Help Haiti - 5 Ways You Can Help Now

Not only one of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti seems to be one of the unluckiest also. The two tend to go hand-in-hand. The country's desperate need for help continues to grow, with no end in view for the aftermath of the significant January earthquake. You can find links to help at the end with this article.

Goal for Normal Disasters

The massive earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010 was the worst quake to hit the spot in 200 years. The disastrous event cost an estimated $7.2 to $13.2 million and greater than 250,000 lives. A lot of the country's money, Port-au-Prince, was destroyed as millions of Haiti's people were caught in the ruins of shantytowns, government buildings, and foreign aid practices. The quake killed 17 % of the government's staff and destroyed all but one government ministry building. A lot more than 1.5 million Haitians were displaced from their domiciles or left homeless.

As Haiti faces a yearly hurricane season that brings the prospect of human costs and substantial physical injury, a tropical island nation. Wild deforestation that has take-n around 98 per cent of Haiti's forest cover magnifies the effect of hurricane winds and flood waters. When four tropical storms - Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike - caused greater than $1 billion in damage. Haiti experienced one-of its worst hurricane times actually in 2008

As though hurricanes and earthquakes were not enough, October saw the very first cholera out-break in Haiti in 50 years. Storm Tomas raised the spectre of spreading the condition to the densely populated capital. The specially tenuous living and health conditions triggered from the January quake threaten to facilitate the transmission of the disease and make the united states even more vulnerable to future health epidemics.

A Sobering Human Development Profile

By most any measure, Haiti is one of the world's poorest and least developed countries.

Haiti is the poorest state in the Western Hemisphere. Its GDP was estimated at just over $6.5 million last year. With a population of 9.65 million people, that means to a GDP per capita of no more than $1,300 (at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). Eighty % of Haiti's citizenry struggles to endure while living below the poverty line.

Life expectancy at birth in Haiti is simply 61.7 years. By comparison, life expectancies for Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Honduras vary from 72.6 to 79.1 years.

Haiti ranks 145 from 169 countries in the 2010 UNDP Human Develop-ment Index (HDI). HDI results for Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Honduras range from.604 to.750. Haiti's total HDI score of.404 is less than half that of the top 35 countries in the index.

57 % of Haiti's populace lives in 'multidimensional poverty,' meaning these folks experience constant, intense flaws within their health, education, and living standards, ac-cording to the most recent 2010 UNDP Human Development Report (HDR ).

High Income and Gender Inequality

What little economic assets help Haiti has are extremely unevenly distributed. The 2010 UNDP HDR reckons that 'multi-dimensional inequality,' including significant income and gender inequities, reduces Haiti's already low HDI rating by about 41 percent. Haiti is one of nine countries where women get less-than half as several years of education as men. cited by the UNDP

Poor Politics

Attempts have been hampered by a host of bad politics at development and hopes of achieving a better standard of living. Haiti's political issues have hindered the country's attempts to mount a defense against and respond to the natural disasters that appear to have the nation therefore set within their sights.

More details are available on this site.

How to Help

Provided Haiti's domestic situation, one of the most readily useful hopes for mitigating the effect of devastating natural disasters is outside assistance from more fortunate neighbors and friends. The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, co-chaired by former President Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, was established to increase re-construction funds and rebuild Haiti in the wake of the January earthquake.

Fortuitously, there's evidence that aid efforts can make a difference. Not quite 90 per cent of cholera cases have been properly treated when Haitians have been able to achieve clinics and get access to health services.