In an interview with Radio NZ, New Zealander Tania McBride discussed humanitarian progress following the Haiti earthquake and challenges that remain.

Ms McBride works for UNICEF in New York, but has been in Haiti several times since the devastating 7.0 scale earthquake on 12 January (local time) that killed more than 220,000 people and injured over 300,000.

In her interview on Radio NZ’s Summer Noelle programme, Tania talked about UNICEF’s humanitarian relief work. This has included setting up tent schools and providing emergency education to 720,000 children; immunization of more than 1.9 million children against key vaccine-preventable diseases; and providing safe water and sanitation benefitting more than a million people.

UNICEF is also helping to build the capacity of the Haitian Government, which lost most of its government buildings and thousands of government workers in the quake.

Haiti’s extremely low base of development before the quake hampered relief efforts. For example, only one in two children attended school pre-quake, while water and sanitation systems were limited.

Listen to the full Radio NZ interview (external link)

Read more about UNICEF’s humanitarian work in Haiti