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Haiti

Haiti: Hurricane Matthew - Situation Report No. 33 (25 January 2017)

Attachments

Main Points

• Humanitarian interventions are taking places in hard-to-reach areas in line with a plan to access remote locations using various means of transportation.

• The recently released Real Time Evaluation (RTE) report of the international response to Hurricane Matthew recommends adjustment to the ongoing humanitarian response alongside with measures to strengthen resilience and disaster risk management in Haiti and long-term changes concerning the humanitarian system.

• An increasing number of bloody diarrhea cases have been reported in Sud and Grand’Anse regions raising concern among Health actors.
The MSSP with the support of its partners notably PAHO/WHO are investigating cases.

Situation Overview

Humanitarian assistance and coordination around school evictions by local authorities have continued despite security issues in last weeks. Most schools identified by the humanitarian community in Jeremie for assistance and protection have now been evicted to allow resumption of schooling. Partners are addressing the needs of those evicted. In les Cayes, humanitarians are focusing on 4 schools hosting displaced populations and registrations of families have started in one school prior to an intervention targeting their area of origin.

Hard-to-reach areas have been increasingly reached by humanitarian interventions in the past weeks.
Humanitarian teams in Jeremie and Les Cayes have worked on a plan to access remote areas using diversify means of transport. The 2 UNHAS/WFP helicopters are being used by MSF to respond to identified needs in hard-to-reach areas doing frequent rotations to deliver humanitarian assistance that is thereafter distributed by community leaders.

The final report of the real-time evaluation (RTE) of the international response to Hurricane Matthew was released on 17 January. This independent evaluation was commissioned by a group of donors in consultation with a number of international agencies and NGO networks who together form the RTE’s steering group (Department for International Development of the United Kingdom (DfID), the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (OFDA/USAID), the Government of Canada, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) the Cadre de Liaison Inter ONG (CLIO), the Comité de Coordination des ONG (CCO) and OCHA). The objectives of the RTE are two-fold: 1) to develop an understanding on whether the international response has been effective, relevant and timely; and 2) determining how the planning and delivery of the response reflected commitments listed in the Grand Bargain. The latter was particularly relevant as this was the first international humanitarian response to a major emergency following the Grand Bargain on humanitarian aid financing which was adopted at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Turkey on 24 May 2016. Recommendations in the RTE include: an immediate adjustment to the ongoing humanitarian response; measures to strengthen resilience and disaster risk management in Haiti; long-term changes concerning the humanitarian system; and recommendations related to the Grand Bargain.

According to the recent Emergency Food Security Assessment (EFSA) on the impact of the hurricane to the most affected areas carried out two months after the passage of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti, the number of people in food insecurity in Grand’Anse and Sud, two regions most affected, decreased by half, from about one million people to 400,000. However, in the North-West, Artibonite, Nippes and La Gonâve (West), although the impact of the hurricane was lower, its effects, associated with three years of severe drought have led to an increase in the level of food insecurity where 1 million people have been affected. In total, more than 1.5 million people are still food insecure in these 6 departments. After the passage of Matthew, thanks to food aid assistance provided from October, food insecurity levels declined in the Sud from 79% to 41% two months later and in Grande-Anse from 78% to 54% over the same period. Since the beginning of the emergency response, under the leadership of the government, the World Food Program (WFP) has distributed food aid in these two departments to more than 900,000 people and has distributed fortified complementary foods to more than 20,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women and children under five years of age. At the same time, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), together with the Ministry of Agriculture, has provided seeds, tools and financial resources to more than 21,000 vulnerable agricultural households in 5 departments (Grand'Anse, South, South East, West, Northwest). The highest levels of food insecurity are in the North West (65%), Haut Artibonite (54%) and La Gonâve (54%); these areas were not identified as priorities for emergency response after the first mid-October assessment. According to WFP’s representative in Haiti, the results of the evaluation reveal the very positive impact of collective efforts in the aftermath of the hurricane Matthew but also confirm the need to continue and reorient assistance to new areas where food insecurity is higher. Through the National Coordination on Food Security (CNSA), the government will continue to guide these efforts in fighting food insecurity and the results of the evaluation will ensure that the response gives priority to the most vulnerable people in the new areas highlighted by the evaluation.

In Grand’Anse during the period under review only Corail and Pestel CTDA (Centres de traitement des diarrhées aiguës) report suspected cases of cholera according to PAHO/WHO situation report. However, these zones are considered red zones given the security situation in the area hence interventions by partners are hindered in the area.

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