UN Update Haiti/Year Later

Independent Films, Web Series, Social Responsibility Movies

President Bill Clinton, Secretary General, notables from George Clooney to Demi Moore, (in this photo), were frequent speakers on behalf of Haiti during the last year after quake. What are the results and what more needs to be done. (interestingly, in searching out UN photo archives regarding Haiti, it was difficult to identify former President George W. Bush in many of them - It cannot but be noticed that President Bill Clinton is now traveling to Haiti on regular basis and without the other former US President, George W. Bush, appointed as special envoy). UN Secretary General's Special Representative's Office, (Deputy Nigel Fisher) provides report on situation in Haiti, humanitarian, health, rebuilding, economic, security and rule of law - for Haiti one year after quake.

Transcripts / Production notes / Scripts

One year after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, more than 1 million people – 380,000 of them children – still live in crowded camps despite extraordinary relief efforts by Haitians and the international community, according to a United Nations (UN) report issued week.

The report, entitled “Children in Haiti: One Year After – The long road from relief to recovery” and prepared by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stresses that the recovery process is just beginning.

At a press conference linking New York and Port-au-Prince via satellite today (10 January) the Resident Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti, Nigel Fisher, told reporters that “this is a multi-year challenge” with much work ahead repairing houses, removing and treating rubble, re-establishing basic social services, and getting a weakened economy going.

He noted that in the years immediately preceding the earthquake, the Haitian economy was experiencing sustained growth, but during the few seconds of the earthquake, “Haiti lost the equivalent of 120 percent of its annual GDP.”

Overall the quake affected 1.5 million children and 63,000 pregnant women. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is currently reaching close to two million people with various aid programmes, including hot school meals for over one million children every day and cash-for-work programmes and nutrition.

The $1.5 billion quake relief appeal launched by the UN and its partners has been funded to 72 percent at the end of 2010, while the $174 million cholera emergency appeal launched in late 2010 is only 25 per cent funded.

Fisher noted that security is one of the biggest challenges facing Haiti. He said that “the rule of law in Haiti is somewhere between weak and non-existent” and added that “there is crime, the courts are largely dysfunctional, many problems with the prisons, the police is very weak and that’s why we have four thousand police in the mission trying to focus on that.”

Immediately after the earthquake there was widespread looting in downtown Port-au-Prince, and the Secretary-General's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Margot Wallström, recently expresses concern about reports of rapes in the camps.

The ongoing cholera outbreak that erupted in October presents yet another challenge on the way to recovery.

Fisher stressed that “cholera does not need to kill” and the focus should be on reducing the fatality rate. He said that even though it has been reduced from “6 or 7 percent” in the early days of the epidemic to about 2.2 percent, “that is still too high.”

As of 29 December, 3,481 people had died of cholera and over 157,000 cases had been reported, according to Haitian Health Ministry statistics. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned today that the epidemic threatens 2.2 million school children due to the lack of clean water and sanitation facilities in schools throughout the country.

Tags

• haiti
• united nations
• humanitarian
• health
• security
• rebuild

Directors:

• Muhamed Sacirbey, UNTV

Producers:

• Susan Sacirbey