Subinay Nandy, UNDP China Country Director, stressed the urgent need for tents and temporary shelter for the more than 1 million displaced people in Haiti. "We need to help people where they are," said Nandy. "That means providing tents or other materials, including plastic sheeting, tarpaulin and wood. Although the government has requested 200,000 family-sized tents, so far, only 35,500 are in the country."

Nandy also spoke to the benefits of UNDP's "Cash-for-Work" programme which, for less than US$5 per person per day, employs people in activities such as rubble and waste removal. This serves the dual purpose of kick-starting economic activity while the workers supply vital services that cannot be coordinated by the government.

Currently 11,500 people are employed by the program. The goal is to scale it up to create 220,000 temporary jobs benefiting approximately 1.5 million people.

Also present in the briefing session was Zhou Xun, the renowned actress and UNDP China's National Goodwill Ambassador, who shared her condolences for the disaster affected population of the Caribbean island country. "I strongly urge the Chinese business community and concerned Chinese citizens to take action for Haiti as they did in Sichuan, to help Haitians in 'building back better and greener."

According to latest UN figures, around 113,000 people have been killed in the earthquake with another 196,000 injured. Up to now, UN aid to Haiti has improved significantly. "About 150 flights are flying to Haiti daily, 64 million meals have been distributed to 600,000 people," said Nandy, however, regarding the 3 million quake affected people including 1 million displaced from their homeland, the "relief work has just begun."

Both the UN officials stressed the importance of post-quake psycho-social support. "We learnt from the Wenchuan experience, there're people who are not physically injured, there's a huge psychological trauma, particularly among children and women. This is much more needed than physical support." Nandy explained.

Regarding the homeless children in Haiti, UN discouraged the adoption initiative, "because real orphans still needs time to settle before this task can move to the next stage", Malik explained.

(China.org.cn February 3, 2010)