Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch is a blog that tracks multinational aid efforts in Haiti with an eye towards ensuring they are oriented towards the needs of the Haitian people, and that aid is not used to undermine Haitians' right to self-determination.
Yesterday, President Obama formally asked congress (PDF) to approve ammendements to the budget in the amount of $2.8 billion. It is important to note that most of this money can be used to reimburse funds that were already spent by the agencies, so the total new assistance will not be the total $2.8 billion. The BBC reports that the Senate is ” is said to be close to a bill meeting Mr Obama’s request.” Following is the breakdown of agencies that would receive funding:
$150 million to the Department of Agriculture (food aid).
$655 million to the Department of Defense.
$220 million to the Department of Health and Human Services.
$60 million to the Department of Homeland Security.
$1,491 million to USAID and the State Department.
$219.8 million to the Department of the Treasury.
$5.2 million to the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
You can read the whole document here, and see the breakdown within agencies.
Yesterday, President Obama formally asked congress (PDF) to approve ammendements to the budget in the amount of $2.8 billion. It is important to note that most of this money can be used to reimburse funds that were already spent by the agencies, so the total new assistance will not be the total $2.8 billion. The BBC reports that the Senate is ” is said to be close to a bill meeting Mr Obama’s request.” Following is the breakdown of agencies that would receive funding:
$150 million to the Department of Agriculture (food aid).
$655 million to the Department of Defense.
$220 million to the Department of Health and Human Services.
$60 million to the Department of Homeland Security.
$1,491 million to USAID and the State Department.
$219.8 million to the Department of the Treasury.
$5.2 million to the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
You can read the whole document here, and see the breakdown within agencies.
A number of human rights groups and NGOs testified at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights yesterday. The groups stressed a human rights based approach to foreign assistance and requested the commission to visit Haiti to investigate the human rights situation. Mario Joseph of Bureaux des Avocats Internationaux said:
International aid has been given generously, but distributed poorly, without input from earthquake survivors. As a result, children are going hungry, women are at risk of sexual violence and exploitation, and families are sleeping in the rain, without waterproof shelter.
The groups had previously issued a series of recommendations in advance of the donor conference.
To read the testimonies and other documents that were submitted to the Inter-American commission, click here.
The groups were: Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), Partners In Health (PIH), the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center), and Zanmi Lasante (ZL)
A number of human rights groups and NGOs testified at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights yesterday. The groups stressed a human rights based approach to foreign assistance and requested the commission to visit Haiti to investigate the human rights situation. Mario Joseph of Bureaux des Avocats Internationaux said:
International aid has been given generously, but distributed poorly, without input from earthquake survivors. As a result, children are going hungry, women are at risk of sexual violence and exploitation, and families are sleeping in the rain, without waterproof shelter.
The groups had previously issued a series of recommendations in advance of the donor conference.
To read the testimonies and other documents that were submitted to the Inter-American commission, click here.
The groups were: Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), Partners In Health (PIH), the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center), and Zanmi Lasante (ZL)
An editorial in the Miami Herald on Sunday argues that Haiti faces another disaster as the rainy season comes, and that urgent efforts must be taken on the ground. “Despite the best efforts” of the international community, the situation on the ground remains dire:
The devastated capital of Port-au-Prince, where hundreds of camps are located, is ground zero for the crisis of the homeless. Refugees in overcrowded shelters live in conditions of utter squalor, surrounded by piles of trash in mosquito-infested camps where the air is thick with the odor from overflowing latrines, and drainage lines are clogged with sewage.
Security is a problem. So is hygiene.
The flimsy tents and tarps in these camps will be no match for the coming storms, which is why an all-out effort must be made to relocate as many of the displaced as possible, particularly children, before it’s too late.
The focus should be on the 29 of 425 sites in and around the capital, with about 200,000 homeless, that U.N. officials say are the most vulnerable to flooding and have been targeted for resettlement. The government’s chief advisor on relocation, Gerard-Emile “Aby” Brun, says it will take $86 million to build relocation sites and another $40 million to secure rights to the land.
At this stage, money should not be the problem. More than $1 billion in aid has flowed into Haiti, and more is coming.
To read the entire article, click here.
An editorial in the Miami Herald on Sunday argues that Haiti faces another disaster as the rainy season comes, and that urgent efforts must be taken on the ground. “Despite the best efforts” of the international community, the situation on the ground remains dire:
The devastated capital of Port-au-Prince, where hundreds of camps are located, is ground zero for the crisis of the homeless. Refugees in overcrowded shelters live in conditions of utter squalor, surrounded by piles of trash in mosquito-infested camps where the air is thick with the odor from overflowing latrines, and drainage lines are clogged with sewage.
Security is a problem. So is hygiene.
The flimsy tents and tarps in these camps will be no match for the coming storms, which is why an all-out effort must be made to relocate as many of the displaced as possible, particularly children, before it’s too late.
The focus should be on the 29 of 425 sites in and around the capital, with about 200,000 homeless, that U.N. officials say are the most vulnerable to flooding and have been targeted for resettlement. The government’s chief advisor on relocation, Gerard-Emile “Aby” Brun, says it will take $86 million to build relocation sites and another $40 million to secure rights to the land.
At this stage, money should not be the problem. More than $1 billion in aid has flowed into Haiti, and more is coming.
To read the entire article, click here.
Jonathn Katz reports for the AP that Clinton apologized in a statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10:
“It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake…I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.”
Chief humanitarian coordinator for the UN, John Holmes, echoed this statement, telling the AP:
“A combination of food aid, but also cheap imports have … resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming, and that has to be reversed.”
The article notes that while these criticisms have been coming from aid groups for years, “world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.”
To read the entire article, click here. To see past coverage of this issue and the effects of imported rice on Haiti, see this or this.
Jonathn Katz reports for the AP that Clinton apologized in a statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10:
“It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake…I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.”
Chief humanitarian coordinator for the UN, John Holmes, echoed this statement, telling the AP:
“A combination of food aid, but also cheap imports have … resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming, and that has to be reversed.”
The article notes that while these criticisms have been coming from aid groups for years, “world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.”
To read the entire article, click here. To see past coverage of this issue and the effects of imported rice on Haiti, see this or this.
The first is from Anderson Cooper of CNN, who interviews Sean Penn in Haiti. Penn describes the scene on the ground after heavy rains fell in Port-au-Prince last week. Penn describes a coming disaster if hundreds of thousands of displaced Haitian are not relocated before the heaviest rains begin in earnest. The video includes footage of the camps, turned to mud, after the rains.
The second video comes via the Red Cross, who obtained the video from the Irish Television Channel. The video is taken at night after just twenty minutes of heavy rains in one of the make shift camps that are home to some one million Haitians. The Red Cross explains:
It is the beginning of the rainy season in Haiti. What people had feared since the earthquake is happening. After only 20 minutes of one of the first rains of the season in the camps, the scene quickly transforms into rain soaked mud-bath. Water seeps through everywhere. People are getting wet outside and inside their tents. Tarpaulin sheets have to be cut with knives to prevent them from collapsing under the weight of the rain water. People are panicking and trying to protect themselves. What will it be like for Haiti’s people when the real rains come?
The first is from Anderson Cooper of CNN, who interviews Sean Penn in Haiti. Penn describes the scene on the ground after heavy rains fell in Port-au-Prince last week. Penn describes a coming disaster if hundreds of thousands of displaced Haitian are not relocated before the heaviest rains begin in earnest. The video includes footage of the camps, turned to mud, after the rains.
The second video comes via the Red Cross, who obtained the video from the Irish Television Channel. The video is taken at night after just twenty minutes of heavy rains in one of the make shift camps that are home to some one million Haitians. The Red Cross explains:
It is the beginning of the rainy season in Haiti. What people had feared since the earthquake is happening. After only 20 minutes of one of the first rains of the season in the camps, the scene quickly transforms into rain soaked mud-bath. Water seeps through everywhere. People are getting wet outside and inside their tents. Tarpaulin sheets have to be cut with knives to prevent them from collapsing under the weight of the rain water. People are panicking and trying to protect themselves. What will it be like for Haiti’s people when the real rains come?
On March 15, Amnesty International described the “daily struggle in Haiti’s camps”:
Two months after the earthquake, thousands in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere still await a first glimpse of humanitarian aid. In the four makeshift camps we visited during our first days in Haiti, life is a daily struggle and conditions are dire to say the least.
People are without water, food, sanitation or shelter. Resilience and solidarity with each other are the only things these camp-dwellers can rely on.
Amnesty notes that there have been numerous reports of rape and sexual abuse in the camps since the quake:
The day we visited the police station, a male officer on duty at the table unwillingly counted for us the number of cases registered in the log book: 52 cases of physical and sexual violence since the earthquake.
He said that many victims were minors, aged between 11 and 16, and that most of the assaults took place at night.
Although he knew where to refer victims for medical attention after a sexual assault, he was unable to explain why, on the previous night, a mother seeking police assistance in the attempted rape of her 17-year-old daughter by four young men, was told that the police could not do anything and that the security in the camps was the responsibility of the President of the Republic. Quite a blow for the population’s confidence in the police…
Amnesty, which has sent a mission to Haiti, ends their update with the most pressing issue:
The rainy season looms and all the people we talked to fear the worst. Shelter is what they need and what they ask for. That is their priority.
On March 15, Amnesty International described the “daily struggle in Haiti’s camps”:
Two months after the earthquake, thousands in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere still await a first glimpse of humanitarian aid. In the four makeshift camps we visited during our first days in Haiti, life is a daily struggle and conditions are dire to say the least.
People are without water, food, sanitation or shelter. Resilience and solidarity with each other are the only things these camp-dwellers can rely on.
Amnesty notes that there have been numerous reports of rape and sexual abuse in the camps since the quake:
The day we visited the police station, a male officer on duty at the table unwillingly counted for us the number of cases registered in the log book: 52 cases of physical and sexual violence since the earthquake.
He said that many victims were minors, aged between 11 and 16, and that most of the assaults took place at night.
Although he knew where to refer victims for medical attention after a sexual assault, he was unable to explain why, on the previous night, a mother seeking police assistance in the attempted rape of her 17-year-old daughter by four young men, was told that the police could not do anything and that the security in the camps was the responsibility of the President of the Republic. Quite a blow for the population’s confidence in the police…
Amnesty, which has sent a mission to Haiti, ends their update with the most pressing issue:
The rainy season looms and all the people we talked to fear the worst. Shelter is what they need and what they ask for. That is their priority.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) issued a draft report, “Sectorial Assessment of Damages, Losses and Requirements.” The report notes that extreme poverty has reached levels not seen in a decade when the level was over 70 percent. According to the 2009 UN Human Development Report the proportion living in extreme poverty in Haiti was 54.9 percent.
The ECLAC report also notes that over 222,000 people died, more than 311,000 were injured, and 15% of the population (1.5 million) are now homeless. ECLAC estimates that the total damages are “more than US$ 7.8 billion, equivalent to over 120% of Haiti’s GDP in 2009.”
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) issued a draft report, “Sectorial Assessment of Damages, Losses and Requirements.” The report notes that extreme poverty has reached levels not seen in a decade when the level was over 70 percent. According to the 2009 UN Human Development Report the proportion living in extreme poverty in Haiti was 54.9 percent.
The ECLAC report also notes that over 222,000 people died, more than 311,000 were injured, and 15% of the population (1.5 million) are now homeless. ECLAC estimates that the total damages are “more than US$ 7.8 billion, equivalent to over 120% of Haiti’s GDP in 2009.”
