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We Can Do Better for Haiti: Sign the Petition for Better Aid Distribution and Transparency

4 April 2010 Comments: 0

Sign Peti­tion here to Demand Trans­parency and Improved Aid Distribution

  • For­ward widely: if we col­lect enough sig­na­tures change.org will fea­ture this effort.
  • Watch the com­pelling video below on the con­di­tions in the IDP camps.

The world responded gen­er­ously to Haiti’s earth­quake, imme­di­ately donat­ing over $2.5 bil­lion, with another $1.2 bil­lion pledged, even before the March 31 UN Donor’s Con­fer­ence. This works out to over $1,000 per earth­quake vic­tim. But over two months later, hun­dreds of thou­sands of Haiti’s earth­quake vic­tims live with­out water­proof shel­ter, eat once a day or less, and do not receive ade­quate med­ical care.

As of March 24, the UN esti­mates that over 330,000 peo­ple need­ing shel­ter had not received any shel­ter mate­ri­als. For over 75% of the Inter­nally Dis­placed Per­sons (IDPs) who do receive help, “shel­ter mate­ri­als” means tarps, not water­proof tents; Nearly half of the respon­dents in a late Feb­ru­ary sur­vey of IDP camps reported hav­ing received no food aid (Neglect in the Encamp­ments: Haiti’s Sec­ond Wave Human­i­tar­ian Dis­as­ter, Mar. 23, 2010); and Earth­quake vic­tims com­plain that they have not been con­sulted regard­ing earth­quake response plan­ning or execution.

The gov­ern­ments and NGOs entrusted with the world’s gen­eros­ity need to respond more effi­ciently and effec­tively to Haiti’s earth­quake. This means bet­ter coor­di­na­tion among aid providers, more trans­parency about where and how they are spend­ing our money, and more par­tic­i­pa­tion of earth­quake vic­tims in the plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of earth­quake response projects.

Please sign the change.org peti­tion below by click­ing here to let those who have received your char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions and tax money know that you still care enough about Haiti to watch where your money is going.

Tar­get­ing

Daniel Wordsworth (Pres­i­dent and CEO, Amer­i­can Refugee Com­mit­tee), Josette Sheeran (Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, World Food Pro­gramme), Hon. William Jef­fer­son Clin­ton (UN Spe­cial Envoy to Haiti), Jakob Kel­len­berger (Pres­i­dent, Inter­na­tional Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross), The Hon­or­able Bev­erly J. Oda (Min­is­ter of Inter­na­tional Coop­er­a­tion, Canada), Richard Stearns (Pres­i­dent, World Vision U.S.), Jean-Michel Sev­erino (Direc­tor Gen­eral, Agence Française de Développe­ment ), Richard Dreiman (Pres­i­dent and CEO Chemon­ics Inter­na­tional), Dou­glas Alexan­der, MP (Sec­re­tary of State for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment, UK ) and Dr. Rajiv Shah (Admin­is­tra­tor, U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tional Development)

Peti­tion Text

I sign this peti­tion to express my great con­cern that ten weeks after Haiti’s earth­quake, and despite over $2.5 bil­lion gen­er­ously donated to Haiti’s relief efforts (over $1,000/earthquake vic­tim), too many earth­quake sur­vivors live with­out basic shel­ter, food and healthcare.

Although I appre­ci­ate the heroic efforts that many indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions have made to respond to the earth­quake, it is sim­ply unac­cept­able that over 330,000 – over a quar­ter of the dis­placed in Port-au-Prince – have not received shel­ter mate­ri­als, and over half report not receiv­ing food aid. Earth­quake vic­tims report that they are not con­sulted by relief agen­cies, or involved in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of aid.

As a donor and a tax­payer, I am insist­ing that the gov­ern­ments and NGOs entrusted with the world’s gen­eros­ity respond more effi­ciently and effec­tively to Haiti’s earth­quake. This means:

  1. bet­ter coor­di­na­tion among aid donors and providers;
  2. allow­ing more par­tic­i­pa­tion of earth­quake vic­tims in the plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion of earth­quake response projects; and
  3. more trans­parency about where and how Haiti earth­quake funds are spent.

Thank you for your atten­tion to this matter!

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