REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by Spokespersons for and Representatives of the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Organization for Migration and UNAIDS.

Haiti

Corinne Momal-Vanian said on that on Wednesday, 12 January 2011 the United Nations family across the world would pay tribute to the colleagues and many others who had perished in the earthquake in Haiti on 12 January 2010. In Geneva, all staff were invited to attend a ceremony in Ariana Park at the Memorial to United Nations staff who had lost their lives in the service of peace. The ceremony would take place at 4.45 p.m. local time to coincide symbolically with the time when the earthquake had struck in Haiti. A ceremony would also take place in Port-au-Prince, organized by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), as well as at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the Haitian Government, assisted by the United Nations, had now been active for one year. What had been done in terms of humanitarian work should not be underestimated. The efforts undertaken have ensured the survival of many people, including the most affected. However nearly 810,000 displaced persons were continuing to live in miserable conditions in both spontaneous and organized sites. Also, many humanitarian efforts remained to be made and must be integrated into the recovery and reconstruction efforts. Emergency efforts had been launched fast, with the United Nations launching an appeal only 72 hours after the earthqake. Humanitarian work in partnership with the Government of Haiti and development partners would continue, geared towards the top priority for 2011: recovery. The United Nations, the Government of Haiti and non-governmental organizations were also relentlessly working on the current cholera epidemic, Ms. Byrs underscored. A detailed briefing note was at the back of the room, she added.

Françoise Gruloos-Ackermans, UNICEF's representative in Haiti, joining in by teleconference, said the combined impact of the earthqake and the cholera epidemic had led to a situation in which many children had lost their lives and their childhood. The activities that UNICEF has implemented with the help of its partners have focused on key sectors such as education, with efforts being made to bring children back to school, and protection, which had already been precarious prior to the earthquake due to issues such as child trafficking and child abuse. UNICEF and its partners had also worked with children in camps, creating about 400 spaces specifically designed for children living in camps. A major challenge remained the management of debris, particularly in a context where buildings could still collapse, Ms. Gruloos-Ackermans underscored. Ongoing efforts were also needed in terms of water and sanitation, one of the first activities implemented by UNICEF and its partners after the earthquake. Water has been provided for 1,200,000 people living in camps and 11,000 out of the 14,000 latrines had been provided by UNICEF alone, but much remained to be done.

Adam Rogers of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said that over the past year, UNDP’s cash-for-work and food-for-work programmes, implemented in partnership with the World Food Programme, had employed approximately 240,000 Haitians - 40 percent of them women - through 230 temporary projects. The programmes had helped to clear 1 million cubic metres of debris and restore crucial infrastructure such as streets, water and sanitation. With most debris yet to be cleared, however, the programmes would expand in the year to come, aiming to demolish thousands of unrepairable houses, and recycle more than half of recovered debris into building materials to expedite recovery.

UNDP employment programmes had also helped local communities to construct and reinforce riverbanks to prevent landslides, mudslides and flooding. In the southeastern coastal town of Les Cayes, for example, workers had constructed 160 metres of riverbank reinforcement in the slum neighbourhood of La Creole, benefitting 1,600 families when Hurricane Tomas hit in November 2010. In the area of aid coordination, UNDP had significantly expanded its existing aid management system in support of the newly created Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (www.cirh.ht) which was co-chaired by Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and former-US President Bill Clinton, who served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Haiti. The Commission was responsible for the review and approval of proposed recovery projects, to ensure their alignment with Haiti’s national priorities and the transparency of spending, Mr. Rogers said.

The Commission’s online submissions system currently included information on more than 1,400 humanitarian activities, 120 approved and ongoing projects, commitments of aid totaling USD 3.5 billion and approved disbursements of aid amounting to $1.6 billion. In order to reduce threats posed by natural disasters as Haiti continued to recover, UNDP had provided operational support and training to Haiti’s Department of Civil Protection, which had been severely hit by the earthquake. In preparation for the 2010 cyclone season, for example, UNDP had helped Haitian authorities and international actors produce an updated national contingency plan. When Hurricane Tomas had struck Haiti in November, the Department had set up national Emergency Operation Centres in Port-au-Prince and 10 other sites across the country, which UNDP helped to run. These centres kept Haitians informed about emerging risks all over the country, and coordinated immediate damage assessments and aid when necessary.

To help Haiti prepare for future earthquakes and rebuild in a more resilient manner, UNDP had led a mission of experts in November that produced a roadmap for seismic risk reduction in the reconstruction process. UNDP had also worked with experts to produce a seismic zoning map of Port-au-Prince based on soil types, so that new buildings could withstand future shocks, and trained some 45 government officials and technicians on how to use the maps for earthquake-resistant structural design. In addition, more than 300 Haitian journalists had recently took part in UNDP-sponsored media trainings to strengthen crisis reporting, which would keep Haitians informed about emerging risks during natural disasters, said Mr. Adams.

UNDP had also provided financial and technical support for the Government of Haiti for the production of informational broadcasts on cholera prevention, preparedness and response. In terms of democratic governance, UNDP had managed USD 20.2 million for the 2010-2011 electoral cycle in Haiti, comprising nearly all international funding, and distributed a total of 24,000 electoral kits, including polling booths, ballot boxes, ballots, tally sheets and indelible ink. Strengthening Haiti’s ability to conduct elections, UNDP had supported the Provisional Electoral Council through legal and technical assistance, as well as by paying workers responsible for core electoral operations.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said one year on and the number of people living in displacement camps has dropped by almost half since last July when an estimated 1.5 million had been estimated to live in camps in Haiti. At one point, IOM and its partners had registered 1.3 million people. According to IOM's displacement matrix, 810,000 people were currently living in camps. It was the first time since the crisis that well below 1 million people were displaced and living in camps in Haiti and there were also fewer camps in existance, about 1,150.

IOM's findings suggested a downward trend in the camp population of about 100,000 people a month, Ms. Pandya went on to say. The largest declines were being witnessed in the south of the country in rural or semi-urban areas where housing options were more easily available. At first sight, these figures were a positive development. People were leaving the camps because they were moving
into transitional shelters, permanent homes, damaged homes that had now been repaired, because they had received other forms of assistance, or simply because of storms, fear of evictions or the cholera outbreak.

But there was a long way to go before the displacement crisis in Haiti is close to resolution, Ms. Pandya warned. It was the most visible and intractable issue and the most challenging aspect of the humanitarian response in the country. Getting people out of the camps, into durable housing and into jobs was key to long term recovery. However, there were too many obstacles to doing this quickly enough. Issues over land tenure, the remaining rubble, the lack of land preparation for construction as well as environmental concerns were blocking any significant progress.

Given these constraints, it was likely that camp life would continue to be a reality for hundreds of thousands of people in the months to come. IOM and its camp management cluster partners were continuing to monitor all camps to track levels of service and to raise awareness of the difficulties the displaced face. The cluster’s work in the early part of the crisis had been to try and ensure that the displaced were getting the assistance they needed and were safe and sheltered. IOM and partners would continue to make the greatest possible efforts to ensure that the displaced received the continued assistance and protection they needed in the camps. However, as more and more camps closed, IOM and partners in the camp management cluster would help ensure coordination of sustainable services to an ever increasing number of people who returned to their homes or neighbourhoods and thus was no longer in camps. IOM would also work to get more people without homes and livelihoods into more durable housing such as transitional shelters. So far, IOM had built more than 3,000 of these shelters which could last up to five years, out of a planned 8,110.

IOM and partners would continue to do their best given that camp management activities had been the least funded of any humanitarian response in Haiti – just 43 per cent in 2010. For 2011, the camp management agencies had appealed for a total of 93 million dollars. IOM knew that those remaining in the camps were more vulnerable and had fewer resources than those who had already left. They had no option but to remain where they were. This meant that the hardest part of IOM's job still remained to be done.

Leo Kenny, Team Leader, Security and Humanitarian Response at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said that before the earthquake had struck there had been an estimated 125,000 people living with HIV infection in Haiti, with about 40,000 of those undergoing treatment. Services had been severely disrupted during the earthquake and its aftermath as around half of those with HIV lived in the areas most affected by the quake. Nonetheless, within three months of the earthquake around 80 per cent of those people living with HIV and receiving anti-retroviral treatment had received their drugs again. This had only been possible thanks to an amazing achievement by all partners concerned.

There remained huge challenges ahead, however, Mr. Kenny underscored. The large number of people displaced by the earthquake and those still living in temporary shelters meant a heightened vulnerability to HIV infection. Combined with the disruption of services, this was a situation that still required much effort. The resources behind the response to HIV/AIDS in Haiti had been put together into an effort to bring together a range of partners to reconstruct the AIDS response. The response had come back to original levels of access to services and heightened prevention, but at this stage the response was even building into a better response than that before the earthquake. There had, for example, been increased efforts to prevent mother-to-child-transmission, with over 156,000 pregnant mothers being tested according to recent reports, a significant increase on last year’s 140,000. There certainly remained more work to be done but a range of partners had got behind this challenge and the AIDS response seemed to be on the right track, Mr. Kenny underlined.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) said the number of cholera cases was at 171,304 and there had been 3,651 deaths as of 5 January. The overall case fatality rate had dropped to 2.2 per cent from 9 per cent at the beginning of the epidemic. Looking ahead, ongoing investments were needed in terms of training for social mobilization to inform Haitians about how to protect themselves from cholera, and the water and sanitation system should be strengthened. Also, the surveillance system should be improved as little information was available for some rural areas and in order to identify the pandemic’s medium and long-term tendencies. The peak of the epidemic was still to come, Ms. Chaib said.

Much has been done to tackle the cholera epidemic. As well as increasing the number of cholera control centers to 87, and cholera control unities to 162, WHO also continued to mobilize experts working in the most affected areas, particularly rural areas, and continued to act as distributor of the bulk of medication against cholera and other illnesses. In addition, WHO and the Pan American Health Organization had trained over 500 health professionals in cholera case management. In collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Health, WHO had started efforts to re-establish a viable health system days after the earthquake. This included plans to rebuild 30 of the 47 hospitals destroyed by the earthquake. A surveillance system had also been launched, and measures had been taken in order to rapidly identify major illnesses such as meningitis, dengue and measles.

WHO had worked with the Haitian authorities to implement programmes on maternal and child health, mental health and disabled persons, and a vaccination campaign reaching almost 1 million people had been launched in May 2010. Also, WHO had assisted the Government with putting in place a programme of free obstetric services. The number of institutional deliveries in Haiti had increased from 2,953 per month in 2007 to 6,828 per month in 2010. Major challenges nonetheless remained, particularly in terms of water and sanitation. A detailed note in English was available at the back of the room, said Ms. Chaib.


Lead Intoxication in Nigeria

Maria Neira of the World Health Organization said that she wanted to brief journalists about WHO’s work since last March concerning lead intoxication in Nigeria. WHO was helping the Nigerian authorities to deal with the problem. It was mainly children who were most affected by the lead intoxication, which caused neurological problems. As many as 180 villages may have children who have been exposed to lead. The contamination has been caused by villagers grinding rock to extract gold in a very rudimentary fashion. The rock has a high lead content and this has caused the widespread dispersion of lead-contaminated dust throughout the villages. It was believed that more than 2,700 children had been poisoned and more than 200 had died, and these were conservative figures. In the villages that had been surveyed, lead concentrations in soil of >100,000 ppm had been found in and around habitations in the villages. The limit for residential areas applied in the United States and France was 400 ppm. This problem of lead intoxication had been identified by Medecins Sans Frontiers since at least last March and WHO was working with MSF and the Nigerian authorities to decontaminate the villages and treat the poisoned children. The solution of the problem was for the population to stop trying to extract gold in this way. WHO was participating in sensitizing the population in Nigeria about the dangers of this illegal practice and its effect on health. It had received funds from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund to enable work to be carried out to decontaminate villages, to identify and treat poisoned children and to provide medical training and public education.

In response to a question, Dr. Neira said WHO had assisted Senegal in dealing with a smaller scale mass lead poisoning in 2008. WHO was developing guidance on conducting Health Impact Assessment for extractive industries.

Southern Sudan

Marixie Mercado of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF joined in acknowledging the peace and calm around the voting process today in southern Sudan, which was critical to ensuring that children were in an environment free from violence. Children were particularly vulnerable during population movements, and UNICEF reiterated its call on the authorities in the north and in the south of Sudan to give special emphasis to the monitoring and protection of separated and unaccompanied children and reunifying them with their families. Today, 57 children had been registered as separated from their families. UNICEF was supporting the Ministry of Social Development in reunifying or re-establishing communication with families for 51 children and tracing and monitoring was underway for six others. UNICEF estimated that its humanitarian funding requirements for 2011 would reach $ 162.5 million, $ 104.5 million for southern Sudan and $ 58 million for north Sudan. These funds would provide for humanitarian needs and health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, child protection, education, HIV and non-food items, and would ensure that the rights of children were upheld regardless of how the political situation evolved. There had been an outbreak of measles in the State of Warrap, with 31 cases reported, most of them children below five years old. UNICEF, together with the Ministry of Health and partners, had supported a measles campaign in the week of 27 December in that state that reached around 13,400 children.

Ms. Mercado said that at the back of the room there were statistics on children in southern Sudan. More than 90 per cent of children lived on less than 90 cents a day. One out of seven women who would become pregnant in southern Sudan would probably die from pregnancy related causes. One out of seven children would die before their fifth birthday. South Sudan had one of the lowest immunization rates in the world, only about one in 10 children were fully immunized. Less than half the population had access to safe water and just 6.4 per cent had access to sanitation facilities. Ninety-two per cent of women could not read or write. These facts showed the extraordinary needs for social services, health, education and protection in southern Sudan.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said that on 12 January, WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization would release this year’s crop and food supply assessment report for southern Sudan. It would be sent to journalists as soon as possible. WFP’s Country Director for Sudan would be giving a press conference on 13 January at 9 a.m. Geneva time in Khartoum, but she could arrange for him to be linked to the Palais if there was interest from journalists. It was so decided.

In response to a question about the attacks and deaths in southern Sudan, Ms. Mercado said that she believed that these incidents were attributed to localized conflicts and not directly to the referendum. She would try to obtain more information on this issue.

Responding to a question about the work of WFP in southern Sudan, Ms. Casella said that WFP had been working in southern Sudan for many many years as food assistance was really vital there, and was right now feeding 750,000 people. This figure could increase to up to 3 million persons depending on the time of the year and according to crop cycles. WFP had also pre-positioned ahead of the referendum food in 100 strategic locations throughout southern Sudan, and this would be enough to feed 1 million people for six months, should it be necessary.

Côte d’Ivoire

Adrian Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency said with people continuing to flee westwards from Côte d’Ivoire, UNHCR started work this past weekend on a new camp for refugees in the eastern Liberian town of Bahn. The camp would initially be capable of housing some 18,000 refugees. UNHCR site planners and the local community were working hand in hand to clear 80 hectares of jungle for the camp, which would lie on land provided by the Liberian authorities. There were now some 25,000 Ivorian refugees in Liberia, with around 600 people arriving daily. The camp was urgently needed to better protect the refugees and to ease pressure on Liberian communities that had been hosting people in some 23 villages along the border with Côte d’Ivoire. UNHCR hoped to complete work over the next two weeks on a reception area at the Bahn site from which refugees would be relocated into the main camp. Meanwhile, UNHCR was continuing to deliver aid to villages where refugees were located. Refugees continued to tell UNHCR that in most cases they were fleeing fear of violence rather than actual violence against them. UNHCR had sufficient relief supplies for some 30,0000 people in Liberia. However, they were ready to mobilize stocks from Ghana for an additional 30,000 people if the need arose.

Veronique Taveau of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said the Global Fund was concerned about the situation in Côte d’Ivoire and the political stalemate following the presidential elections. Because of the political instability, the secretariat of the Global Fund had decided to take a number of measures, including freezing payment to the principal recipients of the Global Fund programmes. Côte d’Ivorie had also been placed under the Global Fund’s “policy of additional guarantees” which meant a reinforcement of control at all levels of the implementation of programmes. Instructions had been sent to the Fund’s principal recipients including CARE, the national programme to fight malaria and the national fund to fight tuberculosis not to dispense money without consulting in advance with the secretariat of the Fund. Measures had been taken to assure that the distribution of medicines against malaria and tuberculosis was not interrupted. The Global Fund was also concerned about 8.6 million treated mosquito nets that had arrived in the country but had not been distributed because of the ongoing situation. The programmes financed by the Global Fund in Côte d’Ivoire represented 163 million euro.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said food distributions for refugees who had left Côte d’Ivoire for Liberia were beginning today. WFP would be starting distributions to more than 22,500 Ivorian refugees in the 23 villages where they were currently living. In addition, in Côte d’Ivoire itself, WFP was planning to meet the needs of 18,000 internally displaced people for three months. WFP was also making wider plans for potentially assisting 200,000 people if the need arose.

Other

Fadela Chaib of the World Food Programme said that available at the back of the room were copies of an embargoed report in English on malaria. The report would be released tomorrow, 12 January, at 10 a.m. Geneva time.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that available at the back of the room was a note on assistance by the International Organization for Migration for victims of the floods in Sri Lanka.

Veronique Taveau of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said she had left a press release at the back of the room in English and in French concerning the appointment of Professor Michel Kazatchkine to a second term as Executive Director of the Global Fund.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the briefing would be followed by two press conferences. At 11.45, in Room III, the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Mr. Michel Jarraud, would speak about rehabilitation and revitalization of Haiti’s meteorological services since the earthquake. At 12.15 p.m., also in Room III, would follow a press conference on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. Speakers notably included Mr. Matthias Schmale, Under Secretary-General, Program Services, of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.