tents and tarps

Haiti Rewired:

Were there any things that you weren’t expecting that turned out to be problems or learning experiences? Is there anything that you wish you had to move things along in ways that you’re not able to now?

Emergency Shelter Coordinator:

I had not expected so many layers in decision-making.

Coordination, support cells. There are military coordination meetings. There are presidential meetings. There are inter-cluster meetings. Humanitarian camp committee meetings — all on the national level.

Some layers in decision making could be avoided. We could cut down that to some kind of major meeting where we do these major decisions. If you have the President of the country in there and the main UN bodies, the cluster coordinators of the different sectors, that would be sufficient. But to have another one with military another one with the UN another one with the President, another one with ministers, that’s a bit tricky.

You know, I just came from one meeting where half of the meeting contained with reporting what happened in the other meetings.