ADVISORY: GROUPS CALL ON DONORS TO ADVANCE HUMAN RIGHTS IN REBUILDING HAITI

 Coalition Issues Concrete Recommendations to Donors in advance of March Haiti Conference

(Boston, New York, Port-au-Prince, Washington DC, February 17, 2010)—Several prominent human rights groups have issued concrete recommendations calling on donor states to take a rights-based approach to rebuilding Haiti.  The groups—Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), Partners In Health/Zanmi Lasante, and the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center)—made their recommendations public today, well in advance of the upcoming Haiti Donors’ Conference, which will be scheduled for late March or early April. 

The groups all have substantial experience working in Haiti—including during this and previous emergencies—and aim to influence the outcome of the Haiti Donors’ Conference by promoting four priorities that are key to successful rebuilding: accountability, transparency, empowerment, and capacity building. 

To read the recommendations, please click here or see the attached.

Experts from each organization are available for comment and interview between now and the Donor Conference. To contact them, please see the information listed here:

Media Contacts:

Monika Kalra Varma, RFK Center
202-460-4681

Mario Joseph, BAI
786-972-2089
011-509-3701-9879

Meg Satterthwaite, CHRGJ
347-277-5035

Brian Concannon, IJDH
541-432-0597

Donna Barry, PIH
617-432-6017

For more information about these organizations, please visit their websites: www.chrgj.org, www.pih.org, www.ijdh.org, www.rfkcenter.org