THE NEW YORK TIMES >
March 28, 2010

Editorial

Making Haiti Whole

A donors’ conference at the United Nations this Wednesday is meant to be the beginning of the long, slow birth of a new Haiti.

Representatives of the Haitian government, the United States and other nations and aid organizations will be discussing large, ambitious, farsighted plans.

Participants will be asked for lots of money: $11.5 billion to start, $34.4 billion over 10 years.

That is a large investment for a small country, but it is not all Haiti needs.

For this to succeed, the commitments made this week will need to be sustained for many years, and the rebuilding will need to clear away more than just rubble.

It will need to sweep out the old, bad ways of doing things, not only those of the infamously corrupt and hapless government, but also of aid and development agencies, whose nurturing of Haiti has been a manifest failure for more than half a century.

The good news is that even before the Jan. 12 earthquake, international donors had largely reached a consensus on what they had done wrong, and how to get Haiti right.

Their conclusions are reflected in the plans to be presented this week, with ideas like these:

TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY, EFFECTIVENESS 

No donor wants to pour more cash down a Haiti sinkhole, or to fritter it away in small-bore projects that do not accomplish much.

The plan envisions a multidonor trust fund managed by the World Bank that pools money for big projects and avoids wasteful redundancy.

The Haitian Development Authority would approve the projects; outside auditors would oversee the spending.

There also is a parallel idea, in which certain donors choose just one area to focus all their efforts — reconstructing government buildings, say, or fixing the power grid.

That promises to be an effective way to eliminate the curse of inefficiency.

HAITIAN INVOLVEMENT 

Haiti is Haiti’s problem, for Haitians to solve with the help of the rest of the world.

The rebuilding must involve genuine, not token, engagement by the Haitian government and civil society.

Previous efforts by aid organizations to entirely avoid the control — and corruption — of the government were an understandable impulse, but had the unwanted effect of undermining the effectiveness and credibility of the Haitian state.

The new plan proposes an interim recovery commission of Haitians and non-Haitians, which would eventually evolve into a Haitian Development Authority that answers to the prime minister.

If it works, Haiti might no longer have to rely on freelance charities roaming the country, doing scattershot good works that cannot be sustained.

Relief agencies have also recently been hiring thousands of Haitians to clear rubble.

The country needs much more of that strategy, in other areas like reforestation and reconstruction, to boost not just employment but also the skills of the work force.

SELF-SUFFICIENCY 

Haitians need seeds and fertilizer more than bags of charity groceries.

President Bill Clinton recently confessed that United States trade policies in his tenure did more to help rice farmers in Arkansas than those in Haiti.

Haiti now enjoys generous access to the American market, which should be continued and expanded. As many experts have pointed out, modest investments in the garment industry, and trade preferences for it, could swiftly employ many thousands of Haitians and accelerate foreign investment.

TAPPING THE DIASPORA 

Haiti does have a large, successful professional class — entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, teachers and administrators.

It just happens to live in Brooklyn, Miami, Boston, Canada and other places.

Many of its members are eager to go back to Haiti to help.

They could do so far more easily if their governments subsidized their salaries when they moved.

Such paid furloughs would quickly supply Haiti with people of great expertise, language skills and deep commitment to the rebuilding.

DECENTRALIZATION 

There are too many people in Port-au-Prince. Haiti needs new population centers, less congested and more vibrant.

The failure to build safe housing for earthquake survivors is a continuing tragedy; the time to start fixing it is now, far from the capital.

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The paradox being confronted on Wednesday is how to rebuild a country that was never properly built in the first place.

Haiti may yet escape the crushing legacy of its tragic history, propelled by the opportunity that this latest tragedy creates.

The government of President René Préval has not inspired confidence in its handling of the relief effort, but it has a chance to shake off its inertia and show it wants to get the rebuilding right, beginning this week.

To rebuild Haiti, start with its young people

Go to Original (Los Angeles Times) >

A 700,000-strong national civic service corps would harness untapped labor rapidly and instill national pride and confidence.

Opinion

January 31, 2010 | By Robert Muggah and Robert Maguire

Haiti will need big ideas to recover and rebuild in the aftermath of the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake this month.

The reported death toll has topped 150,000, and the reconstruction needs are incalculable.

How about starting with a 700,000-strong national civic service corps made up of Haitian youth?

There are many reasons why such an entity makes a lot of sense.

Haiti is a young country. 

An estimated 70% of the population is under 30; the 15-to-29 segment alone makes up 50% of the population.

Demographers have long cautioned how excessively youthful populations can potentially exacerbate underdevelopment and accentuate political instability.

Although Haiti registers among the lowest levels of education in the Western Hemisphere, Haitian youth are a wellspring of creativity, talent and potential. 

You don't need to be a community-development specialist to know that they are stifled by a lack of meaningful opportunities.

Fortunately, Haiti has an enabling environment to set up a civic service corps.

Article 52 of the Haitian Constitution commits citizens to national service, though it has never been activated.

What is more, there are many Haitian and international organizations mobilized and ready to help the government get this going.

A civic service corps would get the young and able out of the tent cities in and around Port-au-Prince and into work.

They could start with the once-iconic center of the capital, but also could begin planting trees, working the fields and providing services in Haiti's countryside.

At a minimum, this would reverse generations of unfair stigmatizing of the youth there.

This plan would also harness untapped labor rapidly.

Before the Jan. 12 earthquake, 50% of youth in their 20s were out of work.

Putting them in service toward rebuilding the capital and outlying areas would be a first step to restoring their and their country's pride and dignity.

A civic service corps would also multiply international efforts to promote recovery after the world moves on to the next crisis. 

Hundreds of humanitarian agencies, donor governments and nongovernmental organizations are facing monumental challenges in coordinating relief assistance.

Although everyone involved is committed to rapid disbursement, transaction costs are monumental.

A civic service corps would allow for a more rapid form of transferring capital.

Direct support to such a corps would inject serious liquidity into the Haitian economy and stimulate recovery from the bottom up.

Rather than food-for-work schemes, international best practice recommends proposals that promote direct monetary transfers to beneficiaries.

Haitian youth and their families have urgent needs and don't need paternalistic programs that curb their choices.

With proper oversight and financial safeguards, a civic service corps would circumvent unnecessary administrative costs.

Further, a civic service corps would restore national pride and confidence in Haitian public institutions. 

During past decades, the state provided relatively few services to Haitians, particularly outside the capital.

In some cases, state entities were downright predatory.

As a result, nonstate providers, including gangs and shady middlemen, filled the gap.

A civic service corps -- wearing the Haitian colors and acting as first responders or organizations demonstrating the government's presence on the ground -- would show that the government is serious about supporting citizens. 

It would be a symbolic first step toward renewing the social contract with the people.

A civic service corps also makes sense for long-term risk and emergency planning.

Haiti is situated in the path of hurricanes and on a fault line, and can expect more disasters.

Training 700,000 young people -- especially young women -- in the basics of first aid, emergency response, community policing and other skills would greatly mitigate the consequences of future calamities.

With disciplined training and management, the corps could provide more intensive training in specialized areas -- engineering, telecommunications and public health.

An initial step to getting Haiti's youth to work could include the preparation of a road map for future meetings on Haiti, including the U.N. donor conference scheduled for March.

Any final plan would need to draw on the invaluable experiences of ongoing efforts to mobilize youth in Haiti. 

These include the work of the Brazilian nongovernmental organization Viva Rio and its supporters. 

Before the earthquake, Viva Rio and Brazilian peacekeepers had recruited and trained hundreds of Haitian youth, including former gang members, to provide relief services in Haiti's slums. 

This program could be reactivated and scaled up quickly.

A civic service corps could draw on the lessons from such groups to target and recruit youths for, say, up to two years.

The Haitian government would, of course, need to be the one to manage the undertaking, with direct oversight from the president's office and the Interior Ministry.

And there are many countries that could provide advice and support.

Nongovernmental groups and private donors could also play a key role in mobilizing support and transferring essential skills.

Haiti's youth are the future of the nation, and they are central to Haiti's recovery.

A civic service corps is a large-scale way to quickly mobilize them to act as catalyst for long-term, progressive changes.

Robert Muggah, based at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, is a principal of the SecDev Group and is currently advising multilateral and bilateral organizations on Haiti's recovery. 

Robert Maguire is on the faculty of Trinity Washington University and chairs the Haiti Working Group of the United States Institute of Peace in Washington.