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FACTBOX-"Build back better" in Haiti looks like uphill task

Sun, 9 Jan 2011 15:34 GMT

Source: reuters // Reuters

For Haiti quake anniversary story, click on [ID:nN09259805]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Supporters of Haiti have said last year's catastrophic earthquake in the poor Caribbean nation provides an opportunity to "build back better."

But as Haitians mark the first anniversary of the Jan. 12 quake, the vision that rebuilding should seek not just to put back what was lost but also to lift Haiti out of the cycle of instability and underdevelopment that has kept it mired in misery for decades strikes many as hopelessly optimistic.

Here are some facts about the recent spate of disasters and political upheaval in the country, which is still struggling to consolidate its democracy after being run by ruthless dictatorships and despots for most of the 207 years since a bloody slave revolt threw off French rule:

-- The quake killed around a quarter of a million people. The government says at least 222,750, or 2 percent of the population, died. It also left more than one million homeless. Most live in tents and makeshift shelters in Port-au-Prince, which is still filled with rubble and wrecked buildings.

-- Estimates of damage and losses from what was described by experts as the most deadly natural disaster in recent history range between $8 billion and $14 billion and the pace of reconstruction and recovery has been painfully slow so far.

-- On top of this, a raging cholera epidemic that started in a zone unaffected by the quake has killed more than 3,600 people in Haiti since mid-October, and experts say it shows no signs of immediately letting up.

-- There had been no outbreak of cholera in Haiti in decades and the disease has triggered sporadic clashes between Haitians and U.N. peacekeepers after some blamed the outbreak on a contingent of U.N. soldiers from Nepal camped along the banks of the Artibonite, Haiti's biggest river. The United Nations disputes this allegation.

-- The cholera outbreak has also sparked bloody attacks against voodoo priests in Haiti by people who blame them for "a curse" causing the epidemic. At least 45 male and female priests, known respectively as "houngan" and "manbo," have been lynched or hacked to death with machetes, authorities say.

-- Dr. Arthur M. Fournier, an associate dean for Community Health Affairs at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and co-founder of Project Medishare, a group involved in cholera control and treatment in Haiti, estimates the disease will sicken 500,000 to 800,000 people in Haiti and claim tens of thousands of lives.

-- Just after the cholera outbreak, Haiti, which sits in the path of hurricanes as well as along a seismic fault line, was buffeted by Hurricane Tomas in November. The storm caused flooding, forced thousands from their homes and increased the humanitarian challenges posed by cholera. But less than 10 people died and the toll was light compared with the destruction inflicted by hurricanes and storms that battered the Western Hemisphere's poorest country in 2004 and 2008, killing several thousand people.

-- It was devastation from two hurricanes and two tropical storms in less than 30 days in 2008 that prompted former U.S. President Bill Clinton to first talk about the goal of building Haiti back better, after he was named U.N. special envoy to the nation of nearly 10 million people in May 2009.

-- As Haitians and foreign aid workers were grappling with the cholera outbreak in the quake-shattered land, chaotic national elections were held on Nov. 28. The outcome of the race for president is still widely disputed, amid claims that outgoing President Rene Preval and his ruling Inite (Unity) coalition rigged the vote to put their contender in the second round. Haiti has been in limbo since violent protests greeted the Dec. 7 preliminary results of the first round vote.

-- There are widespread fears political instability will delay the handover of billions of dollars of urgently needed reconstruction funds from foreign donors.

-- Preval, who is serving his second, non-consecutive term as president, is the only leader in Haiti's 207-year history to win a democratic election, serve a full term and peacefully hand over power to a successor. Backed by a 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force, Preval was credited with stabilizing his country in the year or two before the earthquake.

But London-based Jane's Intelligence Review recently ranked Haiti as the third least stable territory in the world in 2010. Only Somalia and Gaza and the West Bank scored worse. (Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Kieran Murray)