Outgoing UN official still optimistic about a bright future for Haiti

The outgoing UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Haiti, Ulrika Richardson, says she often felt unable to describe the situation in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country where criminal gangs are seeking to overthrow the government and where people—including women and children—are killed and displaced.

“I often feel that I cannot even find words any longer to describe the situation. Is it alarming, is it acute, is it urgent? It is all of that and even more,” Richardson told the daily briefing at the United Nations.

The UN said Haiti is currently facing a protracted and worsening humanitarian crisis, with the gang violence expanding beyond the capital of Port-au-Prince and civilians increasingly bearing the brunt of this terror.

Additionally, Haiti is one of five countries worldwide experiencing famine-like conditions.

She said that amidst this horror, Haiti’s humanitarian plan is only nine per cent funded, making it the least funded humanitarian response plan in the world.

But despite these challenging and protracted circumstances, Richardson was also keen to emphasise that political will and funding could ensure that the current crisis does not have to be Haiti’s future.

“Haiti’s destiny does not need to be misery and despair,” she asserted. “As much as Haiti has spiralled down in a negative [way], Haiti can quickly spiral up again.”

The UN said that more than 1.3 million people have been displaced in Haiti as a result of violence and almost half of the country is suffering from emergency food insecurity.

These numbers have become so big that it can be hard to conceive of the actual human impact behind them.

“All of that is just figures. Beyond every figure, there is a mother, a child, a father, a young person,” Richardson said, noting that sometimes these numbers also obscure certain livelihoods.

For example, the number of 1.3 million displaced obscures those left behind, perhaps because they physically could not flee as violence encroached on their neighbourhood.

Richardson said she has heard many stories like this.

“These could be people in a wheelchair or an elderly relative that they simply have to leave behind. They cannot move with them,” said Richardson, who is leaving Haiti for Libya after three years as United Nations humanitarian coordinator.

She told reporters there is much about Haiti’s current situation that she finds frustrating—most specifically, the fact that the international community has identified the solutions to mitigate, if not completely stop, the crisis.

“We have tools, but the response from the international community is not on par with the gravity on the ground,” she said.

For example, the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission (MSS) has half of the personnel and very little of the equipment it needs to fulfil its mandate.

Additionally, while sanctions on political leaders with gang ties are slowly taking hold, they are insufficient. Similarly, the international community is not doing enough to stop the flow of guns.

“These tools need to be given the proper support and investment in order to carry out their full mandate. There has to be a way of stopping arms coming into Haiti,” Richardson said, calling on countries to ask themselves what more they can do to end the humanitarian crisis.

She told reporters that as she leaves the Caribbean for Africa, she is doing so with a  divided heart.

“On the one hand, this is a humanitarian crisis of striking proportions that the world seems to have forgotten,” she observed. “But if the international community was able to embrace the solutions before them, the crisis could end.”

“We cannot do what we do if we are not optimistic. Of course, we think that there are solutions. Of course, we think that the future is brighter than the present,” Richardson said, noting that this optimism comes in part from Haiti’s “honourable and brilliant” past and from the resistance she has seen on the ground.

She told reporters:

“Every condition is there to turn the page.  Haitians are extremely ready for this, for the country to have a more positive echo in the international community.” —UNITED NATIONS (CMC)