haiti-recon

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Haiti: Reconstruction Resembles a Tabula Rasa

Haiti is turning into a tabula rasa, especially for foreigners, almostvirgin territory on which to imagine earthquake-proof dwellings, decentemployment and health and education for all. In other words, a

Caribbean nation like no other.

The catch phrase is build back Haiti better, a project that could takeyears and perhaps decades, according to Edmond Mulet, the head of UN peacekeeping operations in Haiti. I personally believe that they(Haitian leaders) are going to be given the opportunity to, in effect, re-imagine their country, former President Bill Clinton, a special UNenvoy, told reporters

Rarely has a country that had so little been so devastated so quickly in

the January 12 earthquake. Last year former Clinton, who willprobably end up as UN tsar for the reconstruction phase, wasoptimistic Haiti was slowly moving towards an intelligent developingprogram. Light industry was taking hold, donors had promised fundsand the government of President Rene Preval was considered morecompetent and less corrupt than its predecessors (at least at the upperlevels).

British Professor Paul Collier, whose report last year was readcarefully by the United Nations, Clinton and Preval, wanted moregarment factories, an international sale of mangoes and thedevelopment of a coffee industry, which now goes to neighboringDominican Republic producers.

James Dobbins, who worked who was the Clinton administrationsspecial envoy to Haiti and is now at the Rand Corp. warns that theemergency aid and the bricks and mortar construction that will followcan leae no lasting local fcapacity to sustain those services. Aid needsto be spent on haitis capacity to government. [providing thegovernment the where withal to hire well wualified staff at competitivewages, train staff and provide them information services t. Haitian

state shold be built from the bottom up as well as top down.Assistance to majors and local council beyhond pp exodus has beenreversed and help fin dlivelihood in the country. Congresds shouldappropriate money unenumbered by earmarks and special limitations.

Charnel house at the moment. The latest figures are


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Creating safe schools and safe hospitals, even makeshift ones, is aknown need in rebuilding a society, and storm resistant housing mustalso be a carefully considered priority since there is little time beforethe rainy season. Students need to be back in school; the planting

season cannot be missed and requires fertilizer, seeds, and tools.

Clinton before and after the earthquake warned that Haiti hadthousands of non-governmental groups working to their own drummerand often doing more harm than good and urged donors to give oneyto large established relief organizations.

At the same time Dr Paul Farmer, in his testimony to the SenateForeign Relations committee last week, said Haiti will continue toneed the contractors, and the NGOs and mission groups, but moreimportantly we will need to create new ground rulesincluding a focuson creating local jobs for Haitians, and on building the infrastructurethat is crucial to creating sustainable economic growth.

Creating safe schools and safe hospitals, even makeshift ones, is aknown need in rebuilding a society, and storm resistant housing mustalso be a carefully considered priority since there is little time beforethe rainy season. Students need to be back in school; the plantingseason cannot be missed and requires fertilizer, seeds, and tools.

Farmer, like others, object to US laws thar prevent direct investmentin the public sector, arguing that massive public works are needed toreforest the country (the contrast with neighboring Dominican Republicis startling) protect watersheds and improve agricultural yield.

Major pledges have been made by the U.S., Canada, Japan, Spain,Brazil, the European Union, the Inter-American Development Bank, theWorld Bank, and others. However, in 2009, when Haiti was trying torecover from two hurricaines the previous year, nations pledged $402million but only $61 million arrived in Haiti. The United Nationspeacekeepers had restored some semblence of security and helped

reconstitute the Haiti national police, once the backbone of decades of authoritarian and corrupt rule by the Duvalier family, into a respectedinstitution.,

That was then. This is now.


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James Dobbins, who worked who was the Clinton administrationsspecial envoy to Haiti and is now at the Rand Corp. warns that theemergency aid and the bricks and mortar construction that will followcan leae no lasting local fcapacity to sustain those services. Aid needsto be spent on haitis capacity to government. [providing thegovernment the where withal to hire well wualified staff at competitivewages, train staff and provide them information services t. Haitianstate shold be built from the bottom up as well as top down.Assistance to majors and local council beyhond pp exodus has beenreversed and help fin dlivelihood in the country. Congresds shouldappropriate money unenumbered by earmarks and special limitations.


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State-building experts and those with long experience in Haitigenerally agree that the state-building effort should not bear an

American face. Haitians may not blink today at the sight of anAmerican military helicopter landing in front of the National Palace, butthe United States has been Haitis bugbear since Woodrow Wilson sentin the Marines in 1915. (They stayed until 1934.) Mr. Dobbinssuggests an enhanced role for the World Bank. Others say the UnitedNations should continue to lead the process.

Meanwhile.

Some 3 million people, a third of the total population, lived in Port-au-Prince when the killed o 200,000 people, injuring many more, leaving2 million in need of aid and destroying much of the city. The UN itself suffered heavy casualties when its headquarters at the ChristopherHotel collapsed, losing its head of mission Hdi Annabi and his deputyLuiz Carlos da Costa. The casualty toll on Monday was 92 dead, sevenunaccounted for and 30 injured Mulet told reporters in New York byvideo conference.

Mr. Bans Deputy Special Representative and UN HumanitarianCoordinator in Haiti Kim Bolduc told the briefing that another prioritywas the urgent need to prepare for the rainy season that begins in

three months and the subsequent hurricane season, since it takes timeto bring in all the necessary tents and other materials which arenormally transported by sea.

At this point, the main concern is to focus on shelter and the lack of tents and accommodation for displaced people, mostly thinking aboutthe rainy season. I think that we are facing a real challenge becausealthough were concerned about the rainy season that is coming soonwe have not yet been able to get the means necessary to prepareevacuation sites outside of Port-au-Prince and outside areas affectedby the earthquake, she said

He added that the UN was also helping to address the needs of the upto 500,000 people who had left the capital for the provinces and thatthe number of those enrolled in the UN Development Programme( UNDP ) cash-for-work initiative doubled over the weekend to nearly32,000 and is expected to double again by the end of the week.
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The programme is aiming to put 100,000 workers on the street asquickly as possible, ideally doubling that further as conditions andfunds allow. The workers are paid 180 gourdes, or roughly $4.50 atcurrent rates of exchange, for six hours labour removing buildingrubble from the streets, crushing and sorting reusable material and

disposal of debris.

There are, of course, powerful forces for inertia, but while thesewould severely impede any wide-ranging agenda for public action,they do not rule out more limited and tightly focused action, wrotePaul Collier, an Oxford University economics professor, who wascommissioned by Ban to prepare a report, Haiti: From NaturalCatastrophe to Economic Security, which was praised by Prval andread carefully by Clinton.

Nonetheless, wages in the garment industry, the countrys mainexport, are a dismal $1.72 a day. Parliament agreed to raise theminimum wage to $5.14 a day , but Prval, after business objected,suggested $3.25, thereby fueling street protests anew.

18 military Brazilians, 20

Paul collier, mangoes rot because of bad roads and inadequate ports,some best in the world, coffee in the mountains goes to Dominican

republic producers, excellent beaches and sites but least visited;frgarment factories near east border to use Dominican electricitgy andports;Working out of a police station, Prevals government will soon use theformer American embassy building, which was not damaged. (lthoughhe was once viewed as a populist president, he has yet to venture intothe crowds camped near his wrecked presidential palace for akumbaya moment. )

We are alive but each of us, like people across the country, have

people in our lives who died," Marie-Laurence Jocelyn-Lassegue, thecommunication and culture minister, told reporters.

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