*EPF205 03/09/2004
U.N. Appeals for $35 Million in Emergency Aid for Haiti
(Program would help the most vulnerable) (600)

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- The United Nations launched a flash appeal on March 8 for $35 million to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to 3 million Haitians over the next six months.

Jan Egeland, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, explained that "the dramatic events of the last few weeks put the Haitians who were already suffering from deprivation and poverty in an even more vulnerable position," so the appeal was launched to augment the 2003 appeal for $85 million, which received a disappointing response.

The response from donors in 2003 was $38 million, Egeland said at a press conference. "Beyond food and to some extent water and sanitation, we hardly did get money for the activities to help provide for a better and more secure future for the Haitian people," he added. "There was no money, for example, for the economic recovery part of the appeal."

The aid coordinator said that about 50 U.N. staff members have been sent to Haiti in recent weeks to bolster the resident U.N. team. The U.N. is planning for five regional hubs for humanitarian operations and has asked the multinational interim force in Haiti to deploy rapidly outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

"In addition to the lack of resources, our main problem is security and the resultant lack of access" to needy Haitians, Egeland said. "The situation remains extremely volatile. I would warn that those who believe the relative calm of today, compared to the acute strife we saw a week or two ago, means that we are necessarily going to something better" may be mistaken.

He said there is a security vacuum in many Haitian provinces, and the situation in the cities is perilous as well.

The appeal will provide for $7.6 million for food, $10.95 million for health, $2.32 million for education and $1.67 million for water and sanitation, if donors respond as the U.N. hopes. Funds for agriculture, human rights protection, and security will also be included.

"Humanitarian activities can only serve as short-term measures and must be accompanied by a broad based set of long-term policies to address the problems of governance, rule of law, and above all, poverty. This is essential if we are to break the cycle of political and humanitarian crises in which Haiti is mired," Egeland said. "It is time for all of us to take stock of past engagements in Haiti, learn our lessons of the mistakes of the past, and -- together with the Haitian society -- invest in and build a brighter future."

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard also announced that a multi-disciplinary team has started to arrive in Haiti to assess what is needed for the stabilization force that the U.N. Security Council wants deployed within three months. Such a team is always sent before the establishment of any U.N. peacekeeping mission.

The security situation has been assessed as safe enough for the first team members to go into Haiti, and the U.N. will be assessing the security situation on a regular basis as it prepares to send in successive waves of staff, the spokesman said.

Reginald Dumas, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, will make his first visit to Haiti during the week of March 15, Eckhard noted. Dumas will focus on broader political questions than the issues being covered by the assessment team.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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