Haiti after the Earthquake - Book Review (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011
Will Haiti Rise From the Ashes? xiii therefore step in. Catastrophe assistance during 2010 is not enough, but the economy must be rebuilt, a giant task in a country which now lacks virtually all infrastructure, where the damage done to the capital stock is so significant that much of it probably is more or less worthless. The only abundant factor is labor-the survivors-but they must be employed. Unfortunately, the foreign assistance to Haiti never worked well. When the World Bank closed its Port-au-Prince office temporarily at the beginning of the new millennium, it concluded that it was impossible to contend that the loans that had been given to Haiti had improved the situation in the country. Will the Haitian politicians manage to cooperate and will the international donor community and the international investors get long-run, self-sustained growth going? Will Haiti ever rise from its ashes? Voltaire saw the 1755 Lisbon earthquake as an indication that God was not good. Which conclusions may we draw from the 2010 Portau-Prince earthquake? * * * Human and socioeconomic consequences of the disaster The immediate toll of the earthquake amounted to between 250,000 and 300,000 dead, 1 300,000 injured, 1.3 million in temporary shelters in the capital, and over 600,000 who left the affected areas for the countryside. 2 Of the latter, most (162,500) went to the Artibonite valley. Large currents also left for the Grande Anse and Sud departments (the southwestern tip of the country) and the Centre. 3 Some 105,000 homes were completely destroyed, over 208,000 were damaged, more than 1300 schools were destroyed, more than 50 hospitals, and other health centers were wiped out, the Port-au-Prince harbor was rendered inoperative, the presidential palace, the parliament building and the majority of the public administration buildings lay in shambles. Eighty percent of the city of Léogâne was destroyed. 4 The first, preliminary, assessment by the Haitian government indicates that the growth impact of the earthquake is a decline by 8.5 percent in GDP. 5 With a population between 9 and 10 million, a natural population growth of around 2 percent and a death toll of 300,000, this is tantamount to a per capita decline of about 7.5 percent. These figures are of course nothing but crude estimates and have to be read as such. Still, they provide a clear indication of the severity of the situation. xiv Prologue: Will Haiti Rise From the Ashes? Prologue: Will Haiti Rise From the Ashes? xvii living in overcrowded areas with next to no infrastructural amenities, like safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. 4. The size and growth of the Haitian population had had a serious environmental impact. 20 5. The growth of the population had led to unplanned urbanization with buildings on unsafe land. 6. The social service delivery-sewage, water, electricity, health care, and education-was completely inadequate. 7. The deforestation caused by the population pressure made for landslides and washing down of soil and dirt into the cities.
Haiti: Between Emergency and Reconstruction
Revue internationale de politique de développement, 2013
The 'Policy Debate' section of International Development Policy offers a platform where academics, policy makers and relective practitioners engage in critical dialogue on speciic development challenges. The initial lead paper is not peer-reviewed. Instead, it is followed by reactions and critical comments from different stakeholders. The lead paper below, written by Jean-Marc Biquet (Médecin sans Frontières, MSF), is followed by reactions and analysis from Andrea Binder (Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin). Despite repeated requests to-and commitments from-the UN (UNOCHA in particular) to provide a response, we did unfortunately not get any written reaction to MSF's article. Readers who are intetested are invited to contribute to this policy debate on our blog <http://devpol. hypotheses.org/67>. Haiti: Between Emergency and Reconstruction-An inadequate response Initial contribution by Jean-Marc Biquet Research Oficer at Médecin sans Frontières (MSF-http://www.msf.org/).
Rebuilding Haiti: Lessons from Post-Conflict Experiences
Global Policy, 2011
The earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010 tipped the country into a state of socioeconomic despair from which it will be difficult to escape without a fresh start, made not only by its own political and economic elites, but also by the international community. Making a fresh start will require an honest assessment of Haiti's predicament and a bold vision of its future prospects. By this, lessons can usefully be drawn from the experiences of countries emerging from a period of conflict. From this perspective, Haiti needs to move beyond the neoliberal consensus which has dominated policy since the overthrow of the Duvalier regime and adopt a more integrated policy approach to creating jobs, boosting economic security, diversifying economic activity and repairing a dangerously frayed social contract. Such an approach critically depends on establishing a developmental state with an inclusive national agenda that can move Haiti out of an initial and unavoidable state of aid dependence to effective mobilization of domestic resources. For the international community, the Marshall Plan offers useful lessons in forging a more effective development partnership to support such a state-building exercise and the efforts at recovery and rebuilding.
Haiti: tensions between aid relief and development in the health sector
Since 2010 and the surge of aid on Haiti, the Caribbean island has undoubtedly become the symbol of the failure of major international programmes. For the three authors the emergency and development actors' conflicting objectives are one of the keys to this failure. he need to bridge the gap between humanitarian relief and development programmes is now widely recognised. However, this gap has been more present than ever before in Haiti. As medical anthropologist Paul Farmer points out: " …disaster relief is not reconstruction. We haven't rebuilt Haiti despite giving 1.1 million people access to drinking water; we didn't remake the country with 11,000 latrines that have been installed. 'Building Haiti back better' means sustaining those temporary gains and adding education, health care, services, and good governance. " However, the operationalisation of this policy faces practical hurdles. This contribution will explore the tensions between the emergency and development activities, with particular focus on the health sector in Leogane. The article's main argument is that the different activities related to humanitarian action have their own logic, and the enormous efforts invested in emergency activities have been detrimental to the overall goal of building a better, sustainable Haiti, with the final aim being to break the country's circle of dependence on the international community. Rather than pretending to have ready-made solutions for these very complex issues, the article aims to reflect and echo the tensions humanitarian intervention emergency activities have created on local structures and development programmes.