Editorial: Haiti exposes cracks in disaster response

OPINION: It is more than a fortnight since an earthquake levelled much of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, and killed perhaps 200,000 people. Yet even this week, survivors were still being pulled from wreckage that litters city streets and has made the place all but uninhabitable.

At the same time, much of the massive volumes of aid that has arrived from all points of the compass has still not reached many of the starving, thirsty and, in some cases, badly injured who lived through the 7-magnitude quake and perhaps wish they had not.

Governments across the globe have generously donated cash and expertise to try to assist this benighted nation recover from the latest tragedy to befall it. But the result has been far from ideal. Although the donor spirit is willing, the execution has been haphazard and arbitrary.

It was a relief, then, that envoys from 19 countries met in Montreal this week to better plan what happens next. One decision was to hold what is being called an "international pledging" conference at the United Nations in March. But in the meantime, as Canada's foreign minister Lawrence Cannon said, "We want to co-ordinate better in the short term and make sure we all know who is doing what and how." About time.

It is easy, of course, from this distance to see only chaos in Port-au-Prince and criticise apparently incoherent attempts to help Haitians through their tragedy. But, although aid has poured in, attempts to deliver it have looked disorganised at best.

It has been discouragingly obvious that, because civil society in Haiti was absent long before the earthquake struck, no single agency took on the role of orchestrating aid efforts or deciding what needed to be done where, by whom, and when.

That will be imperative for the future, because Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive says that rebuilding Port-au-Prince might take a decade or longer.

Whatever results from the Montreal summit, and the UN meeting planned for March, the UN Development Programme – now headed by former prime minister Helen Clark – needs to consider how such a disaster might be handled in future, especially if it happens in a place without the institutions that democracies take for granted.

Should the UNDP have, for example, a blueprint – if one exists, it has been missing in action in Haiti – to handle such a catastrophe in ordered stages, so that search-and-rescue experts are called on from, say, the United States first, financial agencies, such as the IMF, are employed next, and rebuilding experts are on tap to arrive after that?

A restoration template, should another Haiti strike, seems to be needed. New Zealand can, and should, play its part. Its expertise in building in earthquake zones, for example, is internationally recognised and might be offered as aid-in-kind.

It is fine for the world's wealthy to dig deep to help the heartwrenchingly sad, injured and lonely after any disaster strikes a community. But if donations cannot be put to organised use, a better international way to assist in such ghastly situations is urgently required.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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steve   #1   04:32 pm Feb 02 2010

The useless UN - eye completely off the ball thanks to Al Gore. And they are going to control the Earth's climate - just like that! When on earth are we going to hold these taxpayer-funded UN people accountable?

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