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Haiti making significant progress – UN Survey
Haiti, a member of the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping has been re-building since the earthquake struck on 12 January 2010.
A new United Nations-backed national household survey in Haiti, shows substantial progress has been made for children in the education, nutrition, health and sanitation sectors since 2006.
According to the initial results of the Haiti Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), which covered 13,350 households, 77 percent of children aged 6-11 years attended primary school in 2012, compared to just below 50 per cent in 2005-2006 when the last survey was conducted.
Acute malnutrition among children aged 6-59 months has been reduced by half from 10 percent to 5 percent, and chronic malnutrition has been cut from 29 percent to 22 percent between 2005-2006 and 2012.
“Results of the survey show that the efforts of partners in Haiti in these three years contributed to progress in many sectors and mitigated the impact on children of the 2010 earthquake, the outbreak of cholera and other disasters.” said the representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Haiti, Edouard Beigbeder.
“These findings call for a continued commitment to support the country in sustaining this success while addressing existing challenges and where progress has lagged.”
Haiti, a member of the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping has been re-building since the earthquake struck on 12 January 2010, killing more than 200,000 people and leaving an estimated 500,000 others homeless, in addition to causing widespread destruction, particularly in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The Haiti Demographic and Health Survey 2012 was conducted by the Institut Hatien de L’Enfance, under the overall direction of the country’s Ministry of Population and Public Health, and was supported by UNICEF and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) amongst others.
