Haiti

UN-CMCood support mission to Haiti – Hurricane Matthew

A CMCS team member was deployed to Haiti from 28 October to 9 December to support the OCHA team with CMCoord activities, together with an Emergency Response Team. The mission focused mainly on the disjoint use of military / police escorts by some humanitarian actors.

Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti 4 October 2016, leaving an estimated 1.4 million Haitians in need of humanitarian assistance, mostly in the South West part of the country. After cases of lootings and angry mobs, some humanitarian organisations started to resort to military / police escorts a week after the hurricane. Escorts were mostly provided by MINUSTAH military and police components and the Haitian National Police (HNP). The main challenges of the mission consisted in making the best use of the limited military assets, while implementing a strategy to phase out from the use of escorts. To this end, CMCoord structures and mechanisms to enable dialogue between humanitarian and military / police actors were implemented and maintained, and several work sessions on the IASC Guidelines on the Use of Armed Escorts and on alternatives to escorts were notably organized. Although some actors are still compelled to use armed escorts in some cases, the increased investment in alternatives, such as community engagement resulted in a sensible diminution in the use of armed escorts.