The challenges of coordinating WASH programmes after the Haiti earthquake

When the devastating earthquake struck Haiti on 12 January 2010, the complexity of the disaster presented a series of challenges to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Coordinators Thomas Viger and Tim Forster, who are both RedR Members.

Since the earthquake, more than 1.2 million people have been displaced, their homes destroyed and livelihoods lost. Those who have been displaced are now being sheltered in temporary camps as part of relief efforts, with one of the most urgent interventions being ensuring the provision of safe water and sanitation.

Thomas Viger, deployed as WASH Coordinator with Save the Children UK

Recruited through RedR’s Recruitment Services, Thomas was deployed by Save the Children UK (SC) to Port-au-Prince (Pa) as a WASH Advisor two weeks after the earthquake struck. Upon arrival there were a number of challenges he and his team faced.

“Some areas of Port-au-Prince were totally destroyed,” Thomas comments, “People were traumatised like I have never seen. Most the staff we hired were directly affected by the earthquake – houses destroyed and family members dead.

“It’s difficult for the Haitian government and the inhabitants to start a ‘normal’ life again. People are just too scared to imagine coming back to their former houses. They cannot stay in camps but they are really scared of going back to concrete houses.

“Working in Port-au-Prince is really challenging; even just going to the field takes hours. Port-au-Prince is a busy town and the humanitarian response has increased the traffic, making it difficult to access the different camps.

“Delivering the water supply by trucks was a major issue, as this was the main way to supply water to camps. The area of Port-au-Prince is hilly and trucks can struggle to reach water tanks.”

As WASH adviser for Save the Children UK, Thomas was responsible for coordinating internal and external relations to ensure integration into the global response. In response to the challenges of communication across different agencies, Thomas and his team established a strategy to increase integration of activities. Thomas comments: “In situations like Haiti, it is important that the response is coordinated, therefore part of my role was to ensure that SC’s WASH activities were integrated with the WASH Cluster. We also set up a small WASH sub-cluster with three other organisations for the town of Carrefour, close to PaP to encourage a better coordination between actors. Often, in emergencies such as this everybody wants to do their best to help people affected by the disaster, however there is a danger that results in a lack of attention to what other aid workers are doing.”

Tim Forster, working for the Global WASH Cluster 

Seconded to UNICEF, RedR Member Tim was part the Global Cluster Team responsible for ensuring that the WASH response was well-coordinated across all of the agencies involved. Tim was the lead coordinator for sanitation, with other Cluster leads managing water supply and hygiene education.

Water supply in Haiti is supported by DINEPA (Direction Nationale de l’Eau Potable et l’Assainissement), the agency in charge of reforming the water and sanitation sector in Haiti. “Sanitation on the other hand,” comments Tim, “had little sector support and was therefore more of a challenge when rebuilding because there were very limited means there in the first place.”

In responding to the challenges they faced, Tim was keen to link up resources both financial and physical. The sanitation working group developed a sector strategy for the humanitarian response, as well as putting in place a number of discrete projects including a telephone hotline for waste collection, setting up a structure to manage and run vacuum trucks for sludge collection, which were donated to various WASH actors. Tim commented: “Moving forward, partial privatisation of the sanitation sector might be one way of improving sustainability in the sector. People in Haiti will have to be given more choice and offered better environmental solutions. Urban sanitation is a huge challenge.”

In response to the on-going challenges, Tim recognises the need to take a systematic approach to solving issues: “We need to look at how to make a sustained change over time. It’s important that the response is not a donor-driven agenda but considers the real needs of communities.”

With previous experience developing emergency response capacity in Haiti, Tim was a strong contender for deployment. From his past experience, he also recognises that “the Haitian population is highly resilient and resourceful, and that they have a long history of dealing with difficult conditions.”

Moving forward, Tim identifies that there is “a big need for training of national staff to support the relief and recovery process.” The RedR / Bioforce programme in Haiti is providing training across key areas such as WASH, humanitarian standards, logistics and security.

 

Tim Forster is a long-term RedR member and mechanical engineer. He has worked in Afghanistan for RedR following the earthquake in 2002. He was also worked in Latin American with the Red Cross and as a technical advisor/capacity builder for Oxfam. He has worked in a number of disaster-affected countries including Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Chechnya, Colombia, DR Congo, El Salvador, Haiti, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Palestine, Peru,Philippines, Uganda, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabawe. He has been working with WASH activities since 1994 and was part of WASH Cluster’s Rapid Response Team from November 2008 till April 2010.

Thomas Vigor is a RedR member and WASH advisor. He has worked in Indonesia with the French Red Cross following the devastating tsunami in 1994; and in Pakistan on a research and development project on household solar water desalination unit.
 

Photo credits:

Brett Maynard

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