The United Nations reports significant progress has been made in providing assistance to hundreds of thousands of quake victims in Haiti.

A senior U.N. official says the relief operation is being scaled up on all levels, with shelter topping the list of priorities.

The United Nations says things may be improving, but the crisis in earthquake-devastated Haiti is far from over. U.N. officials report nearly one-half million people have left the capital Port-au-Prince for outlying areas. They say 90 percent of these people are staying with host families who are in need of assistance.

U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes calls Haiti a particularly difficult and complicated operation. He says he understands the frustration of aid workers who are not able to quickly reach the survivors with desperately needed assistance.

"What I think we can see now is that we are beginning to make really significant progress in doing that, particularly on the food side, but, in some other areas as well," Holmes said. "So, the scaling up is happening significantly now ... But, we still have a significant way to go before we reach everybody with the aid that they need."

Holmes says health care for the injured and sick is getting better, although it still is not good. He notes most life-saving operations have taken place. But vital drugs are still lacking, and there need to be more surveillance systems to monitor the outbreak of epidemics.

He says most people are receiving water, but sanitation must be improved and 7,000 latrines must be built in Port-au-Prince. He says more people are receiving food and the World Food Program aims to reach two million people in the next 10 days.

"The number of people being reached with the basic food they need, rice and ready-to-eat meals where appropriate is scaling up in the way we all want to see," Holmes said. "That is an operation that is being conducted on the basis of coupons and so it can be more easily targeted than the very quick and dirty distributions, if I call it that way, which were being used in the first couple of weeks. So, I think there is good progress being made there."

Holmes says tens of thousands of people will need tents, plastic sheets and tarpaulins before the rainy and hurricane seasons start in a few months. He says there are not many tents in Haiti, but 50,000 tents are in the pipeline and are expected to arrive shortly.

"I think there was a desire to avoid creating large camps, which have a tendency to become permanent over time rather than temporary," Holmes said. "There is a problem of space for large camps, certainly in the immediate vicinity of Port-au-Prince. Therefore, it was also clear to people looking at this that people did not want to go away from Port-au-Prince into large camps. They wanted to stay close to their homes."

U.N. humanitarian chief Holmes says many of the quake survivors are still in the rubble of their own homes because they want to be close to where they used to live and work.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are surviving on emergency food aid after last month's devastating earthquake in a nation that was already struggling to feed its people. But some food policy experts believe the disaster could eventually lead to Haiti's economic resurgence.

Less than two years ago, riots broke out in Haiti when the price of food staples skyrocketed. It was the latest illustration of the island nation's long-running problems with food security. U.N. estimates going back to 1990 consistently show that more than half the population is undernourished.

The earthquake dealt another blow to the country's ability to feed itself. Irrigation systems, food processing plants and storage facilities in quake-affected rural areas have suffered damage. That's in addition to the devastation in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Destruction that will have ripple effects throughout the small country, according to Cristina Amaral, chief of emergency operations for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

"The economic center, that was Port-au-Prince. The port, all the transportation network, the market chain and all the supply chain in the country has been completely disrupted," says Amaral.

Thousands are now fleeing Port-au-Prince for the countryside. Marie Ruel of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), says that could worsen Haiti's hunger problems. "In the short term, it puts a burden on people in the countryside to feed the more mouths that are coming, with them not having any more resource[s]," she says.
In the long term, however, some experts say the exodus from Port-au-Prince might be a good thing. The capital was overcrowded and could not support all the people who had been drawn there looking for work. The FAO's Cristina Amaral says coordinated efforts to support the new arrivals in the countryside would be a wise investment.  

"It will be certainly faster to improve the absorption capacity of the rural areas so the Haitians who have not suffered the earthquake could help their country-fellows to get some work in agriculture, to start to do food production," she says.

Opportunity in crisis

Amaral says a Haitian economic renaissance could start in these rural areas. She suggests beginning with an agricultural development program that puts people to work improving irrigation and possibly planting trees in the denuded countryside.

IFPRI's Marie Ruel would like to see Haiti's dismal road infrastructure improved. She says the earthquake actually presents Haiti with an opportunity. "Maybe with all the attention that Haiti has gotten now, if we can maintain that, maybe there will be some reconstruction efforts that will make things much better."

Before reconstruction begins in earnest, though, experts say the priority in the next few weeks will be to help supply Haitian farmers with seeds, fertilizers and tools for the March planting season. The FAO's Cristina Amaral would like to see food distribution centers give people seeds and equipment for simple backyard vegetable gardens.

Besides providing fresh wholesome food, watching a garden bloom could give Haitians some much-needed hope in desperate times, says Amaral.

Source: Voanews.com