Atuação da organização das Nações Unidas e da Organização Mundial de Saúde frente à epidemia de cólera no Haiti.

Abstract

It is known that throughout history, in many moments, crisis situations determined de need for cooperation between different parties to achieve success, aiming the need to overcome the obstacle and in search for constant growth. Thus, International Cooperation emerges as a unique mechanism that allows, through the interaction between different actors and the sharing of resources, knowledge and structures, actions that can modify paradigms faced by a given State. In this context, Haiti, in the period of time between 2010 – 2019, experienced a worsening of its existing crises due to a cholera epidemic, marked by a high mortality, which made evident the precariousness of the Haitian Health System and highlighted the inability of the State in taking adequate responses to the epidemic. However, following the establishment of the cholera epidemic in Haiti, several International Organizations carried out activities in the country, searching for measures that would make possible to control the disease. In this way, the research problem proposed in this study is to understand the work of the United Nations and its specialized health agency, the World Health Organization, during this period and what are the consequences of the actions developed. For this purpose, the general objective was based on analyzing the performance and impact of UN/WHO actions in the social, political-economic and health spheres in Haiti. In addition to that, this study seeks to understand the importance of international cooperation as a tool in the search for solutions to health crises. Aiming the approach of the mentioned objective, the historical, socioeconomic and political context of the country was developed along the text, drawing a parallel between the difficulties experienced historically and the current health problems faced. The applied methodology consists of a case study, using bibliographic research, and the Liberalist approach in International Relations as subsidy. Afterward, the analysis concludes that there is an ambiguity when assessing the impact of interventions proposed by the UN/WHO in Haiti, because in some aspects, such as reducing mortality and controlling the cholera epidemic, the success obtained is undeniable. However, the foreign presence in the country brought a legacy of growing discontent in the population and it is, today, perceived in a negative way.