EU, USA and UN start to plan for relocation of one million Haitians at the height of the rainy season

Published: 18 February 2010 y., Thursday

Rankų paspaudimas
The EU, the USA and the UN are going to divide up the workload in order to provide shelter for more than one million Haitians before the rains, which have already started in the Caribbean country, get any worse.
 
Soraya Rodríguez, Spanish Secretary of State for International Cooperation, who is chairing the informal meeting of development ministers in La Granja de San Ildefonso (Segovia) in the name of the Spanish Presidency of the EU, warned that “immediate action must be taken (...) to relocate these people as soon as possible”.
 
In order to achieve this objective, Rajiv Shah, Administrator of USAID, Edmond Mulet, UN Special Representative in Haiti and the organisation's s Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, together with the European Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs, attended the meeting.
 
The ministers, secretaries of state and heads of humanitarian aid meeting in La Granja are also keen to accelerate the clear-up work to demolish buildings on the island to prevent any more structures collapsing during the current weather conditions.
 
Soraya Rodríguez told journalists that Spain will continue to head reconstruction projects, both through it being the current holder of the EU Presidency and as the third largest donor of humanitarian aid to Haiti before the earthquake (behind the US and Canada, and ahead of France and Japan).
 
Spain is also making the provisional headquarters of the Spanish Cooperation technical office available to EU members.

MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Also on the agenda of the La Granja meeting is the preliminary work on the position to be taken by the EU at the UN summit meeting in September on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
      
In 2000, the UN set a number of goals to be reached before 2015, including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, progress towards universal primary education, gender equality and reduction of child mortality.
 
Soraya Rodríguez said: “There are five years left before the deadline, and we must strengthen efforts to meet these targets and evaluate the large vacuums around some of the goals”, calling for the need to go “from words to actions”.
 
The Secretary of State said the economic crisis “is no excuse” for failing to comply with humanitarian aid targets: 0.7% of gross domestic product of the EU by 2015
 
However, given the particularly difficult economic situation, one of the strategies that European ministers will analyse is combating the outflow of capital from developing countries.
According to various studies carried out by the European Parliament and the Government of Norway, who also sent representatives to the meeting, for each dollar of aid that reaches a developing country, between eight and ten dollars flow out of it by illegal means.

 

Šaltinis: europa.eu
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.

Facebook Comments

New comment


Captcha

Associated articles

The most popular articles

Italian women rally against Berlusconi

Thousands of Italian women rallied throughout Italy on Sunday, incensed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandal allegations. more »

Europe must show Tunisia that democracy pays

Unconditional solidarity with the Tunisian people, more support for civil society, and a call for strong EU assistance in dealing with the many challenges of Tunisia's transition to democracy, were the key messages voiced by MEPs after the first European Parliament delegation visit to Tunisia (3-6 February), following the "Jasmine revolution", at a joint meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Human Rights Sub-committee on Monday. more »

Anti-Berlusconi protest turns violent

A weekend of protests against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi came to an end on Sunday night with violent scuffles between demonstrators and police outside the premier's villa in Milan. more »

EU transport ministers meet to discuss future of European infrastructure

The European Union's 27 transport ministers are meeting today and tomorrow in Godollo, Hungary, for an informal Council meeting hosted by the Hungarian Presidency to discuss the review of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) policy. more »

Australia bush fires destroy homes

Dozens of homes have been destroyed by bush fires sweeping through parts of Western Australia. more »

Troubles close pyramids

Egypt's most iconic tourist site is unusually deserted - yet another casualty of the political unrest which has dominated Egypt's agenda for the past 13 days. more »

Japan volcano causes damage

Shinmoe peak errupts in southern Japan causing damages to buildings, one person injured. more »

Conference on China and Climate Change

The European External Action Service (EEAS) will host an international expert roundtable conference on the topic of “Engaging China on Climate Change: Crossroads of 21st-century Foreign Policy” on 2 February 2011 in Brussels. more »

Iran: fresh EU sanctions needed to combat human rights abuses

Iran's execution of Dutch-Iranian citizen Sarah Bahrami was firmly condemned by Foreign Affairs Committee MEPs in a resolution voted on Tuesday. more »

Vice-President Siim Kallas presents road safety awards

At the Excellence in Road Safety Awards ceremony held today in Brussels, Siim Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for transport, presented awards to seven organisations which have undertaken specific commitments to reduce the number of road fatalities in their communities more »