Haiti: Call for clean water and effective waste management

Via the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, a news release: Nigel Fisher Concedes Band-Aid Approach is ineffective.

Rights groups in Haiti and the United States com­mend last week’s acknowl­edg­ment by United Nations offi­cial Nigel Fisher that the cur­rent efforts to alle­vi­ate cholera in Haiti are “patch­work, band-aid work on a fun­da­men­tal prob­lem.” 

Fisher, the UN Res­i­dent and Human­i­tar­ian Coor­di­na­tor for Haiti, acknowl­edged in a May 3rd inter­view with the UN News Cen­tre that “What we are doing in the short-term … is nec­es­sary, but we all agree that the long-term solu­tion is invest­ment in improved drink­ing water sources and in waste management.” 

“Mr. Fisher’s state­ment is a strong step in the right direc­tion towards a sus­tain­able response to the UN cholera epi­demic,” said Brian Con­can­non Jr., Direc­tor of the Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH) and an attor­ney on a case filed by 5,000 cholera vic­tims against the UN last Novem­ber.  

He added, “Now the UN needs to take respon­si­bil­ity for its harm­ful actions and actu­ally start installing the com­pre­hen­sive water and san­i­ta­tion infra­struc­ture that is the only long-term solu­tion to the cholera epidemic.” 

Numer­ous stud­ies, includ­ing a report by the UN’s Inde­pen­dent Panel of Experts, estab­lish that UN peace­keep­ers intro­duced cholera into Haiti in Octo­ber 2010. The epi­demic is now the world’s worst. It has killed over 7,200 peo­ple and sick­ened over 530,000.  Mr. Fisher warned that the epi­demic could infect as many as 200,000 peo­ple in 2012 alone.  UN agen­cies esti­mate the cost of con­trol­ling the epi­demic by installing com­pre­hen­sive clean water and san­i­ta­tion in Haiti at $746 mil­lion — $1.1 billion. 

“Of course the UN can afford to pay for per­ma­nent solu­tions to cholera,” said Mario Joseph, Direc­tor of Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux, and the lead attor­ney on the case against the UN.  

“If the UN short­ened the peace­keep­ing mission’s man­date by just one year, that would save $800 mil­lion.  Fewer ‘boots on the ground’ and more wells in the ground would save tens of thou­sands of lives every decade.  That is peace keeping.”