February 3, 2010
I just wrapped up my first full day in Port au Prince (Wednesday). In addition to me, CHF is also hosting a team from Harris Communications. Harris has donated satellites and sent down a team of eight engineers to set up communication systems for hospitals and NGOs like CHF. A team from Caterpillar was here just before I arrived. Among other things, Caterpillar is clearing rubble from and making repairs to the roads.
It is proving difficult to get out and do site visits because of the workload of our hosts, CHF, and the need for a security detail to go out into the many parts of the city. My, perhaps naïve, view is that the security concerns are a bit overblown, particularly by the media. I have had occasion to attend UN-hosted meetings at the airport and meet with World Vision and in neither instance have I seen people in an agitated state of mind. It is not uncommon to see long lines of people patiently queued at ATMs, food distribution points and water points. Of course, like many cities in the U.S., there are areas where you would be advised to be careful about traveling through at night.
In driving to the meetings, we’ve seen a lot of ad-hoc camps that have sprung up to host IDPs (internally displaced persons). These camps are in school lots and parks. They are clearly over-crowded and not sustainable. The U.N. is attempting to coordinate the provision of services at these camps as well as scout out locations for new camps that could ultimately turn into settlements. The U.N. has conceded that neither the existing camps nor new ones will meet international standards. The U.N. meetings are being held at the airport. The U.N. lost a lot of people in the earthquake so their role of coordinating the response has made a difficult task even more difficult.
The Haitian government has announced that they intend to set up 40 camps of 10,000 people. We are told that there is concern within the IDP camps that there will be forced migration to the new camps which could be several kilometers from the city. CHF has submitted a proposal to the U.S. Government to clear rubble from the neighborhoods that are otherwise habitable and get people moved back there. This would alleviate congestion at existing camps and reduce the number of people that have to move to more permanent camps (settlements). That approach makes sense to me.
That’s enough for now. On Thursday, I am scheduled to go out on some afternoon site visits.
- Keith Stamm, Water.org Chief Operating Officer
