Urban disasters – Lessons from Haiti: Study of Member Agencies’ Responses to the Earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti, January 2010

Haiti’s earthquake of 12th January 2010 killed over 220 000 people, injured 300 000, left well over one million homeless, and destroyed infrastructure, services and homes. The cost of reconstruction is estimated at US$11.5 billion1. This happened in a country already the poorest in the western hemisphere, ranked 149 out of 182 countries on the 2009 Human Development Index, with some 78% of its population living on under US$2 a day, and beset by huge societal inequality and weak governance.

While recognising the effects of the disaster on the whole country, this study is required to focus on the impact within urban areas, and to ask, what can be learnt for international NGOs for the next urban disaster? Several lessons emerge. A first one concerns increased urban risk globally, described by the World Bank in a new report2 as a ‘new game-changer.’ If this is right, and urban risk presents something different, then agencies need to learn ‘new rules of the game’ in urban post disaster response. Issues of complexity, range of actors, space, the importance of commerce and trade, services, infrastructure and sheer concentrations of people require a consideration of how to operate compared to rural contexts, including collaborations (with government and the private sector), the importance of cash based programmes (in cash for work but also in supporting petty vendors and businesses), markets (working with them and not unfairly competing) and housing (considering trade offs between short term shelter and long term settlements and thinking about forms of rental).

Building social and human capital is key, and in this response good programming approaches sought to do this in the relief stage, for example working with street food vendors to enhance food security. Some responses however tended to forget that cities contain readily available concentrations of skills and resources that, rather than being imported, might be found locally. Relief provided in camps sought to work through camp committees. Especially vulnerable people were often located and assisted, for example in the work of Age UK in the formation of a network of camp volunteers. The prolonged provision of services in camps however, such as water and healthcare, has been both expensive and has in some cases undermined pre-existing service providers who could not compete.