Helping Haiti Won't Be Easy

The New York Times has two front-page stories on Haiti. The longer story, which earnestly strives to be a feel good story is about a private girls' school in Port-au-Prince that is striving to reopen post-earthquake. In a smaller, front-page story the Times told about the spreading cholera outbreak in Haiti, affecting six out of the ten national départtements; WHO estimates that over 270,000 people could be affected in the coming years. A telling item in the story? A Haitian epidemiologist is quoted commenting about the outbreak. Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Ministry of Health, M. Gabriel Timothee could not be found for comment.

The school story tells of a government study calling for a billion dollar investment in Haitian primary school education. The World Bank meanwhile calls for an emergency investment of $500 million. The simple fact of the matter is that Haiti, even in the most ideal case, could not absorb and deploy anything near these amounts effectively. It's sad, but it's reality. Not a feel good story.

The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies sent a group of student down to Haiti in 2007 to report on conditions and to frame short and long-term policy recommendations. It's a good precis of how Haiti got into its current condition. Haiti is currently #12 on the Fund for Peace list of Failed States. According to the SAIS report, there are "no institutions through which funds may be channeled." In turn, this requires that "they (the international donor agencies and organizations) take over the basic functions of the state." This is the fundamental dilemma. The donors have to step in and become the shadow government, which is resented by the Haitians as being demeaning and neo-colonialist.

However, the World Bank itself knows that between 1995-2005, over $585 million was deployed for infrastructure projects, especially roads to facilitate commerce and communication. To date, no account can be given for the money, and the infrastructure is still deplorable.

The report makes the salient point that Presidential power in Haiti tends to become highly personalized. A Presidential candidate traditionally gets strong support from one of the power groups: the elites, the urban masses and rural poor, and the armed gangs and militias. The candidate leans on one group and then demonizes the others. For example, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a charismatic ex-priest spoke the language of liberation theology which resonated with the urban poor who swept him into office. Unfortunately, power corrupted Aristide to the point where the SAIS report describes his governing philosophy as "kleptocracy." As is often done in U.S. foreign policy, we chose to support Aristide, even as the Haitian elites and other groups had pushed him out, and we helped to bring him back for more disastrous rule. Government transitions in Haiti are also traditionally violent, despite the existence of all the trappings of French governmental administration.

Like many other Third World countries, "Pervasive corruption continues to undermine the Haitian state and is a central contributor to Haiti's ongoing conflict." So, despite the resilience of the Haitian people, the best intentions of religious and humanitarian organizations, and the nation-building programs of agencies like the World Bank, it is very difficult to see how the beleaguered people of Haiti can be lifted up from their current plight without a totally different model of deploying aid and holding the government accountable.

The United Nations Stabilization Mission for Haiti (MINUSTAH) has been deployed since 1990, but its role has become unclear. This is an international organization that could serve as a clearinghouse for coordinating the efforts of the patchwork quilt of private and public agencies at work in Haiti. Because of the cholera outbreak, and the continuing lack of potable water, electricity, and sanitation, don't expect significant progress until something fundamental changes.