The earthquake in Haiti is rightly dominating the news - the terrible scenes of destruction are a reminder of just how vulnerable we all are to the power of nature. Of course the whole humanitarian community is working very hard to respond as quickly and as effectively as possible in very difficult circumstances, and already WFP has started distributing food to those affected. WFP is very much geared towards responding to this sort of emergency and within the first few days had deployed additional staff to support the existing team there, including establishing emergency telecommunicat
ions for the entire humanitarian community - this is something that WFP is responsible for as 'cluster-lead' for the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), and it is the main area in which Vodafone supports WFP.In the days after the earthquake there were fears for a number of staff who couldn't be contacted, but most have now been accounted for, although tragically it has been confirmed that one local staff member was killed. The local WFP office is still standing, but is unusable due to risk of collapse and so staff have been re-located to the UN mission 'Log Base' near the airport, where living conditions are said to be very difficult. Similarly the warehouse facilities that were in place are now unstable and so alternatives are being quickly sought to allow emergency food supplies to continue to be distributed.
The scale of the emergency operation is such that it will be among the largest in the history of WFP, and as a largely Francophone region a number of staff from here in West Africa, including from the IT team, have been asked to re-deploy to Haiti to assist with the operation. The emergency has also meant that some of the projects we were working on here are likely to be delayed as resource get diverted to where they are most needed, in Haiti.
I'm sure that the thoughts and prayers of us all are with the people of Haiti at this time. If you feel you would like to make a doantion to help WFP with
its work in Haiti please follow this link:
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