Haiti

Irish Aid to fund ActionAid humanitarian response in Haiti

November 1, 2016

ActionAid has been awarded €125,000 by the Irish government for its relief effort in Haiti, following Hurricane Matthew. In total, 2,128,700 people, 12% of Haiti’s population, have been affected by the hurricane, including 894,100 children.

The funding will be used to provide emergency sanitation and training for the prevention of cholera; equipment and training for the reconstruction of buildings and direct support for rebuilding livelihoods, particularly for women.

Yolette Etienne, CEO of ActionAid Haiti, says: “ActionAid is deeply concerned about the risk of cholera, with several deaths reported already. It is a race against time to supply communities with food, water and potentially life-saving hygiene kits to guard against the spread of disease. We are particularly concerned for women and girls, who are especially vulnerable in the wake of a disaster like Hurricane Matthew.” Yolette is Haitian and has been CEO of ActionAid Haiti for almost three years.

Listen in to Yolette Etienne speaking on Morning Ireland.

Siobhán McGee CEO of ActionAid Ireland said: “We are very grateful to Irish Aid for supporting our relief effort in Haiti. ActionAid’s grassroots programmatic work, which prioritises the most vulnerable communities, is the basis for our humanitarian response. Rebuilding the lives of the poorest and most marginalised in a sustainable way will be fundamental to our approach in Haiti, as will our efforts to support women and girls in the aftermath of this disaster.”

ActionAid has been working in Haiti since 1996, working with communities and local partners to run emergency and long-term programmes, making the organisation uniquely placed to respond. ActionAid, its partners, and volunteer community groups founded by the charity were among the first responders after the Hurricane hit on 4th October.

See project details below:

Title of project: Women led Hurricane Matthew response in Grand Anse, Haiti

Project Duration: 6 months

Budget: €125,000

Funded by: Irish Aid

Local partner, KPGA (Konbit Peyizan Grandans/Farmer’s Movement of Grand Anse) is a partner of ActionAid Haiti since 2007, working primarily on women’s rights, food security, sustainable agriculture, education, environment and good governance. Following the World Humanitarian Summit, ActionAid Haiti trained 30 women in leadership in emergency preparedness and response. Four of the women are in Grande Anse, and will be actively engaged in the programme; in needs’ assessment and in the definition and implementation of adequate response measures with the support of trained women from other departments. KPGA has significant emergency response experience, having responded to the earthquake in 2010 and subsequent hurricanes.

Context Analysis: Hurricane Matthew struck the south west of Haiti on 4th October, 2016; with the majority of the damage occurring in the southern departments, with Grand Anse particularly affected. The hurricane has caused widespread flooding, damage to roads, bridges, schools and hospitals including outage of telephone communications. In total, 2,128,700 people, 12% of Haiti’s population, have been affected, including 894,100 children. According to the latest government figures, 1,410,900 people, including 592,600 children, are in need of humanitarian aid, of which 750,000, including 315,000 children, are severely in need. At least 175,500 have been evacuated or displaced and housed in 224 temporary shelters. So far, at least 1,000 people have been reported dead but the death toll is still expecting to rise as access to worst-affected areas is improving (Sources: OCHA 12/10/2016 and Al Jazeera 10/10/2016).

ActionAid Haiti (AAH), with KPGA and community women leaders carried out an initial rapid assessment reporting drastic levels of damage to houses, infrastructure, schools, fishing villages, and the loss of personal belongings and livestock. In Jeremie alone 95% of houses were completely or partially destroyed. Communities have reported a near complete loss of crops. Houses and schools that are less damaged are being used as shelters, some houses having to host 3 or 4 families, and schools unable to re-open due to being used as shelters. Some previously identified shelters were damaged as people were trying to access them, creating a lot of trauma among the populations. The situation is exacerbated as the available contingency food stocks, drinking water and latrines in many shelters were insufficient even prior to the hurricane. Market prices for necessary items have spiked and communities report that markets are difficult to access. Water distribution systems have been destroyed in several areas making potable water scarce. The inadequate Water and Sanitation situation suggests there is a high risk of a cholera outbreak, as of 11 October, 189 suspected cases of cholera were reported since the hurricane in Grande Anse; at least a dozen of the new patients in Jérémie were children under 10 (Source: DPC 11/10/2016).

Disasters have a disproportionate impact on women and girls due to structural discrimination and marginalisation. Also the aftermath of a disaster places women and girls at greater risks of all forms of gender based violence. An ActionAid Haiti rapid assessment shows that there is no privacy in the shelters for women and girls, with the potential for GBV to occur – there have already been reported cases.

Target Group: Direct beneficiaries: 36,000. Communities as a whole have been dramatically affected and will benefit from the project activities. However, single-parent families will specifically be targeted and women and girls will benefit from specific activities. Approximately 65% of the target population are female. The localities have been chosen based on rapid needs assessments; local presence and knowledge of communities with the partner organisation; presence of other actors to avoid duplication and ensure synergies; ActionAid Haiti ability to effectively provide adequate assistance and their status as current ActionAid programmes. The emerging most vulnerable groups are female headed households, small holder farmers; women and children at risk of trafficking; elderly and those with limited mobility.

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.