UN: Targets mostly reached one year after Haiti quake

Jan 10, 2011, 18:49 GMT

New York - The United Nations said Monday it has mostly achieved short-term goals set after a giant earthquake struck Haiti a year ago, including moving over half of the 1.5 million people left homeless from camps into transitional housings.

Nigel Fisher, deputy UN special representative in Port-au-Prince, said through a video teleconference with reporters at UN headquarters in New York that the immediate objectives agreed upon within the month after the earthquake on January 12 had been 'largely' met.

'On the whole, we met our targets,' Fisher said.

UN agencies and non-governmental relief organizations worked feverishly within days of the natural disaster and succeeded in preventing disease outbreaks resulting from the quake, Fisher said.

Fisher said the cholera epidemic that erupted in October was not related to the earthquake. The UN said cholera has killed 3,481 Haitians as of December 29, with more than 150,000 people suffering infections.

The earthquake killed more than 220,000 people, including 102 UN personnel, and caused widespread destruction in the capital Port-au- Prince. An estimated 1.5 million Haitians who lost their dwellings to the quake were housed in 150 camps by July, and the number has been reduced with construction of transitional housing.

The international community pledged more than 4 billion dollars to assist Haiti in the short term, providing assistance ranging from medical, health and sanitation services to education and reconstruction. Fisher said the UN had received 1.28 billion dollars for Haiti efforts, and another 1.6 billion dollars were committed.

Fisher said reconstruction work would take longer, saying that in retrospect projects could have started faster. The international community in March 2010 pledged more than 9 billion dollars for longterm reconstruction.

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