Debate handouts

Terminology
Attacks
 Germany
 Honduras
 China
 USA
 France
 United Arab Emirates
 Spain
 Bangladesh
 Canada

Haiti
 Political Overview
 Natural Disasters
 International Help
 Literacy
 Poverty
 Climate Change effects
 Solutions being implemented

Quotes

Terminology:
Climate change: Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather
patterns. These shifts may be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle. But
since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily
due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped
around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures. – United Nations
Organization https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change

Climate refugees : a person who has been forced to leave their home as a result of the
effects of climate change on their environment.  
Refugee : a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war,
persecution, or natural disaster. 
Immigrant : a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country. 
Internally displaced person (IDP): internally displaced person, a person who has been
forced to move within their own country as a result of conflict or environmental
disaster. 
Illiteracy ;  lack of any or sufficient education.
OCG: Organized Crime Group

_____________________________________________________________________
Respuesta a la situación de los refugiados: acnur
Soluciones: reasentamiento (reunificación familiar), integración (al país de acogida,
asegurar estadía legal con documentación válida)y repatriación (retorno voluntario).
Attacks

Germany

Haiti
 Political Overview
 Natural Disasters
The climate crisis provoked by global warming is one of the main factors for the
terrible conditions the country is going by. Every year, Haiti is severely affected by
at least one natural disaster, being Tropical Cyclones and Riverine Floods the most
common events.
There can be no more hiding, and no more denying. Global heating is
supercharging extreme weather at an astonishing speed. Guardian
analysis recently revealed how human-caused climate breakdown is
accelerating the toll of extreme weather across the planet. People across
the world are losing their lives and livelihoods due to more deadly and
more frequent heatwaves, floods, wildfires and droughts triggered by the
climate crisis
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/21/climate-change-
cause-of-most-under-reported-humanitarian-crises-report-finds

 International Help
Althoygh International help is always well received, there are ways to simplify the
process and guarantee that then affected parts will receive it and there won´t be
Literacy (30%) Illiteracy (60%)
Haiti has the lowest literacy rates in the Western Hemisphere.
Men > Women: the illiteracy rate is so high that families often cannot send more than
one child to school, and when they can send one, they are usually boys.
Teachers: Teachers do not have the basic skills needed to provide quality education,
so even if families can pay for it, students may not be learning what they should
because of lack of capacitation, good teachers would search for better job
opportunities in a country where they recieve a decent salary, not in a place like Haiti,
where families have to survive with an average of $2 a day. Also, there is almost no
oversight or supervision from government institutions in schools. 90 % of schools run
by churches, non-governmental organizations, or small businessmen.
Materials: there is a shortage of learning materials in Haiti’s native language, Kreyòl
and almost no access to bookstores.
Economical investments: The estimated cost of school supplies (uniforms and
materials) rises up to $35 per student, and the anual tuition is up to $100.
Dropping school:
30% of children attending school leave before the third grade
60% of all school children will leave school after the sixth grade
200,000 children are not in school

CAUSES As it can be analyzed by this data, the illiteracy rates come together with the
state of povery of the country, lack of family support and education, heredity of
illiteracy among family members, educated people being unemployed (30%
unemployment in Haiti)

CONSEQUENCES More poverty, lack of professional formation, intergenerational

illiteracy, Underpayment, Underemployment, Unemployment and approaching to illiterate
people.

SOLUTIONS it is difficult to propose solutions like free education, because in a poor

cpuntry, the money of the tuition is needed, so
 Grant schools Access to educational resources and materials to improve the
quality of services
 Create programs and find solutions to stop students from dropping school
Jovenel Moise (2020) emphasized that all citizens must learn minimal skills to take
part in the country's development and to fight all forms of discrimination and social
exclusion.
ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS
Since september 2022, Haiti is seeing an increase in the displacement figures again
thanks to the attacks of an OCG. (20, 000 people according to the UN´s Security
Council)
Meanwhile, OCGs in Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince started blocking the city’s
Varreux fuel terminal on September 18, disconnecting the city from its primary source
of fuel; as of September 30, the fuel terminal remained blocked. The OCGs imposing
the blockade have also blocked roads that connect Port-au-Prince to northern and
southern areas of the country, effectively preventing essential supplies from reaching
communities nationwide. Haiti generates more than 85 percent of its electricity using
petroleum products, and the Government of Haiti (GoH) National Electricity Company
was only able to provide a few hours of electricity per day as of September 30, with
fuel reserves for backup electricity systems rapidly decreasing, according to the UN.
The OCG actions are also contributing to Haiti’s increased political instability, with
widespread protests occurring since early September. Individuals are protesting fuel
shortages and continued insecurity and are demanding Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s
resignation, according to international media.
**They are blocking and neglecting access to primary resources and basic needs
like food and electricity. Haiti has one of the highest levels of chronic food insecurity in
the world, with more than one-half of its total population of 11.4 million people
chronically food insecure and more than 20 percent of children in the country
continuously malnourished.
So, affectation by climate change and constant implications due to natural
disasters, high levels of poverty, 60% of illiterates, no proffesionals, attack o fan ocg
blocking the country´s primary resources, and the list continues…

 Climate Change effects

 Solutions being implemented

1. PRIORITIZING LITERACY PROGRAMS

 Partners in Literacy Haiti (PILH) Institution that works to provide students with
access to educational resources in libraries, partnering with organizations within
and beyond Haiti
 Use the International Economical help to finance educational programs,
capacitating educators and improving educational facilities.

2. declaring the environment a national priority and linking environmental

rehabilitation and preservation measures to social and economic
development strategies, such as the Poverty Reduction Strategy;
 
3. relieving pressure on forest resources by encouraging the use of subsidised
wood fuel substitutes, taxing the sale and transport of charcoal and wood
 and investing returns in environmental rehabilitation programs;
 
4. investing more external aid in rural development to stem the flow of
migrants to urban slums and stepping up community-led environmental
protection projects in those slums to expand access to clean water and basic
sanitation;
 
5. strengthening institutions to better manage the environment by establishing
and empowering local governance structures, including community policing;
completing and enacting the organic law for the environment ministry;
eliminating overlapping ministerial responsibilities for natural resources
management; and ensuring more effective coordination among ministries
and the international community by launching the inter-ministerial
committee on the environment to be chaired by the prime minister.

Asad Rehman, the executive director of War on Want, blamed a “climate

change reporting that prefers pictures of polar bears to those we are killing
with our inaction”.
He said: “Climate change has long had its fingerprints over untold killer
floods, droughts and famines. Unfortunately the people being sacrificed
every day to the climate crisis are those least responsible for it. They have
been deliberately made invisible because the lives of those with black and
brown skins simply don’t matter.”

Instability and violent conflict are not attributable solely to

environmental degradation. But they are made more likely by the
latter’s interaction with such factors as weak institutions and
governance, political fragility, pervasive and extreme poverty,
vulnerability to natural disasters, rapid population growth, urban
overcrowding and social and economic inequality.
(https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/haiti/haiti-
saving-environment-preventing-instability-and-conflict)
The actual affectation Haiti holds has been caused not only cimate
change provoking natural disasters more frequently, but also
 https://www.datosmundial.com/america/haiti/refugiados.php
https://data.humdata.org/dataset/haiti-natural-disaster-incidents

https://news.un.org/story/2017/09/566052
CLIMATE CHANGE
https://www.unhcr.org/climate-change-and-disasters.html?query=climate%20change
%20refugees displacement
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/climate-refugees
https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/haiti
HAITIAN DATA
http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Documents/FichasPais/HAITI_FICHA%20PAIS.pdf
refugees
https://www.datosmundial.com/america/haiti/refugiados.php

https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/haitian-refugees

https://247wallst.com/special-report/2022/02/14/the-poorest-countries-in-the-americas/

ALL TERMINOLOGY
https://www.unrefugees.org/news/how-climate-change-impacts-refugees-and-
displaced-communities/

https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/caleid/index-fra.html?
lang=fra&lettr=indx_titls&page=9BlhVyvFe2Bg.html

natural disasters
https://data.humdata.org/dataset/haiti-natural-disaster-incidents
idp
https://data.humdata.org/dataset/idmc-idp-data-for-haiti

Bibliographies

What is climate change? (no date) United Nations. United Nations. Available at:
https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change.

Martinez, M. and Marquez, M. (2014) What's the difference between immigrant and
refugee?, CNN. Cable News Network. Available at:
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/15/us/immigrant-refugee-definition/index.html

*** Rubenstein, M. and Slagle, T. (2019) Climate change in Haiti, State of the Planet.
Columbia Climate School. Available at:
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2012/02/01/climate-change-in-haiti/

Haiti - Natural Disaster Incidents (no date) Humanitarian Data Exchange. Available at:
https://data.humdata.org/dataset/haiti-natural-disaster-incidents

Global warming and climate change is a problem we all have to do with, there is a necessity
to take action and start now,