Haitians know how to fish but they need access to a boat buoyed by property rights, rule of law and greater access to world markets. Nevertheless, some bright spots have emerged in a move away from the “over-aid” model: mangoes and the reopening of a wheat flour mill destroyed by the 2010 earthquake.
“Under the Dome” and China’s “real blue sky”
Is the ultimate dome preventing China’s skies from clearing a political one?
Five years after the earthquake, Haiti remains on unsteady ground
Thousands of Haitians continue to live in tent camps five years on after a deadly earthquake brought an already struggling nation to its knees. This update by Jacob Kushner for the GlobalPost gets at the core of the country’s ongoing struggle for stability despite donor aid in the billions: as long as Haiti remains without property rights, the rule of law and a constitutional government, chaos will hobble recovery.
Beijing social think-tank shut down amid crackdown
(July 20, 2013) On the heels of anti-graft campaigner Xu Zhiyong’s detention, authorities continue to get tough on rights activists as they endure another wallop of repression, shutting down a Beijing-based think tank. The move is seen as payback for activists who have called on government leaders to declare their assets, and on lawyers who defend “sensitive” cases.
No country for private houses
(October 26, 2012) The history of government property seizure in China reads like an appalling dystopian fiction. A new film, which debuted in New York on October 28, looks closely at the astonishing but all-too-true stories of individual citizens – survivors of this ongoing battle for property rights – who have been robbed of their homes, their lands, unconscionably beaten, tormented and forced to endure bizarre and cruel new realities as a result of a social-political ideology gone mad and corrupt officials and developers who will stop at nothing in their pursuit of power, privilege and gain.
Global warming fears help fuel destruction of China’s rivers, says independent Chinese researcher
(March 27, 2012) Fears over climate change and the potential for profit are behind a dam-building boom in China that, without public oversight, is running roughshod over the country’s environmental legacy and the livelihood of its people. Property rights must be respected, says the author of a new report.
China’s real estate market: pulling the rug out from under the citizenry
(June 8, 2011) In China, owning a home is a dream and keeping a home from being destroyed, near impossible.
Bill Gates: Foreign Aid 2.0
(May 27, 2011) Bill Gates’ version of foreign aid should look to Microsoft’s original recipe for success to empower Africa.
Hernando de Soto: Egypt’s economic apartheid
(February 9, 2011) Renowned Peruvian economist and international development scholar Hernando de Soto wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal about how the lack of property rights in Egypt has led to widespread economic marginalization, fueling the current uprising.
Patricia Adams: Haiti needs rights
(January 11, 2011) One option for Haiti is to make it a U.S. territory like Puerto Rico, writes Probe International’s Executive Director, Patricia Adams.
How to Best Help Haiti: Reduce Foreign Aid
(November 19, 2010) A speech given at the University of Waterloo by Probe International’s Executive Director, Patricia Adams, on the failure of foreign aid in Haiti.
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.
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?
Africa: Foreign Aid Not Good for Region
(November 18, 2009) We must question foreign aid’s embedded, corrupting system that takes people who reside in resource-rich countries and makes them poor. Computer experts talk about malware—a short form for "malicious software" that infiltrates a computer without the owners’ informed consent. Foreign aid—like malware—harms a country’s operating system. The term "aid" in itself is corrupting. What is the justification for using such a term when Africans repay their debts, amounting to US$20 billion every year?
Breaking the myth of aid. Dambisa Moyo’s remedies
(September 30, 2009) Aid, argues Dambisa Moyo, does not eradicate some of Africa’s first rank scourges such as civil wars and corruption. Quite the reverse: development aid encourages corruption and allows some regimes to stay in place artificially. Because of the significant amounts that aid invests, it triggers envy and can stir up ethnic tensions, which sometimes lead to civil wars.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
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