US officials encourage Haiti-led reconstruction efforts

Citation

(2010), "US officials encourage Haiti-led reconstruction efforts", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 19 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2010.07319cab.003

US officials encourage Haiti-led reconstruction efforts

Article Type: News items From: Disaster Prevention and Management, Volume 19, Issue 3

Two days after a 7.0 earthquake hit the island nation of Haiti, President Obama took an aggressive stance, promising over $100 million in initial aid along with thousands of US military troops to help coordinate relief operations.

Despite increased efforts by the USA to deliver short-term sustenance and housing, debates rage over the long-term US role in Haiti’s recovery and reconstruction. Experts question whether the USA will maintain a central role once the media spotlight dims. Sarah Stephens, Director for the Center for Democracy in the Americas, told the New York Times, “The classic US role in the whole hemisphere is either complete neglect, or we come in and run the show”.

At a January 28 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing and “in a separate teleconference by relief organizations”, officials reported three potential factors impeding the execution of international aid in Haiti: an incompetent Haitian government; lack of coordination by foreign aid organizations; and a history of failed US foreign policy. Paul Farmer, the UN deputy special envoy to Haiti, said at the hearing that setbacks are rooted in years of corruption inside the Haitian government as well as the USA’s pattern of bypassing Haitian authority to carry out foreign policy. The USA is trying to avoid such strategies this time around.

In a speech the day after the earthquake, President Obama assured Haitians of “a friend and partner in the USA, today and going forward.” However, US officials remain cautious with their promises. The increasing prominence of US military troops and government aid inside Port-au-Prince has created high expectations from the people. On January 31, the Washington Post reported Haitian public support for Americans to direct the rebuilding process. Administration officials, such as Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Louis Lucke, the senior US Agency for International Development official in Haiti, continue to emphasize that this is and will continue to be a Haitian-led process, despite evidence to the contrary.

US officials are doing all they can to reestablish President René Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive as leaders of the country. For Haiti to take control of reconstruction efforts, experts believe the most urgent priority is restoring national authority. Prime Minister Bellerive and international donors agreed at a January 25 conference in Montreal that it would take more than $3 billion to rebuild the country’s houses, schools, health care facilities, government ministries, and national infrastructure. The State Department called this estimate premature but US representatives and others at the meeting suggested the Haitian government name an agency to manage reconstruction funding, a strategy designed to quell concerns over Haiti’s history of fund mismanagement.

President René Préval sent aides to the palace grounds to start building temporary offices and shelter for him and other government officials. However, he had yet to formally address the nation three weeks after the earthquake. Préval’s lack of involvement has led to public discontent. Some have called for the return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Although absent from the public eye, Préval insists that he has been working with ministry officials from the start, running the government out of a police station in Port-au-Prince since the quake. Donor nations have called for an independent damage assessment. The New York Times quoted Clinton saying, “Sometimes people have pledging conferences and pledge money, and they don’t have any idea what they’re going to do with it. We actually think it’s a novel idea to do the needs assessment first and then the planning and then the pledging”. Assessment experts from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations Development Program were to begin in early February.

Maintaining that Haiti will manage and administer reconstruction funds, Clinton confirmed her responsibility to ensure that American taxpayer dollars be spent transparently and with long-term results on the ground. She has declined to say how much the US will donate in the long term. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake occurred on January 12, 2010, along the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone, devastating Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince, and other surrounding areas. As of mid-February, a government spokesman of the island nation confirmed 230,000 dead.

Also exceeding original approximations, the Red Cross suggested that nearly 3.5 million Haitians have been affected in one way or another by the quake. Although Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development, reported efforts to coordinate temporary housing and emergency food supplies, only a quarter of the estimated 240,000-300,000 families left homeless were said to have received plastic sheeting or tents by early February. At that point, emergency food aid had reached approximately 800,000 Haitians inside the city and nearly 250,000 outside the capital.

Alexandra JordanNatural Hazards Center, Boulder, Colorado, USA