(Excerpts)
Haiti
Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) highlighted that, three months after the Haiti earthquake, the appeal for Haiti continued to stagnate and remained at 50 per cent following an initial inflow of funds. They still lacked $751 million for Haiti, where the United Nations had nevertheless made some significant progress, feeding over 3.5 million persons, distributing potable water to 1.3 million each day, providing 1 million with emergency shelter and distributing hygiene kits to 510,000, among others. However, much remained to be done. Further details of the funding status and the work remaining to be accomplished would be available at next Tuesday's briefing.
Christiane Berthiaume of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that UNICEF would publish a report looking at Haiti 90 days later, setting out what had been accomplished and what challenges remained. She hoped to be able to deliver an embargoed report to the media on Monday.
Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that, starting this weekend, IOM would take part in a multi-agency effort led by the Haitian Government to relocate several thousand people deemed at risk from the Petionville Golf Club settlement in Port-au-Prince. Many Petionville residents were situated on steep hillside areas, deemed to be at significant risk once the rainy season, which was expected to start this month, began. IOM was also working with engineers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti and with the United States military to identify specific locations in the camp at risk, where individuals could remain but mitigation work had to be carried out to prevent flooding and mudslides. As a result that mapping exercise, 7,500 residents had been informed that they were in dangerous areas designated for movement, and presented with potential options for voluntary relocation. Where other options were not possible, relocation would be facilitated to the new Corail Cesselesse site. Corail Cesselesse, prepared by IOM together with military engineers and humanitarian partners, was suitable for up to 6,000 individuals, and services at the site would include health care and food distribution in addition to specialized services for children, including a learning area provided by UNICEF and Plan International and child friendly spaces operated by Save the Children. The first day of relocation to the Corail site was scheduled for Saturday, 11 April, when an initial 100 families were slated for relocation. The process was expected to take several days.
Food Crisis in the Sahel
Turning to the Sahel, Ms. Berthiaume said UNICEF was very concerned about the impact on children of the ongoing drought and the food crisis it had sparked in Niger and other countries of the Sahel. There were tens of thousands of children in the Western Sahel who were in situations of extreme distress, including from Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, the north of Nigeria and Chad. UNICEF estimated that some 859,000 children under five that would need treatment for severe malnutrition. It was a region that already had a high level of child malnutrition - with a rate of severe malnutrition over 10 per cent for some time now. The good news was that UNICEF was ready to act: it knew what to do, and had partners and infrastructure in place. The problem was a lack of funds and a lack of time. They needed $50 million and to date only half those funds had been received. The money was needed "yesterday", as in two months' time the crisis would be at its peak.