PRLog (Press Release) -
Jul 08, 2010 -
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake that hit on the 12th January, causing widespread destruction, death and injury. John Holmes, Under-Secretary-
General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator with the UN, spoke in an email leaked to Foreign Policy magazine spoke of a problem related to "overall operational capacity" and said: “I was disappointed to find that despite my calls for the Global Cluster Lead Agencies to strengthen their cluster coordination capacity on the ground, very little progress has been made in this critical area”
On July 22-23, the Aid & International Development Forum (AIDF) will bring together experts from UN, NGO and Governmental agencies to discuss the relief efforts, and to discuss the future of Haiti.
The Haitian Government reported that an estimated 230,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless. All agencies involved faced great challenges in providing shelter, healthcare, water, communications and infrastructure.
Stephen Davenport, Senior Director, Business Development/
Partnerships, Development Gateway will moderate the session “Haiti - Assessment and Lessons Learned” Graham Saunders, Head of Shelter, International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC), Nicolas Lagomarsino, Program Officer, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Keith Robertory, Disaster Services Technology Manager, American Red Cross and Mark Prutsalis, President & CEO, Sahana Software Foundation will discuss the challenges of urban disasters and the provision of shelter, water, and logistics.
Looking to the future, external aid has the power to facilitate or hinder long-term peace and development;
it can worsen social divisions and violence or produce positive effects on these issues. When looking at the massive on-going relief effort in Haiti, we can see that orchestrating relief and recovery from a disaster can create both huge challenges, and also huge opportunities. Former United States president Bill Clinton, now United Nations special envoy to Haiti, said that the task now is to “Build back better. How can aid agencies and governments address the underlying poverty in an attempt to build a new nation?” What will “better” look like and how can it be realistically achieved?
In a second session looking at Haiti, this time at “Future Development”
, Pierre Salignon, General Director, Medecins du Monde comes together with Dean Scott, Operations Section , FEMA US & R Branch, Richard Burns, Haiti Director - Office of Global Operations, CHF International, Chyihway Gong, Director of the Policy and Planning Department , International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF)
and Richard C. Smith, Director New Business Development / Product Marketing Manager, Gichner Mobile Systems.
Moderated by Nathalie Applewhite, Associate Director , Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the panel will consider how organizations’
plans become part of the solution, and how they get there focusing on the challenges faced by humanitarian NGOs in the complex environment of the post-earthquake crisis in Haiti. It will examine some of the major challenges and successes presented by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) support to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the deployment of additional Federal urban search & rescue (US&R) task forces as well as communications and management resources during the Haiti Earthquake response. The challenges that existed, how they were addressed and the lessons learned as they apply to future international or domestic catastrophic incident responses will be explored.
Now in its fifth year, AIDF is a valuable opportunity for the aid, relief and development sector to network, build partnerships and address global humanitarian and development challenges, as well as showcasing goods and services to those who are responsible for delivery.
Registration is free to non-commercial organizations. More information, including the workshop agenda, speaker and exhibitor lists and registration details can be found at www.aidforumonline.org
Aid & International Development Forum 2010 partners include InterAction, USAID, Aid Matrix, Global VSAT Forum, IPOA, World Bank Publications and RedR UK.
For lists of speakers, exhibitors and the workshop agenda, please use the following links:
Speakers:
http://www.aidforumonline.org/event_guide/speakers/catego... Workshop Agenda:
http://www.aidforumonline.org/event_guide/workshops/Exhibitors:
http://www.aidforumonline.org/event_guide/exhibitors/cate...Contacts
Diva Rodriguez, Communications. Email: drodriguez@aidforumonline.org
Andrew Matthewson, Sales Manager. Email: sales@aidforumonline.org
Telephone +44 (0) 20 7871 0188
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/10784271/1The Aid & International Development Forum (previously International Aid & Trade) has been the world's leading forum for humanitarian relief professionals to cement relationships, build partnerships, gain understanding and share experiences. Having been acquired by Henley Media Group in 2005, International Aid & Trade ran in Geneva in 2006, 2007 and 2008. In 2009 the event moved to Washington D.C., in partnership with InterAction, the largest coalition of U.S.-based international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Facts & Figures
There will be over 1600 visitors and in the region of 120 exhibitors, 100 of which will be businesses, 20 of which will be NGOs, UN and Government stands
