© Disasters Emergency Committee
The Disasters Emergency Committee brings together the leading UK aid agencies to
raise money at times of humanitarian crisis in poorer countries. By working together
we can raise more money to save lives and rebuild shattered communities.
Background to the Appeal
On 12 January 2010 a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, just 15 miles to the south-west of the country’s poverty-stricken capital Port-au-Prince. It was followed by numerous strong aftershocks.
Around three million people lived in the worst affected area, at least 220,000 people are believed to have died, 1.5m lost their homes and 300,000 were injured. The country was relatively well prepared for the frequent battering it receives from tropical hurricanes but there had been extremely limited investment in seismic resilience. The earthquake was the most powerful to hit Haiti in over 200 years.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the people living in absolute poverty. Extreme poverty in a very densely packed urban area with poor building standards left people extremely vulnerable to the quake and the chaos it caused. This combination of factors has made the Haiti earthquake the worst natural disaster ever seen by the current generation of aid workers. The DEC opened its appeal for Haiti on 13 January and £100m has been raised to the date of this report, two-thirds by the DEC itself and one-third by its Member Agencies.
Who is benefitting from the response?
An estimated two million people are in need of help in the capital and surrounding areas. Immediately after the quake many DEC members were involved in general aid distributions – including giving out vast quantities of rice provided by the UN. Aid is now being targeted to focus on the poor who make up the great majority of survivors.
Most of those who receive help have lost their homes and many have been living in desperate conditions in the informal camps that have sprung up in Port au Prince. In the surrounding cities, towns and villages, survivors are often playing host to people escaping the capital as well as trying to cope with their own losses. The most vulnerable groups that members are targeting include unaccompanied children, female-headed households, breastfeeding women, the elderly, the sick and the injured.
DEC Haiti Appeal Broadcast
Allocation of funds to Member Agencies
