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a mandate to coordinate government ownership and governance and rule of law Q: One of our collea-
humanitarian assistance the support of the interna- had stabilized to the extent gues went to Haiti and
and development aid. We tional community. There that they could be self- told us afterwards that
have a civil affairs section, are various coordination sustaining. there are hardly any
which is represented in all mechanisms in order to roads.
10 departments in Haiti, avoid duplication and to Q: Haiti is known to be
and which is, in a sense, our ensure that donor money is one of the poorest In Haiti, the infrastructure
backbone network for sup- used in the most efficient countries in the world, is in particularly bad shape.
porting the people living in way for clearly and jointly where life expectancy Just to give you an
the countryside. The mis- identified priorities. is dropping. Do you example, there are certain
sion also collaborates with think that everything is places that are only 100 km
the United Nations Country Q: So you are optimis- on the right track so away, yet it may take more
Team, which consists of tic about development that economic deve- than 8 hours to get there by
representatives from agen- for the year to come? lopment can move for- road. As a result, the
cies and programmes such ward? mission uses helicopters;
as the UNDP, UNICEF, Yes, I'm optimistic in the otherwise it would not be
WFP, UNHCR, FAO etc. - sense that things are getting We obviously hope that, able to reach out to the
- Altogether we have 14 visibly better. It will take when security and the rule places it needs to be, as was
agencies and programmes some time, and the mission of law have been largely the case was during the
We closely coordinate our will have to stay quite a restored, even though the elections. We had many
the
with
activities situation remains fragile, situations during the
while yet. At the same time,
Government and the donor we have no intention of investors gradually will election period where, apart
community in order to staying forever; rather we have confidence to invest in from helicopters, our
ensure a coherent overall have every intention of Haiti. In particular the soldiers had to use donkeys
strategy towards the deve- being the last peace Haitian Diaspora, some 2 to transport the ballots and
lopment of Haiti. keeping mission in Haiti. million Haitians living in other electoral material to
We have had various peace- France, the US, Canada and certain mountainous areas.
The overall strategy is set keeping missions in Haiti other places, hopefully This gives you an
out by the Government in before this one, but might find it attractive to illustration of how bad the
consultation with the unfortunately they left too invest again in their order to infrastructure is. It is a very
United Nations and the early, i.e. before the create jobs for the 8 million fragile environment.
donors to ensure that it has institutions of good people living there.

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