Disaster

Conference report, Monday 22 – Thursday 25 November 2010 (WP1059)

Key points

• How do urban disasters differ from other humanitarian disasters?

• How should humanitarians adapt their response to a disaster (natural or man-made) which affects a large urban population?

• What specialist expertise, tools and knowledge are needed in an urban context?

• How can the risks and economic and social impact of a disaster be reduced through more effective risk reduction measures in urban areas?

Haiti's main physical rehabilitation centre will open its doors today for the first time since it was seriously damaged in the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and left 1.5 million people homeless.

In Port-au-Prince for the opening, David Brown, leader of the Australian Red Cross International Disability Forum, said the centre had been rebuilt with more than $2 million in support from the global Red Cross Movement, including $700,000 from Australian Red Cross.

Executive Summary

This report of the Haiti Humanitarian Assistance Evaluation of the 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12th was undertaken by Tulane University’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy in partnership with the State University of Haiti (UEH) and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The early start of the rain season in March caused the death of 22 people, flooding and landslides, and the loss of crops and livestocks in six departments:

Ouest, including Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, Nord, Nord-Ouest, Sud, Nippes and Grande Anse.

Close to 20,000 people, a majority of them living in IDP camps, have been affected by flooding.

The subsequent contamination of water sources led to a sharp increase in the number of new cholera cases.

This report covers the period 01 January 2011 to 31 December 2011.

In brief

This report updates the progress taken to implement the 2011 support plan for the Dominican Red Cross (DRC).

The Dominican Red Cross’ work is guided by the Guayaquil Inter-American Plan 2007-2011 and Strategy 2020, which puts forward three strategic aims:

1. Save lives, protect livelihoods, and strengthen recovery from disaster and crises.

2. Enable healthy and safe living.

The Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) Network is a unique initiative that brings together expertise from the humanitarian, media development and technology sectors in a new collaboration that recognises information and two-way communication as key humanitarian deliverables. It was formed in 2009 with a view to improving communication between aid actors and disaster affected populations.