“The reconstruction process is stalled. Haïti has too many structural issues to trulyrecover from disaster.”
Rebuilding Haïti is by no means an easy task. But significant progress has been made by committed national and international stakeholders from both the public and private sectors. According to a World Bank report released in 2011, Haïti’s GDP growth was reported at -5.05 per cent in 2010 but this is expected to rise, when considering newly approved debt relief measures; infrastructure contracts and trade agreements.
Not only is half of the rubble cleared (a massive accomplishment), but with support from the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Union, the World Bank, France, Canada, Taiwan and other donors, the Ministry of Public Works is carrying out more than 100 projects on primary, secondary and tertiary roads. Other on-going projects include a US$ 250 million airport reconstruction; a US$ 40 million deep water port;a US$ 40 million project to expand housing and a large scale initiative to modernise energy grid (which alone will create an additional 80,000 jobs). At the “Invest in Haïti” forum held in November 2011, President Martelly also announced the construction of an Industrial Park. The park’s first tenant, pledged to invest an additional US$ 78 million in an apparel and textile plant. Reconstruction of Haïti is not stalled. It is in full force.
“Billions of dollars were given last year. Haïti’s government can’t absorb any more money.”
It’s unfortunate, but the reality is that the majority of relief and recovery assistance to Haïti has actually side-tracked national budgets completely. The Office of the Special Envoy reports that only 1 per cent of relief assistance in 2010 was provided directly to the Government of Haïti- and less than 12 per cent of recovery assistance was channelled directly to government using national systems. This form of assistance can actually erode national capacity instead of build it.
UNICEF’s mandate is to support the Government to uphold their obligations to protect and promote child rights in country. Our assistance is therefore pledged against national frameworks, in line with national priorities and includes direct financial assistance to central and departmental level authorities, in order to address specific needs of children in our negotiated country programme. Haitian institutions cannot address the needs of children and other vulnerable groups unless money flows through them.
“There are too many actors in Haïti, with no coordination or government oversight.”
It is true that the majority of social services in Haïti are delivered by non-government actors including religious organisations, for-profit businesses and NGOs - many of them having a long-term presence in the country. It is also true that hundreds of new NGOs entered the country after the earthquake, bringing much needed financial, technical and material resources for relief and recovery.
In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake the “Cluster Approach” provided coordination and information management support to the government, in order to leverage available resources in each sector towards the most urgent of needs. Now, as Haïti moves into a period of recovery and development, UNICEF is supporting the process of Cluster “transition”, which includes efforts to enhance the regulatory capacity of government, their ability to independently coordinate international actors and manage key emergency information management tools. Nationally-led coordination forums (called Tables Sectorielles) have been revived, and are now leading the way in terms of policy development, standards setting and prioritisation of action.