Haiti: Reconstruction Resembles a Tabula Rasa

Haiti is turning into a tabula rasa, especially for foreigners, almost

virgin territory on which to imagine earthquake-proof dwellings, decent
employment 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 take
years 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 UN
envoy, 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 will
probably end up as UN tsar for the reconstruction phase, was
optimistic Haiti was slowly moving towards an intelligent developing
program. Light industry was taking hold, donors had promised funds
and the government of President Rene Preval was considered more
competent and less corrupt than its predecessors (at least at the upper
levels).

British Professor Paul Collier, whose report last year was read
carefully by the United Nations, Clinton and Preval, wanted more
garment factories, an international sale of mangoes and the
development of a coffee industry, which now goes to neighboring
Dominican Republic producers.

James Dobbins, who worked who was the Clinton administration’s

special envoy to Haiti and is now at the Rand Corp. warns that the
emergency aid and the bricks and mortar construction that will follow
can leae no lasting local fcapacity to sustain those services. Aid needs
to be spent on haiti’s capacity to government. “[providing the
government the where withal to hire well wualified staff at competitive
wages, 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 been
reversed and help fin dlivelihood in the country. Congresds should
appropriate money unenumbered by earmarks and special limitations.

Charnel house at the moment. The latest figures are

Creating safe schools and safe hospitals, even makeshift ones, is a
known need in rebuilding a society, and storm resistant housing must
also be a carefully considered priority since there is little time before
the 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 had
thousands of non-governmental groups working to their own drummer
and often doing more harm than good and urged donors to give oney
to large established relief organizations.

At the same time Dr Paul Farmer, in his testimony to the Senate

Foreign Relations committee last week, said “Haiti will continue to
need the contractors, and the NGOs and mission groups, but more
importantly we will need to create new ground rules—including a focus
on creating local jobs for Haitians, and on building the infrastructure
that is crucial to creating sustainable economic growth.”

Creating safe schools and safe hospitals, even makeshift ones, is a

known need in rebuilding a society, and storm resistant housing must
also be a carefully considered priority since there is little time before
the rainy season. Students need to be back in school; the planting
season cannot be missed and requires fertilizer, seeds, and tools.

Farmer, like others, object to US laws thar prevent direct investment

in the public sector, arguing that “massive public works” are needed to
reforest the country (the contrast with neighboring Dominican Republic
is 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, the
World Bank, and others. However, in 2009, when Haiti was trying to
recover from two hurricaines the previous year, nations pledged $402
million but only $61 million arrived in Haiti. The United Nations
peacekeepers 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 respected
institution.,

That was then. This is now.

James Dobbins, who worked who was the Clinton administration’s
special envoy to Haiti and is now at the Rand Corp. warns that the
emergency aid and the bricks and mortar construction that will follow
can leae no lasting local fcapacity to sustain those services. Aid needs
to be spent on haiti’s capacity to government. “[providing the
government the where withal to hire well wualified staff at competitive
wages, 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 been
reversed and help fin dlivelihood in the country. Congresds should
appropriate money unenumbered by earmarks and special limitations.
State-building experts and those with long experience in Haiti
generally agree that the state-building effort should not bear an
American face. Haitians may not blink today at the sight of an
American military helicopter landing in front of the National Palace, but
the United States has been Haiti’s bugbear since Woodrow Wilson sent
in the Marines in 1915. (They stayed until 1934.) Mr. Dobbins
suggests an enhanced role for the World Bank. Others say the United
Nations 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, leaving
2 million in need of aid and destroying much of the city. The UN itself
suffered heavy casualties when its headquarters at the Christopher
Hotel collapsed, losing its head of mission Hédi Annabi and his deputy
Luiz Carlos da Costa. The casualty toll on Monday was 92 dead, seven
unaccounted for and 30 injured Mulet told reporters in New York by
video conference.

Mr. Ban’s Deputy Special Representative and UN Humanitarian

Coordinator in Haiti Kim Bolduc told the briefing that another priority
was the urgent need to prepare for the rainy season that begins in
three months and the subsequent hurricane season, since it takes time
to bring in all the necessary tents and other materials which are
normally 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 about
the rainy season. I think that we are facing a real challenge because
although we’re concerned about the rainy season that is coming soon
we have not yet been able to get the means necessary to prepare
evacuation sites outside of Port-au-Prince and outside areas affected
by the earthquake,” she said

He added that the UN was also helping to address the needs of the up
to 500,000 people who had left the capital for the provinces and that
the number of those enrolled in the UN Development Programme
(UNDP) cash-for-work initiative doubled over the weekend to nearly
32,000 and is expected to double again by the end of the week.
The programme is aiming to put 100,000 workers on the street as
quickly as possible, ideally doubling that further as conditions and
funds allow. The workers are paid 180 gourdes, or roughly $4.50 at
current rates of exchange, for six hours’ labour removing building
rubble from the streets, crushing and sorting reusable material and
disposal of debris.

“There are, of course, powerful forces for inertia, but while these
would severely impede any wide-ranging agenda for public action,
they do not rule out more limited and tightly focused action,” wrote
Paul Collier, an Oxford University economics professor, who was
commissioned by Ban to prepare a report, “Haiti: From Natural
Catastrophe to Economic Security,” which was praised by Préval and
read carefully by Clinton.

Nonetheless, wages in the garment industry, the country’s main

export, are a dismal $1.72 a day. Parliament agreed to raise the
minimum wage to $5.14 a day, but Préval, 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 and
ports;
Working out of a police station, Preval’s government will soon use the
former American embassy building, which was not damaged. (lthough
he was once viewed as a populist president, he has yet to venture into
the crowds camped near his wrecked presidential palace for a
kumbaya moment. )

“We are alive but each of us, like people across the country, have
people in our lives who died," Marie-Laurence Jocelyn-Lassegue, the
communication and culture minister, told reporters.