The Caribbean Islands: the Next Humanitarian or National Disaster?
This week the United States are passing through one of the greatest natural disasters since 1992. Matthew, a storm ranked as a Category 4 hurricane presently pounds South Carolina, U.S. and already took the lives of 4 people in Florida within the last 72 hours.Unfortunately, the Caribbean region has not been so lucky.
Just in 3 days, Matthew achieved to turn back in total crisis the Islands by killing nearly 276 people in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the Bahamas. Approximately 3, 215 households have been affected and more than 300, 000 people now remain save in shelters across the country. Such high rate of deaths in location permanently exposed on risk of natural disasters leads to the concern that the humanitarian aid is not enough sufficient to keep the citizens prepared for crisis outbreaks.
Natural Crisis or Political Mislead?
The Caribbean region is a small area with rich cultural and political diversity including one the world`s newest democratic countries, Cuba and one of the poorest, Haiti. This fact, including the fatal climate changes, makes the area a topic of fierce political and media discussions generally related to the provision and management of humanitarian aid.
Somewhere between the Lose-Lose Condition
In some countries, the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have the possibility to act as major contributors to the national development processes while in others, their role remain highly restricted due to administrative and negotiation obstacles (Clark 1991). Whether, the government`s role in coordinating all development activities, including those of NGOs cannot become sufficiently productive, the negative results are most sizable among the affected society. The Caribbean region strives for salvation since 2010; a condition that hurricane Matthew did not put into account this year.
