Wednesday, January 20, 2010

World Bank Team Prepares for Damage Assessment, Recovery Plan

http://go.worldbank.org/F9ELJXTE40
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

CrisisCommons is Community Technology + Humanitarian Relief

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via swissmiss by swissmiss on 1/20/10

Nina pointed me to Crisis Commons, an organization that brings together professionals to create useful tools in times of need. They have been conducting something called CrisisCamp where people get together on a specific day to work on projects.

In their words:

"Crisis Camp is a gathering of technologists who come together to build platforms to assist with the releif efforts in Haiti."

"We are an international network of professionals drawn together by a call to service. We are developers, specialists, communicators, first responders, project managers, and people who just want to help!"

More here: http://crisiscommons.org/

Check on their site, top right corner, for upcoming CrisisCamp meet-ups in London, New York, Boston, Boulder/Devner, Los Angeles, Miami, Portland, Sillicon Valley and Washington DC.


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

How does Haiti communicate after the earthquake?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8470270.stm
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Not Ban's Katrina

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via (title unknown) by Matthew Cordell on 1/20/10

At the new Turtle Bay, Colum Lynch writes the provocatively titled "Ban Ki-moon's Katrina?" inviting the comparison between the response in New Orleans to that in Haiti.

Like Mark I'm excited that seasoned reporter Colum Lynch now has more room to stretch his legs on UN issues, but I hope that his reporting in this morning's "Ban Ki-moon's Katrina?" is off the mark.

Lynch writes:


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Earthquake survivor says iPhone helped save his life

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/20/earthquake-survivor-says-iphone-helped-save-his-life/
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Officials Strain to Distribute Aid to Haiti as Violence Rises

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via NYT > United Nations by By GINGER THOMPSON and DAMIEN CAVE on 1/16/10

A sprawling assembly of international officials and aid workers struggled to fix a troubled relief effort.

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Relief Groups Seek Alternative Routes to Get Aid Moving

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via NYT > United Nations by By ALAN COWELL and SHARON OTTERMAN on 1/15/10

Relief flights are snarled at Port-au-Prince airport, and survivors are voicing angry criticism that no help is getting through.

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Too much of a good thing? Making the most of your disaster donations

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via Aid Watch by Laura Freschi on 1/19/10

The global outpouring of support for people affected by the South Asia earthquake and tsunamis of 2004 added up to more than $14 billion.

One notable fact about this $14 billion is that it represents the most generous international response to a natural disaster on record. Another is that it exceeded the total estimated cost of damages from the storm by some $4 billion, or about 30 percent.

What drove these record-breaking sums in the aftermath of the tsunami was not aid from governments, although that too was large. It was private individuals and companies who reached into their pockets and gave generously, to the Red Cross, to UNICEF and other UN agencies, and above all to what is estimated to be the largest proliferation of NGOs that had ever implemented relief efforts in a single disaster.

We don't yet know how the Haiti response will compare. We do know that donor pledges to help those affected by last Tuesday's earthquake in Port-au-Prince, pushed along by texting and twitter campaigns, have also been fast and plentiful (while no list seems totally comprehensive, there are tallies of pledges here , here and here).

And we know that some of the same conditions that made the response to the tsunami so generous are at play in Haiti as well. For one, the proximity to the Christmas season, when many Western donors are predisposed to be thinking about giving, and have holiday charity solicitations fresh in their minds. For another, the barrage of media coverage, especially (from Haiti) television stories featuring dramatic rescues that underscore the heroism of American-funded rescue teams.

Relief agencies having a lot of money to draw upon had many real, positive consequences for the survivors of the tsunami in South Asia. Quick-response relief efforts received praise from evaluators and local populations. But the unprecedented pledges in answer to post-tsunami fundraising appeals didn't solve all problems, and in fact amplified some existing ones—like competition among NGOs, funding decisions based on media and political pressure rather than actual needs or capacities of affected countries, and weakening humanitarian impartiality.

The authors of one report by the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition* found that generous funding "exceeded the absorption capacity of an overstretched humanitarian industry" and actually served as a disincentive for NGOs to work together and pool resources and information. It also caused inexperienced NGOs to proliferate, and encouraged even experienced actors to work outside their realm of expertise.

Some NGOs that found themselves with unexpected amounts of money to spend responded by extending the time horizons or scope of their programs. Only Médecins sans Frontières was quick to admit that they had enough donations for the tsunami and request that additional funds help people elsewhere, a move which initially drew criticism from other NGOs. (MSF posted a similar statement for Haiti last week).

Humanitarian aid is supposed to be allocated according to the principle of impartiality — the idea that assistance should be offered according to need, not nationality, or political belief, or even how compelling a particular disaster may be to donors. This may be an impossible ideal, but consider that the $14 billion for survivors of the tsunami works out to about $7,000 per person, and compare that to the roughly $150 per person for Somalis affected by civil strife in 2005, or $3 per person for the 2004 floods in Bangladesh.

It may seem callous to suggest even by analogy that the flow of funds going immediately to Haiti be in any way stemmed or diverted. But the effects of big fundraising appeals are complex, and not as temporary we might assume: "The scale of the resources to be spent will distort agency programmes in favour of tsunami-affected areas for years to come," found another report.

The solution is not to stop donations to organizations doing good work in Haiti. Haitians need international help to rebuild now. The point is rather to give money in such a way that mitigates the negative effects of this compassionate onslaught of giving, and encourages the international system to allocate funds effectively and fairly. Other, good blogs have already discussed some strategies; I give you three of them:

  1. Don't restrict (or earmark) your donations to be used only in Haiti, but rather allow your chosen NGO to spend the money you donate as they see fit. If you don't trust them to allocate your funds effectively to where they are most needed, then why are you giving them money in the first place?
  2. Take up the Philanthrocapitalism blog's advice to give an equal amount to "someone suffering just as much, but less dramatically, elsewhere in the world."
  3. Space out your giving. Organizations with a history of working closely with Haitian communities will still be there in six months. They will probably be there in a year, and probably in five years too. They will need your money then as well, when the spotlight has shifted to the next disaster.

–

*ALNAP (Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance), is the repository of many useful documents from the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition. ALNAP has also produced lessons learned reports on Responding to Urban Disasters and Responding to Earthquakes 2008, among others.


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

US Corporations, Private Mercenaries and the IMF Rush in to Profit from Hait...

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed by Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom on 1/19/10

In the midst of a colossal human disaster, Washington is promoting unpopular economic policies and extending military and economic control over the Haitian people.


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Where do the reporters in Haiti get their food and shelter?

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via Slate Magazine by Nina Shen Rastogi on 1/19/10

In the week following the massive Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, a number of high-profile American journalists—Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, even Al Roker—have reported from the ground in Port-au-Prince. This has many Explainer readers wondering: If aid organizations are having such a hard time delivering food and medical supplies, how are so many journalists getting into Haiti?

[more ...]

Add to Facebook Add to Twitter Add to digg Add to Reddit Add to StumbleUpon Email this Article

Haiti - Anderson Cooper - Port-au-Prince - Al Roker - Katie Couric

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Sanjay Gupta 'Shocked' When Doctors Left Him Alone In Haiti Clinic Overnight...

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 1/19/10

CNN chief medical correspondent, and actual doctor, Sanjay Gupta told Joy Behar that he was "shocked" when doctors and nurses walked away from a field clinic in Haiti last Friday night over security concerns, leaving Gupta as the only doctor left to make sure the patients, some badly wounded, made it through the night.

As Gupta watched doctors pack up some of their supplies and walk away from the clinic he "looked at my crew and I said, 'I'm gonna stay. You decide what you want to do.' And the whole crew, we decided to stay and take of these patients throughout the night."

When asked if these doctors had left completely of their own volition, Gupta said he thought they were most likely ordered to leave: "I really don't think they wanted to go."

The next day one of the doctors who came back told Gupta that he was ashamed.

WATCH:

More on Haiti Earthquake


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Guest Post: A Marshall Plan for Haiti?

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via Undiplomatic by Guest on 1/19/10

The following guest post was written by Jacob Francois, an entrepreneur with over eighteen years experience in the financial services industry, and owner of Lakay Financial International, Inc.  in addition to reaching out to the Haitian and Haitian-American communities via appearances on radio and television, Mr. François has served 7 years as a board member and two years as president of the Haitian-American Community Association (HACA) located in Chicago. He is also founder of Project 2000 International, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing assistance to Haitian children. The organization is responsible for securing donations in-kind, as well as monetary donations to purchase whatever is necessary to facilitate the education (school supplies, uniforms, shoes, etc.) of these youngsters whose families would otherwise be unable to provide these necessities for them. For more information about these organizations, please follow the above links.

Haiti has been struck by a terrible catastrophe far beyond its economic capacity. Immediate humanitarian assistance is essential, but Haiti will need more that just relief if it is to rebuild and prosper. For this reason, we at the Haitian Priorities Project propose a "Marshall Plan" for Haiti:

  • $5 billion to help the Haitian people rebuild their livelihood
  • $2 billion earmarked for the private sector
  • $1 billion for a 1500-megawatt electrical plant
  • $1.5 billion to rebuild various government compounds in the 10 departments
  • $1 billion for a communication system capable of providing at least 1 million land lines
  • $3 billion to rebuild 5,000 km of roads, connectors, sewers and provide garbage collection
  • $1 billion for 10 national airports in 10 departments
  • $1 billion for the agricultural sector
  • $2 billion for the school sector
  • $2.5 billion for economic development programs
  • $700 million for heavy machinery

In all, $20.7 billion per year for three years could put Haiti back on the path to becoming a modern nation. If we put this amount is the context of the United States GDP for 2009, the amount is less than 1/100th of 1 percent of the United States GDP.

The Marshall Plan from its inception, was known as the European Recovery Program, (ERP). The first phase of the program started in 1948 and ran through 1952. The United States implemented the ERP as a tool for rebuilding and creating a stronger economic foundation for countries in Western Europe.

Given the destruction of its infrastructure, Haiti would benefit from a similar plan, which could be dubbed the Haiti Recovery Plan (HRP), and without which Haiti may never be a viable nation.

Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere with 80 percent of the population living under the poverty line and 54 percent in abject poverty. Two-thirds of all Haitians depend on the agricultural sector, mainly small-scale subsistence farming, and remain vulnerable to damage from frequent natural disasters, exacerbated by the country's widespread deforestation.

The economy has shown some signs of recovery in recent years, registering positive growth since 2005 after the ravages of hurricane Jeanne in 2004.  Several hurricanes damaged the entire system in 2008 as well as the transportation infrastructure and agricultural sector. Haiti has enough natural resources to build a viable nation, although capital investment is lacking and some natural resources possessed by Haiti are deemed strategic reserves to the United States. Haiti has bauxite, copper, calcium carbonate, gold, marble, hydropower and oil.

US economic engagement under the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act, passed in December 2006, has boosted apparel exports and investment by providing tariff-free access to the US. HOPE II, passed in October 2008, has further improved the export environment for the apparel sector by extending most favored nation preferences to 2018; the apparel sector accounts for two-thirds of Haitian exports and about 8 percent of GDP. Remittances are the primary source of foreign exchange, equaling more than 15 percent of GDP and about twice the earnings from exports.

Haiti suffers from high inflation, a lack of investment, limited infrastructure, and a severe trade deficit. In 2005, Haiti paid its arrears to the World Bank, paving the way for reengagement with the Bank. Haiti has received debt forgiveness for about $525 million of its debt through the Highly-Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative by mid-2009. The government relies on formal international economic assistance for fiscal sustainability.

The United States and France have a moral obligation to correct the wrongs against Haiti dating back to 1824, four years after the Monroe Doctrine was initiated. In 1824, France sent 65 ships to Haitian ports threatening to take the country back to slavery if an agreement was not signed to start paying 100 million francs to France on a yearly basis. At the time, Haiti had to shut down all government services including all the schools. This action had a profound impact on Haiti's development and on all subsequent government efforts to build viable institutions.

Without substantial new investment, Haiti will never come out of its terrible position. A government operating with less than $2 billion a year, of which 60% is from bilateral aid, will never be able to respond to the needs of a population of 10 million people.

The United States has in particular been helpful. At this juncture, however, if substantial investment is not made in Haiti, the epidemic of boat people to Florida will continue for a long time.

Our plea is to appeal to the humane compassion we know to exist in the Unites States, France, Canada, Venezuela, and all other countries to make their investments in the framework that was stated above in a length of time not to exceed three years. Otherwise, the spiral of misery will continue in Haiti for another two hundred years.

Photo:  UNDP Flickr Photostream using a CC 2.0 license

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Post from: Undiplomatic


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Defense Department Briefing Skipper: Haiti crisis

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via The Cable by Josh Rogin on 1/19/10

Here are the important parts of two Defense Department related briefings on the U.S. government response in Haiti. One was a bloggers roundtable with Gen. Ken Keen, commander of the Joint Task Force, from Monday evening. The second was a Pentagon briefing with Gen. Daniel Allyn, deputy JTF commander, Tuesday morning:

  • "The security situation is relatively calm," said Keen, "What I would say is these are pockets of violence, and we are being very vigilant to watch that closely." The Brazilian-led UN mission is in the lead as far as security goes.
  • Allyn reported that the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived Tuesday morning and will deploy about 800 of its 2,200 personnel on shore, adding to 1,000 deployed soldiers from the 82nd Airborne's 2nd Brigade Combat Team. The Comfort hospital ship will arrive Wednesday morning.
  • Allyn said here were now over 2,000 U.S. military personnel on the ground and another 5,000 or so offshore. By the end of the week there will be about 5,000 personnel on the ground and 10,000 total military personnel in the area.
  • The USS Batan, a multipurpose amphibious ship, arrived Monday, and its personnel will be deployed southwest of Port-au-Prince, where aid has been slow to materialize. A Canadian force of about 2,000 has arrived and will be deployed to Jacmel, south of the capital city. Keen hopes to have two more ports in the south usable by the end of the week.
  • The U.S. distributed 233,000 bottles of water on Monday, bringing the total to about 400,000, as well as 140,000 rations on Monday, brining that total to about 300,000. 12,000 pounds of medical supplies have been delivered.  There are about 3.5 million people in need. "This is a drop in the bucket in terms of the need, but we are doing more every day and we will continue to do that," Keen said.
  • C-17 Transport planes dropped 15,000 meals and 15,000 bottles of water on Haiti Monday and more sites are being looked at for additional drops. Monday there were 180 flights landed with no delays. Two more runways are being looked at to increase flights.
  • A "humanitarian coordination center" is being set up at MINUSTAH, under Brazilian Maj. Gen. Floriano Peixoto, who commands the U.N. force there, to evaluate aid contributions and determine how they fit with needs.
  • Keen also explained why a mobile hospital being flown in by Doctors Without Borders was turned away from the airport. Apparently, a plane on the tarmac was having maintenance issues couldn't take off as scheduled, preventing the plane with the hospital equipment from landing. Eventually, the medical plane had to divert to Dominican Republic due to fuel issues and bring the supplies over land.
  • "That's extremely unfortunate, and it certainly is not what we want to see. And clearly, we wanted that field hospital on the tarmac," said Keen, adding, "This has happened a number of times."

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Our Haiti Response Has Been Yet Another Example of Western Hypocrisy and Rac...

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed by Jeremy Seabrook, Comment Is Free on 1/19/10

Why does it take an emergency for the people of Haiti to get clean water and basic infrastructure?


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Haiti after the earthquake.

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via Slate Magazine by Michael Deibert on 1/19/10

LEOGANE, Haiti—When Elvis Cineus rushed to his home in the town of Leogane, 18 miles west of Port-au-Prince, in the aftermath of Haiti's devastating earthquake, he was not prepared for what awaited him.Under the remains of his home, smashed flat as if pummeled by a giant fist, lay the bodies of his wife, his nephew, his cousin, and a friend, all dead. His 1-year-old son was dangling from the building's jagged facade, injured but alive."It was a miracle," he says of the infant's survival. "But I think there are still survivors in the fallen schools, because we still hear them screaming."This coastal town, once one of the most pleasant in Haiti, was largely decimated by the quake. The International Federation of Red Cross estimates that as much as 90 percent of the town has been destroyed. Along Leogane's Grand Rue, once-stately concrete buildings lie in rubble, with only a few structures built in Haiti's distinctive wooden gingerbread style remaining. The putrid smell of death wafts through the lanes, helped along by an ocean breeze. At a ruined dental clinic, a woman cries when she tells how a neighbor died after her leg was severed by falling debris and how the neighbor's child, a little girl, took off screaming down the street."It's beyond chaos, beyond catastrophe," says Michael Moscoso, a local businessman. "The losses cannot be numbered."One week after the earthquake flattened large swaths of central Port-au-Prince, people beyond the capital and closer to the epicenter have grown ever more desperate as much-promised aid has been slow to trickle in or has failed to materialize altogether.In the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in the capital's southern Carrefour neighborhood, several hundred people lay on makeshift surgical tables, on benches, or sprawled on the floor. Half a dozen people groaned with severe suppurating burn wounds caused when a gas cylinder exploded during the great tremor. Nine-year-old Michel St. Franc lay with blood caking his face, his leg in a primitive cast and tears in his eyes."This is the worst situation I've ever seen," says Julien Mattar, project coordinator for the hospital. "We have huge needs in terms of human resources, medical supplies, and materials."Mattar tells me that a supply plane that was unable to land in Port-au-Prince was instead rerouted to the Dominican Republic. From there, the supplies made the seven-hour overland journey to Haiti.The injured who were able to reach the hospital were the lucky ones. Farther down the road, both the living and the dead waited for respite in the form of assistance from the international community or from the government of Haitian President René Préval, who has faced withering criticism at home for his perceived lax and disorganized response to the disaster.Along the Route des Rails, almost every home seemed to have been destroyed, and, again, the intense smell of decay intensified under a glaring Caribbean sun. Residents say they feel abandoned."No one has ever been here," Vilaire Elise, a 38-year-old Protestant minister, said as he led a visitor and fellow residents to survey homes where his neighbors had died. "We have no water to drink, nor food to eat. We are suffering here."Though nearly 105,000 food rations and 20,000 tents had been distributed by humanitarian groups on Monday, the effort seemed unable to come to grips with the scale of the disaster. The U.N. World Food Program has said it will need 100 million prepared meals over the next 30 days.The growing foreign military presence in Haiti, which has played host to a U.N. peacekeeping mission since 2004 and will now house at least 2,000 U.S. troops, also seemed overwhelmed.Late on Monday, with the sun setting outside Leogane, in a scene reminiscent of others played out in severely war-torn countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, at least 1,500 townsfolk rendered homeless by the quake took over a flat patch of grassy land and constructed fragile shelters from logs, twigs, bed sheets, and leaves. "Since the disaster, everyone here has had nothing," said Innocent Wilson, a 31-year-old who acts as one of the impromptu camp's spokesmen. "No one is here to help us, so we are organizing ourselves."

[more ...]

Add to Facebook Add to Twitter Add to digg Add to Reddit Add to StumbleUpon Email this Article

Haiti - Port-au-Prince - Caribbean - Dominican Republic - Médecins Sans Frontières

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

U.S. Troops Land With Aid at Presidential Site in Haiti

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via NYT > United Nations by By SIMON ROMERO and MARC LACEY on 1/19/10

The troops, who appeared to be establishing a position at the palace, were among a contingent of some 10,000 U.S. military personnel on their way to Haiti.

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Mona Gable: Doctors Without Borders in Haiti: Why Couldn't They Land?

 
 

Sent to you by Zeeshan via Google Reader:

 
 

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Mona Gable on 1/18/10

Bill Clinton is on the ground in Haiti with Chelsea touring the rubble. I'm elated the former president was able to get permission from the Defense Department to fly in. It's no small feat, I'm telling you. Because apparently not everyone can.

Take Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the highly respected international medical humanitarian organization. You know, the one Sandra Bullock gave $1 million this week before she won the Golden Globe? They've been in Haiti for years. They have hundreds of medical staff in place, and are working in five hospitals in Port-au-Prince. They know the country. They're experts in delivering medical aid. These are the people you want on the ground after a killer earthquake? Am I right?

Then why was an MSF cargo plane carrying, among other badly needed supplies, an inflatable surgical hospital, not allowed to land in Port-au-Prince on Saturday and re-routed to the Dominican Republic? Despite assurances from the United Nations and the Defense Department that its planes would be allowed in?

If this is an air traffic control problem, they need to fix it now. Maybe Bill could help?

The inflatable hospital included two operating theaters, an intensive care unit, 100 beds, an emergency room and equipment for sterilizing material. The supplies had to be sent by truck, so the hospital didn't arrive in Haiti until a day later.

To be fair, a plane carrying supplies for the other half of the field hospital did arrive in Port-au-Prince on Sunday. But for a while even that looked sketchy. And as Isabelle Jeanson, an MSF Emergency Communications Officer wrote in an email from Haiti on Sunday: "MSF is still concerned that delivery of vital supplies is being delayed."

As the crisis in Haiti drags on survivors are dying. Even if they're rescued, they're slowly and painfully dying from their wounds because they can't get into surgery quickly enough. And they can't get into surgery because the hospitals have collapsed and the makeshift ones aren't equipped to do surgery. That is, except for the Israelis. They had a modern field hospital up and running in seconds. But they can't treat 2 million people.

The MSF plane that was dispatched to the Dominican Republic was carrying medical supplies for Choscal hospital in Cite Soleil. Which had barely a 24-hour supply left for the 500 patients waiting to have surgery. Even under horrific conditions, MSF teams performed more than 90 operations in the day after their operating theatre was functional.

Like other aid groups in Haiti, Doctors Without Borders is hurting too. Some of their Haitian staff members died. Some they haven't been able to reach.

And then there is the frustration of trying to help. Of not having the right equipment. The heartache of watching people die when you know you could have saved them.

As Jeanson wrote in her email on Sunday: "Patients who were not critical only three days ago are now in critical phases. This means that people will die from preventable infections. It's horrible. It's really so terrible that people are begging for help and we can't help them all to save their lives!"


More on Haiti Earthquake


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)