Haiti diary 8: Working together
18 February 2010
Karri Goeldner Byrne is the IRC's director of economic recovery programmes and is based in London. She has flown out to Haiti to work on a market mapping analysis designed to help speed recovery and independence for communities after a disaster.
HOORAY! We had 97 people at our briefing! (For those who haven't been following this blog so far, I'm talking about the results of the Emergency Market Mapping Analysis – also known as EMMA – that we've been working on, a pioneering new tool.) We reported on our findings today and I am overwhelmed at the response we had. People were really interested in the information that we had gathered. The tool that my colleagues and I have spent two years nurturing and bringing into practice has finally paid off! It feels really good.
One of the things that feels particularly good is how this process is bringing everyone together, helping us coordinate efforts. Each organisation will take forward the recommendations according to their mandate and capacity, but much more important is that we are all on the same page about how to move forward. And even where people disagree with the EMMA team's information or recommendations, at least they are talking and disagreeing about the right subjects.
Another thing I just learned is that there will be a big donors' conference in March. We had two major donors present today, and if the humanitarian community is in agreement about the recommendations made (which we will learn in the coming weeks) then perhaps this will guide the thinking of the donors. And we'll know that what we did made a difference in getting the help that people need.
And so what is the IRC going to do as a result of all this? Well there is a big meeting tomorrow to thrash out more of the details, but I see several opportunities: "cash for work" is an obvious one. There is no problem with the beans market except that people have no money to buy beans. The programmes that were done after the hurricanes of 2008 have worked and there is a surplus. Similarly with the rice, although some food aid will be needed until the harvest in June/July. As I've said before, there is food available, but people can't afford to buy it. Our initial estimates are that people's income is down by 60-70%. Can you imagine what that must feel like? I think of what it would mean in our family and I can't even imagine how we would cope.
Aside from the obvious, I've been talking with the education folks about the training issue. A rough estimate is that over 131,000 people will need to be trained if Haiti is going to rebuild all their destroyed buildings. And that is a conservative figure. It's important that Haitians are able to do these jobs, which they need. But all the major engineering universities have been destroyed, many vocational training schools have been destroyed, and even for the engineers there is a need to upgrade their skills. The IRC has some great experience in this kind of thing from our Afghanistan and Pakistan programmes and I think we would do a fantastic job with it.
There is also a real push to create jobs in the rural areas where nearly half a million people have gone since the earthquake. They've gone to live temporarily with family and friends, but if we can help them stay there by creating job opportunities it would take pressure off of Port-au-Prince in a number of different ways.
Doing the EMMA has been such a great experience. I love working collaboratively with other agencies to think of big picture solutions. Everyone has their own contribution to make but by working together like this we can ensure the impact is as effective as possible.
More about our work in Haiti >
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