanent settlements, shantytowns or even slums. The Red Cross remains committed to providing some basic support but what is the long term strategy for the camp population?

Some people are in camps because they have no other option, some hope for better healthcare, some that they may get priority for shelter. But the simple fact is that camps will exist as long as people do not have a more viable solution. The Red Cross has provided over 8000 families with safe and improved shelter solutions, in addition to the massive emergency shelter programme which reached over 900,000 people, but we have been massively restrained by a lack of suitable, available, land. Creating incentives for land owners to make space available on the outskirts of towns in and around Port au Prince should be a government priority.

Priced out of the market

Estimates suggest 80 per cent of Port-au-Prince residents were renters or squatters before the earthquake and so large scale efforts to repair houses will be the cornerstones of transitional and permanent reconstruction efforts in the coming years. Yet too often we are hearing of houses being repaired only for rent prices to be hiked up by the owners meaning tenants are priced out of the market. Policies focused on protecting renters must be introduced, along with rent subsidies. Evictions are of huge concern and action must be taken, at government level. The interests of the overwhelming majority of Haitians who are tenants, not owners, must be safeguarded.

Community development is also needed so people have access to water, can take their children to school and have access to job opportunities. This requires community level engagement and the Red Cross, through its 10,000 strong network of Haitian Red Cross volunteers, is looking at all the services needed for a community to thrive. Urban masterplans must be rooted in local knowledge and we recommend the government empowers local mayors and authorities – recognising they are best placed to drive forward community level initiatives.

Abandoning the Parachutes

The humanitarian community must also improve, and commit to increasing collaborative working with government departments. Too many aid interventions have ‘parachuted in’ support and left, or have been unable to handover to the authorities. Having provided over 250,000 people with safe water each day the Red Cross is currently finalising an agreement with DINEPA, the Haitian Government water agency, to hand over Red Cross water trucks and support with capacity building and training of staff. This type of transition must happen more quickly and more often.

Much has been achieved by the humanitarian community in response to the earthquake, but expectations that Haiti’s problems will be resolved by humanitarian assistance alone are unrealistic. The current political transition must act as a catalyst for a reinvigoration of aid efforts, supported by a closer way of working between the Government, multilateral and bilateral aid agencies, NGOs, the Red Cross and – most importantly - local communities. Well funded and coherent development strategies, backed by a stable, transparent government, have the potential to create a positive and lasting impact for the lives of many. But improving the lives of the majority must not include overlooking the needs of the vulnerable minority. Measures must be put in place now to protect and empower these communities, so they have a chance to play their parts in the development of Haiti’s future.

/PC

Stepping Up a Gear in Haiti

One long year after the earthquake that has crippled Haiti humanitarian needs are still urgent and the road to recovery is strewn with rubble. Even the most seasoned aid workers I know have never witnessed a disaster as daunting as the Haiti earthquake. 


The Red Cross boss on the ground, Marcel Fortier, said in an interview with the BBC that in more than thirty years working in disaster zones all over the world he had never witnessed anything of similar complexity or magnitude - and this from a man who played a key role during five years operation for Tsunami relief and recovery. 


The most immediate challenges start with the sheer scale of urgent needs where basically the entire country is in need of some form of assistance and the central authority has been seriously weakened. The earthquake brought the Haitian government to its knees in an instant, and it has understandably struggled after 20 per cent of its workforce was wiped out and almost all its buildings reduced to rubble.

Early on, we in the Red Cross Red Crescent identified sanitation as the number one threat to life in Haiti and set about tackling this as our overriding priority. In the absence of fully functioning national agencies, we continue to lead a metropolitan-wide response that is vast in magnitude and provides access to sanitation services and clean water to more than half a million people every single day.

And yet, the spectre of cholera still hangs over the people of Haiti. The outbreak was born largely as a result of the country’s almost entirely collapsed infrastructure. By all accounts, it is clear that our collective efforts are not enough - an opinion voiced forcefully by our colleagues from MSF. By the standards of other major disasters and crises, it is a flashing indicator about the limitations of the humanitarian system.

Not for the first time, we call attention to the fact that this is a situation which is neither acceptable nor sustainable. Aid agencies are stretched beyond capacity and are not designed to be a substitute for municipalities or national governments.

The Haitian authorities must receive the funding that has been pledged to them and all the support required to rebuild their capacity to provide, as a priority, the basic sanitation services that the Haitian population so desperately needs and deserves. 


As if predatory cholera was not enough, more than a million people in Haiti, especially the residents of Port-au-Prince, have had to endure an extremely difficult year living in makeshift shelters in dangerous camps. The challenges of finding real shelter solutions have been numerous and are mostly linked to the fact that shelter is not just about structures. Shelter encompasses important legal, economic and social aspects that must be fully taken into consideration in close collaboration with the local community.

The rather tricky and often grey area of land tenure has been particularly testing in Haiti where an informal system of property rights is mostly based on verbal contract. Even when tenure issues are resolved, the availability of adequate parcels of land is rare. Sourcing sites to rebuild that are acceptable to the community – especially finding sites with access to economic opportunities, schools and healthcare – is also a major challenge, which means many people opt to stay in or around the rubble-strewn streets of the capital city.

Rubble removal itself is a colossal and all-too-visible physical obstacle – one which humanitarians are ill-equipped to deal with effectively. Essentially, we’re trying to rebuild on a mess – to repair a tyre on a moving vehicle.

Everyone needs to step up a gear. The next Haitian government must appoint a single minister responsible for rehousing and designate a single agency to lead the process. It should decide what to do about the legal uncertainty over land tenure. And, if land is needed for temporary homes and available in or near neighbourhoods being reconstructed, it must be willing to step in and buy it at a fair market price, perhaps with assistance from donors. 

Wealthy landowners must play a more collaborative role to resolve the stalemate and not wait for windfalls as their compatriots suffer. 

The humanitarian community itself must do more to collectively influence the pace and effectiveness of the response. We have not done enough to tackle and resolve the most significant obstacles such as land and shelter.

Together, we must commit to ‘build back better’ and enforce standards in reconstruction.

Despite all the significant challenges, we cannot lose sight of the huge amount that has been achieved. The generous billions donated by ordinary people and communities the world over have been, and continue to be, critical in providing life-saving care and support, restoring livelihoods and delivering numerous other humanitarian services to the people of Haiti.

We understand only too well what needs to be done – the need to overcome seriously complicating factors such as political turmoil, cholera, floods and hurricanes. The recovery process will take years, perhaps even a generation, but it is our best chance to turn Haiti’s fortunes around.

One year on, we mourn in solidarity with the people of Haiti. It is only by working closely with the Haitian people and genuinely engaging them as real partners in their own recovery that we can be sure to pave the road to a better future.


/PC

Rebuilding Haiti - obstacles and options

As many as one million people are still without a proper roof over their heads almost one year after a deadly quake struck Haiti. Journalists and VIPs will be arriving en masse over the next weeks to make their assessments and publish their opinions. They will see hundreds of thousands still under tarpaulins and makeshift shelters and wonder why all the money that has been raised - literally billions - has not been able to achieve more. It is a valid question, easy to ask but complex to answer.


Challenges to finding real shelter solutions have been many and are mostly linked to:

• the fact that shelter is not just about structures, it encompasses important legal, economic and social aspects that must also be taken into consideration
• the urgent priority and demands to continue delivering life-sustaining emergency services, including shelter, before proper reconstruction can start
• land tenure and informal system of property rights (it is said that some 80% of Haiti's property is based on verbal contracts)
• even when tenure issues are resolved the availability of adequate parcels of land is rare
• sourcing sites to rebuild that are considered appropriate by the community especially in terms of access to local economy, schools and healthcare (the vast majority understandably do not want to move and prefer to stay in or around their destroyed homes - and forcible displacement to 'new' shelters is clearly not an option for humanitarian organizations)
• the metropolitan sized task of rapidly removing rubble created from the destruction of an estimated 200'000 homes and buildings has been simply beyond the means of national and international agencies
• the dilemma faced by aid agencies who despite being flexible are understandably reluctant to rebuild vulnerability i.e. returning people to known vulnerable areas (flood plains, seismic zones etc.) in structures that are are not resistant to hurricanes / earthquakes etc.

The video below, just released, attempts to provide some additional background to the shelter challenges and options.

Haiti, is yet another context which demonstrates, if need be, the limitations of aid. The generous billions donated by ordinary people and communities around the world have been, and will continue to be critical in providing life-saving care and support, restoring livelihoods and delivering numerous other humanitarian services to the people of Haiti. The shelter component however is a challenge of such enormous magnitude that it necessitates long-term and well-financed developmental solutions driven by serious political will, both nationally and internationally. 

The destruction wrought upon Haiti, and especially its capital Port-au-Prince, has left unprecedented challenges for the humanitarian, development and political communities. An entire capital city and all the basic services and infrastructure that its citizens expect and deserve, needs to be completely rebuilt from scratch - and to a standard that will resist future threats. This cannot happen overnight.

One year on, we cannot lose sight of the huge amount that has been achieved but we also know only too well all that remains to be done. In addition to the shelter challenges listed above, the seriously complicating factors of political turmoil, cholera outbreaks, floods and hurricanes have all conspired to stall Haiti's much-needed progress, but nevertheless progressed it has. The serious business of humanitarian aid will continue, and continue for the long haul. Patience and perseverance will be needed as ever. Indeed, the people of Haiti know this more than any of us - already from the first weeks the phrase I most recall was: C'est l'heure de la patience!

/PC

Poverty Poem by Fred Taban from South Sudan

Please take 1 min and 50 seconds to listen to "Poverty poem" by Fred Taban which was recorded last week in South Sudan. Fred is a theology professor at the Episcopal Church Sudan Seminary in Kajo Keji county. He has been a refugee for most of his life. When Fred speaks of poverty he knows what he is talking about. 

Fred Taban’s poem on poverty is a thoughtful and universal meditation on the bitter predicament that is faced on a daily basis by ever greater number of people on this planet. On HDEO we have written frequently about the need to use or global presence and access to new technologies to allow people to speak for themselves (as opposed to international organiaztions "speaking on their behalf") - examples are here and here. Fred's poem captured on camera and posted on Vimeo is a good example where the persons who knows, the person who matters is speaking directly to those of us who need to hear, who need to act or be moved to act. 

Thanks to our good friends at A developing Story and photographer-storyteller Stephen Alvarez for bringing Fred's words directly to us. FYI: this was recorded on a canon 7d with sound on a zoom h4n recorder through Sennheiser wireless.

/PC