One month after the quake, UN officials in Haiti find picture becoming clearer

One month after Haiti was torn apart by an earthquake, the scale of the disaster is still becoming apparent, the United Nations aid chief said today as he stressed that finding adequate shelter and sanitation remain the greatest challenges of the relief effort.

“The scale and impact of this disaster are still becoming clearer and clearer, and therefore the scale and the nature of the challenges we face – not only on the relief side, but also the course for the recovery and development later on,” Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told reporters via teleconference from Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, where a National Day of Mourning was being observed.

Speaking alongside Rebeca Grynspan, the Associate Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Mr. Holmes praised the coordinated relief efforts of the many UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other international actors operating in Haiti.

“The coordination structures we have in place in terms of the coordination amongst the international actors, the cluster system, is working well and is working outside of Port-au-Prince as well as in,” he said.

“The civil-military coordination continues to go very well and I was happy to see that on the ground for myself with the Americans and with the Canadians this morning. Increasingly, we are moving to a position where we can see ahead a bit more and think more strategically about the next two or three months at what are the plans we need to put in place in terms of food, shelter, sanitation, to make sure we are tackling all the problems we need to tackle.”

Shelter remains a key priority. So far around 49,000 tarpaulins have been distributed along with 23,000 family-sized tents to the hundreds of thousands of displaced people, but the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that 400,000 plastic sheets are in stock and in the pipeline.

Mr. Holmes, who is also the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, said distribution of the emergency shelter material is going on “at a reasonable 30 to 35 per cent, but clearly we have a long way to go.”

Sanitation also remains a concern as only 5 per cent of the required latrines are in place. The need is calculated on the basis of one latrine per 50 people. Some 3,000 latrines will be installed in Port-au-Prince in the coming weeks. OCHA said the goal is to have 50 percent of latrines completed by the end February.

Mr. Holmes and Ms. Grynspan praised UNDP’s cash-for-work programme, which has now employed more than 35,000 Haitians to remove debris for around $4 for a half-day’s work. In future months, heavy machinery will be brought in to clear the larger rubble and to clear land for temporary camps for the displaced.

Tackling problems will require resources. An emergency appeal launched by the international aid community three days after the earthquake struck is now around 95 per cent funded, having received nearly $548 million for both short- and long-term projects. A revised appeal is expected next week based on a detailed assessment of the damage on the ground.

Mr. Holmes and Ms. Grynspan said the revised number is expected to be significantly higher as it will encompass the needs in Haiti over the course of 12 months. A donors’ conference is scheduled in New York for March.