The com­ing year will be a very chal­leng­ing one for Haiti as it seeks to recover and rebuild from January’s tragic earth­quake, but with the right inter­na­tional sup­port the coun­try can embark on a new era of sta­bil­ity and growth, the top United Nations offi­cial there said today.

“I believe the next 12 to 18 months are a period of great chal­lenge and risk in Haiti, but one which we can help the Gov­ern­ment to weather,” Edmond Mulet, the Secretary-General’s Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and head of the UN peace­keep­ing mis­sion in Haiti (MINUSTAH), told a Secu­rity Coun­cil meeting.

“What Haiti needs now is a sup­port­ing arm of a com­pan­ion on which it can lean as it gets back on its feet. That is the role which we, the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, can play,” he added.

Dozens of nations and orga­ni­za­tions are assist­ing the small Caribbean coun­try in the wake of the 12 Jan­u­ary quake, which killed more than 200,000 peo­ple – includ­ing 101 UN staff mem­bers – and left 1.3 mil­lion more home­less, in addi­tion to dam­ag­ing Gov­ern­ment build­ings and vital infrastructure.

Mr. Mulet said Haiti’s path to sta­bil­ity fol­low­ing this tragedy depends above all on adher­ence to the polit­i­cal and elec­toral timetable to enable a con­sti­tu­tional hand-over of power in Feb­ru­ary 2011.

Falling behind in this regard would “seri­ously under­mine the sta­bil­ity we have been work­ing towards in Haiti for many years,” he stated.

The com­ing year will also wit­ness new secu­rity pres­sures, includ­ing from crim­i­nals who are now at large again in the wake of the earth­quake, as well as eco­nomic risks with mil­lions liv­ing in very vul­ner­a­ble con­di­tions, and the risk of new nat­ural disasters.

“How­ever, I believe there is good rea­son to think that Haiti and its inter­na­tional part­ners can man­age and mit­i­gate those risks,” said Mr. Mulet. “If we do so, I hope that within two years, we could again be in the posi­tion we had reached in 2009 – a Haiti that is rel­a­tively sta­ble and grow­ing economically.”

To man­age this crit­i­cal period, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his lat­est report on MINUSTAH, asks the Coun­cil to endorse a strength­en­ing of the mis­sion to enable it pro­vide bet­ter sup­port to recov­ery efforts. This includes a surge in the mission’s police pres­ence to help ensure their vis­i­bil­ity on the streets and in camps for dis­placed people.

Mr. Ban noted that much of the required “surge” can be achieved by scal­ing up activ­i­ties within the cur­rent man­date, while a few areas of the mis­sion should pro­vide greater tech­ni­cal, oper­a­tional and logis­ti­cal assis­tance to Haiti’s Gov­ern­ment and State institutions.

“Whereas before the earth­quake, the mis­sion was enter­ing a period of con­sol­i­da­tion, a surge effort is now needed for the next 18 months to two years, in which the mis­sion will help the Gov­ern­ment pre­serve the gains of sta­bi­liza­tion to date and enable a smooth tran­si­tion to long-term recon­struc­tion,” he wrote.

Echo­ing the Secretary-General’s call, Mr. Mulet said that with just a lit­tle more of the sup­port that the UN is already pro­vid­ing, Haiti will make its own way for­ward. “That would be the best end to the ter­ri­ble story of 12 Jan­u­ary 2010, and a nec­es­sary, fit­ting trib­ute to the lives of those we have lost.”

Haiti’s Prime Min­is­ter, Jean-Max Bel­lerive, thanked Coun­cil mem­bers for the sol­i­dar­ity shown in the wake of the earth­quake, not­ing that the tragedy has pro­foundly changed the con­text in which MINUSTAH is working.

The com­ing 18 months will present his Gov­ern­ment with new risks within the frame­work of recon­struc­tion and post-disaster man­age­ment, dur­ing which the pres­ence of MINUSTAH will remain nec­es­sary. This is par­tic­u­larly true with regard to the hold­ing of free and fair elections.

Chal­lenges that were already great before the earth­quake are greater today, but the sol­i­dar­ity of the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity pro­vides the peo­ple and Gov­ern­ment of Haiti with the hope that a brighter future is pos­si­ble, he told the 15-member body.

Mean­while, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro announced that the UN, work­ing with the Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment and other part­ners, is plan­ning a nation­wide move­ment for learn­ing in the country.

“In the after­math of dis­as­ter, school does more than pro­mote learn­ing. It gives chil­dren a sense of nor­malcy amid the chaos. It is a place of secu­rity and sanc­tu­ary. Above all, it offers hope for the future,” the Deputy Secretary-General wrote in an opin­ion piece pub­lished today in Mexico’s El Sol.

She added that in her native Tan­za­nia, the found­ing pres­i­dent was known by the high­est title bestowed, “Teacher.”

“Pres­i­dent Julius ‘Mwal­imu’ Nyerere’s first prin­ci­ple of self-reliance was grounded on edu­ca­tion, for girls as well as boys – a legacy of gen­der equal­ity that paved the way for my own career,” Ms. Migiro wrote.

The inter­na­tional com­mu­nity raised nearly $10 bil­lion for Haiti at last month’s donors’ con­fer­ence in New York. It is not clear yet how much of the money will be allo­cated for education.

Some 38,000 stu­dents and 1,300 teach­ers and other edu­ca­tion per­son­nel lost their lives in the quake, which also destroyed more than 4,000 schools as well as the Min­istry of Education’s head­quar­ters, accord­ing to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The UN agency and its part­ners have been work­ing with the Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide 3,000 school tents, edu­ca­tional mate­ri­als, recre­ational items and fur­ni­ture for chil­dren whose schools were destroyed or who are seek­ing refuge in camps.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34515&Cr=haiti&Cr1=