Haiti Receives Emergency $8 Million UN Allocation After Funding Shortfall

Above: UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Haiti Nigel Fisher (UN Photo/Victoria Hazou)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Haiti was selected to receive an $8 million emergency allocation from the United Nations-managed Central Emergency Response Fund as a result of a funding shortfall.

The United Nations and Haiti’s government are voicing concern over a lack of resources to fund humanitarian services in the country.

Haiti has received just 8.5 percent of the $231 million the humanitarian is seeking to fund its work in the country this year, according to Nigel Fisher, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Haiti.

Last year, Haiti received just 55 percent of the $382 million it sought, reportedly forcing a number of humanitarian organizations to scale back critical services.

The $8 million will allow some aid organizations funding to address “priority needs,” the UN said, but it will not be sufficient.

Relief agencies in Haiti have request $53.9 million for urgent humanitarian work between April and June of 2011.

Aid money in Haiti, and the nature of its disbursement, has come into question in recent months, highlighted by a documentary by filmmaker Michele Mitchell, “Haiti: Where Did the Money Go?”

Haiti still has half a million people living in camps after their homes were destroyed by the January 2010 earthquake, exposed to a number of risks, from the continued cholera epidemic to the risk of flooding, which intensifies during the May to November hurricane season, according to the UN.