(July 15, 2010) It is tempting to suggest that a country’s ability to prepare for disasters is a matter of money. But although wealth certainly matters, politics are more important.
Rebuilding Haiti depends on redeveloping Haiti’s government
(March 31, 2010) Yet if there is to be any hope of breaking the cycle of aid dependency that has haunted the impoverished nation, building up Haiti’s government to the point where it can manage its own affairs is critical. Unless that succeeds, de facto trusteeship, perhaps even direct responsibility for the country, could last for years.
Aid in Haiti creates competition with local business owners
(March 31, 2010) Haiti-based businessman Maulik Radia has weathered two coup d’etats, two major hurricanes and now an earthquake in the country he’s worked in for the past 25 years.
How best to help Haiti
(March 31, 2010) All past international efforts to turn Haiti into a functioning democracy have failed. There are better ways forward.
Tackling corruption in Haiti is possible. Here’s how
(March 30, 2010) Haiti and its donors need to face up to bad governance and failed aid. They need to develop a strategy against corruption. This means more than controls and audits, more than training and technical assistance, needed though they are. We must ask how the design and implementation of Haiti’s reconstruction and development strategy might address what public administration experts Derick Brinkerhoff and Carmen Halpern called the sanctioned plunder that was and remains the core of Haitian politics.
Billions for Haiti, a criticism for every dollar
(March 5, 2010) The world’s bill for the Haitian earthquake is large and growing — now $2.2 billion — and so is the criticism about how the money is being spent.
Marshall Plan to Haiti? Not so fast.
(March 2, 2010) As calls for a “Marshall Plan for Haiti” continue to make headlines, an increasing number of reports are beginning to ask: is aid the answer? A recent report from PBS interviews a number of aid supporters and critics, asking them if a massive aid program to Haiti is the best option.
Help Haiti build a real government
(February 22, 2010) Aid makes governments unaccountable to their own people – with devastating results.
Haiti heads for debt crisis as emergency loans pile up earthquake
(January 31, 2010) Anti-poverty campaigners warn emergency funds loaded to Haiti, at the height of crisis, will become a heavy debt burden for the quake devastated country. Already caught in a cycle of repayment for loans racked up by dictators from the western governments that kept the country’s looters in power, Haiti can’t afford its future in the present form of help.
The betrayal of Haiti
(January 22, 2010) Beyond the recent earthquake, there is another crisis at the heart of Haiti. Author Gerald Caplan calls the island state the perfect Carribbean example of a historic collusion between despots and Western donors, overseen by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, to “enrich themselves at the expense of the people.”
To help Haiti, end foreign aid
(January 19, 2010) For Haiti, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity, says Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal. After the immediate impact of the earthquake has passed, and the immediate relief efforts subside, “the arrival of the soldiers of do-goodness, each with his brilliant plan to save Haitians from themselves” will take root.
What was going on in Haiti prior to the earthquake?
(January 17, 2010) Between 45,000-50,000 may have died in the impoverished country of Haiti according to the American Red Cross as a result of the earthquake that shook Port-Au-Prince and surrounding areas on January 12, 2010. A hospital collapses, the President’s palace is left in ruins, and many homes in shambles. Haitians bloodied from the devistation have walked away with tears in their eyes while others lay on the ground struggling to live or dead. This is what we see on the surface, but what is really going on behind the scenes of this catastrophe? What events were ongoing in Haiti prior to the earthquake?
In the Name of Progress: The Underside of Foreign Aid
In clear, uncompromising language the book explains where progress went wrong and the remedies needed to prevent foreign aid from doing more of the same in the future.
Why foreign aid to Haiti failed
(February 1, 2006) Although it proudly lays claim as the second oldest republic in the Hemisphere, and the only nation whose slave population defeated a colonial power to become free,Haiti is, and has been, among the worst governed and most undemocratic states. Few places in the world, and no places in the Western Hemisphere, are poorer than Haiti.This paper2 explains why, after consuming billions in foreign aid over three decades, and hundreds of millions specifically for governance and democratization programs, not to mention billions for other programs, Haiti remains politically dysfunctional and impoverished.
Hope is hard to find in Haiti anymore
(April 19, 2005) Modest hope . . . has been replaced by increased hunger, chaos and despair, and everyone except the elite up the hill in Petionville, guarded from harm by ex-military, lives in fear.
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