The debt owed to Haiti

January 12 2010; given that the world pledged nearly $10 billion in aid, why has there been hardly any construction of permanent housing or new schools?

Three years later, why do more than 350 000 Haitians remain homeless, living in tent camps, while foreign companies are opening new, multi-million-dollar, luxury hotels?
The simple answer to these questions is two-fold.

Amongst those with the power and resources to effect change in Haiti, there is not the will to rebuild the country in a genuinely democratic and inclusive fashion.

Second, efforts to bring about an authentic reconstruction will be stunted, as long as Haiti — ruled by a government not chosen by the people — continues to be under military occupation.

A recent report in the New York Times gives an account of the money contributed by the world to assist the earthquake victims and to help rebuild Haiti and, in doing so, provides a rather mild criticism of the work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) there.

As estimated by the Times, of $7,5 billion in aid that has thus far been disbursed, half has gone to temporary relief aid, including temporary shelters (that is, tents), clinics, schools, and emergency food relief.

Of the remaining half, a small fraction has been allotted to actual reconstruction.
Most earthquake survivors, however, have yet to benefit from this aid in any meaningful or lasting way.

Most of the money has gone to foreign NGOs and private contractors, for whom the earthquake has proved to be tremendously profitable. When these groups spend their collected money, a significant percentage is invariably sucked into administrative costs before it ever reaches the Haitians for whom it was ostensibly intended.

Oxfam, for instance, has spent more than one third of its $96 million budget (over a two-year period) on management costs.

Additionally, many Haitians have expressed outrage at how such NGOs and private contractors have driven up the cost of living since the earthquake: while their employees rent expensive apartments, drive around in brand new cars, and shop at grocery stores that most Haitians cannot afford, a Haitian family in Port-Au-Prince is considered lucky if it can have at least one meal a day.

A report by the Centre for Global Development corroborates the assessment of the New York Times that the reconstruction of Haiti’s infrastructure has been lethargic, largely because the recipients of $9,04 billion aid money have, more often than not, been non-Haitian groups that have not prioritised actual reconstruction.

For all the data provided in the New York Times and the Centre for Global Development reports, they ultimately miss the fundamental reasons for why so little has improved in Haiti since the quake.

In her Times article, Deborah Sontag attributes the virtual lack of reconstruction to the immensity of the undertaking; to the over-ambitiousness of donors and aid organisations; to the “weakness and volatility” of the Haitian government and how millions of dollars have been siphoned by planning meetings that never produce tangible results. Some projects were abandoned even before half-complete.

But to describe the reconstruction efforts of foreign organisations and the Haitian government as ambitious and “idealistic” must seem absurd to the homeless of Port-Au-Prince who have watched luxury hotels sprout up on the hills of Petionville.

Meanwhile, according to the New York Times article, the same Red Cross is sitting on more than $500 million in donations.

What Sontag refers to as the “weakness and volatility” of the Haitian government, a great many Haitians see as outright deceit and illegitimacy.