News outlets are reporting that the pace of emergency aid into Haiti has picked up, but the logistical challenges remain daunting both because of the overwhelming need and the destruction of vital infrastructure in and around Port-au-Prince. As the New York Times reports:

But with Haitian officials relying so heavily on the United States, the United Nations and many different aid groups, coordination was posing a critical challenge. An airport hobbled by only one suitable runway, a ruined port whose main pier splintered into the ocean, roads blocked by rubble, widespread fuel shortages and a lack of drivers to move the aid into the city are compounding the problems.

About 1,700 people camped on the grass in front of the prime minister's office compound in the Pétionville neighborhood, pleading for biscuits and water-purification tablets distributed by aid groups. A sign on one fallen building in Nazon, one of many hillside communities destroyed by the quake, read: "Welcome U.S. Marines. We need help. Dead Bodies Inside!"

With only one runway operational at the Port-au-Prince airport, the United States has taken some flack from aid groups for prioritizing military landings and the evacuation of foreigners over the delivery of aid.  The World Food Programme, for example, was unable to land food aid shipments on Thursday and Friday, though they were finally able to do so this past Saturday. To some extent this is a chicken-or-egg problem: military personnel and equipment are needed on the ground to perform search and rescue operations as well as to provide security and assist with reconstruction of vital infrastructure.  At the same time, food aid is in short supply and desperately needed to save lives.  (Read more coverage of this issue from the Toronto Star.) The U.N. and the United States will have to continue hashing out these sorts of difficult situations in the days ahead.

In addition to food and medical aid, the U.N. Security Council just approved 3.500 additional U.N. peacekeepers for Haiti.  The expanded mission will include up to 8,940 troops and up to 3,711 police.  The mission aims to "escort humanitarian convoys, to secure humanitarian corridors that are being established, and to constitute a reserve force 'in case the situation unravels and security deteriorates'" according to Alain Le Roy, the head of U.N. peacekeeping.  While the U.N. has pledged to deploy the mission as soon as possible, soliciting and preparing troops from member States for a mission has never been a quick or easy process.  Haiti cannot wait six months for additional security, so this is a major test of how relevant the United Nations' generally slow-moving peacekeeping unit can be in emergency situation.