Haitis Reconstruction Requires Strengthening Haitis Sovereignty
PLACE BOYER: Haitians displaced by the earthquake stay in makeshift homes in Place Boyer in Petionville on Jan. 23, 2010, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Sophia Paris/Getty Images) Georges Marie is a proud and angry Haitian lawyer who lost her husband in the earthquake. As she mourned, the humanitarian industry exploded.
She watched with concern as Port au Princes narrow streets became clogged with white Land Rovers, each stamped with an aid agency logo on the drivers door. It still rankles her when the humanitarians dine and dance in a four-star restaurant overlooking the Place Boyer, a public square now strung with tarps, home to some of the million-plus people still displaced from the 2010 earthquake.
Some aid organizations, Georges Marie said, dont pay taxes required to operate in Haitialthough to be fair its quite possible that the under-resourced Haitian state has never asked. Others dont fulfill local hiring mandates, placing foreigners in positions that Haitians could fillalthough, to be fair, many development agencies try hard to hire locally but are thwarted by a fierce brain drain. Quebec, said Georges Marie, offers Cuban-trained Haitian doctors a license to practice and a plane ticket. La industrie de misere, she called itour misery, their jobs, she said.
My language skills are rotten but not so bad as to miss her criticism of humanitarian consultants for not speaking Kreyol (Haitian Creole) and relying on their underpaid, multilingual Haitian drivers for translation. As an international development professional, Id had some low moments coming to terms with a bizarre industry. But nowhere else have I looked so long and hard in the mirror than when on assignment in Haiti.
Marie has a new job. She is taking a post with the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). Led by Bill Clinton an! d the ou tgoing Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, the IHRC is seen by many as an unelected parallel government, invented by nervous donors to keep their aid money safe from corruption.
For many Haitians, including Georges Marie, the IHRC is a posterchild for the hijacking of Haitis sovereignty. Wont the job burn you up inside? I asked. I need the money, she responded. Why not work in President-elect Michael Martellys administration? She shook her head. I have a family to feed.
Alfredo Mena, a Dominican-born Interamerican Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) representative to Haiti, estimates there are 9,000 NGOs in Haiti. And they are all welcome to contribute to Haitis development, he said. But IICA and others have worked hard with the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture to craft a national plan for food security, and a guidebook for agricultural development. Each cooperating development organization should study this and ensure their projects contribute to the plans successful implementation. Many dont.
Contradictions and complexities abound within an aid industry struggling to make headway in a sputtering reconstruction process. The good news is that unlike a few years ago there is near unanimity on the need for a strong Haitian state to direct the aid flows. The bad news is that state capacity is wantingand no one is quite sure how to build it. How do aid agencies act responsibly in the interim with few functional public institutions to coordinate the aid?
Over a colonial breakfast of croissants and baguettes, I chatted with Georges Maries neighbor, Iderle Charles. Haitis civil society and government capacity are weak, she said. My sense is that the aid industry is making this problem worse. She lived in exile in Mexico City throughout the Duvalier dictatorships, agitating for Haitian democracy from afar.
We discussed MINUSTAH, the 10,000-strong U.N. security force brought! in aft er President Aristide was deposed in 2004 that still patrols Haitis streets today. Not one Haitian I met could define its mission or jurisdiction.
Although public security is nominally a state responsibility, I rarely saw Haitian police during my time there. I watched a platoon of M-16-bearing Rwandan soldiers maneuver their armored vehicle through a crowded fruit market. Peacekeeping in Haiti is a plum post; it might earn them a promotion back home. For Haitis under-resourced cops, it is demoralizing that foreign troops are better equipped, better paid, and are treading on their beat.
Despite the U.N.s critical global role, the bloat in its Haitian operations is perverse and gives it a bad name. A tour of duty in Haiti, I was told, is an excellent way to advance upward in the U.N. bureaucracy. Haitians I met with questioned how another U.N. program evaluation of another micro-credit project conducted by yet another foreigner resolves their daily suffering.
She watched with concern as Port au Princes narrow streets became clogged with white Land Rovers, each stamped with an aid agency logo on the drivers door. It still rankles her when the humanitarians dine and dance in a four-star restaurant overlooking the Place Boyer, a public square now strung with tarps, home to some of the million-plus people still displaced from the 2010 earthquake.
Some aid organizations, Georges Marie said, dont pay taxes required to operate in Haitialthough to be fair its quite possible that the under-resourced Haitian state has never asked. Others dont fulfill local hiring mandates, placing foreigners in positions that Haitians could fillalthough, to be fair, many development agencies try hard to hire locally but are thwarted by a fierce brain drain. Quebec, said Georges Marie, offers Cuban-trained Haitian doctors a license to practice and a plane ticket. La industrie de misere, she called itour misery, their jobs, she said.
My language skills are rotten but not so bad as to miss her criticism of humanitarian consultants for not speaking Kreyol (Haitian Creole) and relying on their underpaid, multilingual Haitian drivers for translation. As an international development professional, Id had some low moments coming to terms with a bizarre industry. But nowhere else have I looked so long and hard in the mirror than when on assignment in Haiti.
Marie has a new job. She is taking a post with the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). Led by Bill Clinton an! d the ou tgoing Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, the IHRC is seen by many as an unelected parallel government, invented by nervous donors to keep their aid money safe from corruption.
For many Haitians, including Georges Marie, the IHRC is a posterchild for the hijacking of Haitis sovereignty. Wont the job burn you up inside? I asked. I need the money, she responded. Why not work in President-elect Michael Martellys administration? She shook her head. I have a family to feed.
Alfredo Mena, a Dominican-born Interamerican Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) representative to Haiti, estimates there are 9,000 NGOs in Haiti. And they are all welcome to contribute to Haitis development, he said. But IICA and others have worked hard with the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture to craft a national plan for food security, and a guidebook for agricultural development. Each cooperating development organization should study this and ensure their projects contribute to the plans successful implementation. Many dont.
Contradictions and complexities abound within an aid industry struggling to make headway in a sputtering reconstruction process. The good news is that unlike a few years ago there is near unanimity on the need for a strong Haitian state to direct the aid flows. The bad news is that state capacity is wantingand no one is quite sure how to build it. How do aid agencies act responsibly in the interim with few functional public institutions to coordinate the aid?
A View of Development from the Street
Over a colonial breakfast of croissants and baguettes, I chatted with Georges Maries neighbor, Iderle Charles. Haitis civil society and government capacity are weak, she said. My sense is that the aid industry is making this problem worse. She lived in exile in Mexico City throughout the Duvalier dictatorships, agitating for Haitian democracy from afar.
We discussed MINUSTAH, the 10,000-strong U.N. security force brought! in aft er President Aristide was deposed in 2004 that still patrols Haitis streets today. Not one Haitian I met could define its mission or jurisdiction.
Although public security is nominally a state responsibility, I rarely saw Haitian police during my time there. I watched a platoon of M-16-bearing Rwandan soldiers maneuver their armored vehicle through a crowded fruit market. Peacekeeping in Haiti is a plum post; it might earn them a promotion back home. For Haitis under-resourced cops, it is demoralizing that foreign troops are better equipped, better paid, and are treading on their beat.
Despite the U.N.s critical global role, the bloat in its Haitian operations is perverse and gives it a bad name. A tour of duty in Haiti, I was told, is an excellent way to advance upward in the U.N. bureaucracy. Haitians I met with questioned how another U.N. program evaluation of another micro-credit project conducted by yet another foreigner resolves their daily suffering.
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