Voters in Haiti go to the polls on Sunday, March 20, 2011 to elect a new president and a new Parliament. Those elected will face daunting challenges as Haiti rebuilds itself: quake-related devastation, systemic poverty, ongoing crises in the delivery of basic services such as health care and education, and violence.

Against that backdrop, Haiti must have an elected government that can help guide reconstruction efforts and priorities for all Haitians. Women's views and voices must be heard in that process and must be part and parcel of those decisions. Women in Haiti have been greatly affected by the quake and must be able to effectively contribute their views, life experiences and perspectives to ongoing and critical debates about how to move forward.

Haitian women have been increasingly vocal and active in social, political, and economic issues since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986. Though it has not come easily, their progress in changing gender relations of power within the home, within social movements, and within the nation has been steady.

Women’s organizations have been key to these advances, helping create the space to foster and protect women’s activism. One network is helping women gain voice, literally: the Haitian Women’s Community Radio Network (REFRAKA by its Creole acronym).

The importance of radio cannot be overstated in a country where 45% of men, and 49% of women, are illiterate. Nor can the significance of women taking the microphone, in a country where aggressive patriarchy in the home and society, as well as violence from male partners and the state, have tried to keep them silent.

Women's rights and development activists working in Haiti say that greater attention must be paid to the immediate needs of women and girls, as well as their role in the long-term reconstruction of the devastated country.

Experts at the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) acknowledged on Monday that the needs of women must be met in the wake of the humanitarian crisis, in order to ensure their active and effective participation in the reconstruction of their country.

"Whilst the strength and resilience of women are in high demand following such emergencies, they cannot adequately fulfill these roles if their basic needs are unmet and if decision-makers ignore them," said Naéla Mohamed Gabr, the head of CEDAW, and a women's rights expert.

With 45 percent of Haitian households headed by women, a number of United Nations agencies are targeting their relief efforts at Haitian women to help them overcome their human and material losses from the recent earthquake.

"They are the ones who are the economic as well as the psychological mainstay of children and other dependents, the aged and the sick," said Roberta Clarke, regional program director for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, or UNIFEM.

The World Food Program, or WFP, has developed women-only centers for food distribution in Haiti. WFP spokesman Marcus Prior said Saturday that 10,000 women a day will be given 55-pound bags of rice at 16 WFP distribution points around the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.