The Issue:

When a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti in January 2010 it left a devastating trail of destruction in its wake. Over 2.3 million people lost their homes and entire neighborhoods were destroyed.

 

The UN agency I worked for at the time, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), had a key role to play in the international humanitarian and recovery response. It led the way in raising money from national donors around the world, and helped to coordinate international response efforts.

 

However, UNDP's offices in the capital city were destroyed, and its staff faced grim personal and work challenges in the following months. When it came time to report back to donors on the millions of dollars that had been raised and spent, our communications office in New York City was tasked with the effort. 

 

My Role:

I was the publication manager and chief editor of UNDP's donor report Haiti: One Year Later. We had six weeks to produce a report for our institutional donors and the Haitian government demonstrating how donor money had been used, and how it had improved people's lives in the earthquake's aftermath. 

 

My goal was to produce a report in English and French that highlighted UNDP's accomplishments in the months following the earthquake and that clearly showed its programmatic results. I knew the report would play a critical role in convincing donors to continue their support of UNDP recovery efforts in Haiti.

 

The Result

The report was successfuly produced in English, French, and later Creole in time for an international donors conference on Haiti. It was well received by donors and contributed to the decision to fully fund a cash-for-work programme that employed hundreds of thousands of survivors in the years following the earthquake. 

 

Read the full report here.