Haiti Deserves More Than Just Relief

The devastation coming out of Haiti is overwhelming. My Twitter and Facebook feeds and email inbox are cluttered with messages urging me to text to give, to share information, to get involved in some way or another, to just wonder at the magnitude of horror. Like nothing I've seen since Katrina, the earthquake has unleashed the humanitarian energy of everyday Americans, but if we wish to turn this tragedy into something more, we need to complicate our thinking.

Haiti Needs: Humanitarian Relief. This is one of those times when we separate the critique of foreign assistance from disaster relief. With more victims than hospitals can accommodate, the rush of resources can save lives right now if done well.

But we need to trust our relief organizations, as well. Moments like this are the moments that lay bear the most basic social contract between relief groups and their donors. Groups are holding up the crisis and asking us to invest in them as the best group to help. I tend to think the best choices are groups that have been on the ground for a long time (CARE has been there for more than a half century; Partners in Health started in Haiti and has used Haitian employees to bring its model around the world) and have deep relationships and understandings of local needs.

But no matter who we donate to, we need to trust certain things: that groups will coordinate with each other to the best of their ability; that they will share information freely and fluidly; that they will harness the resources available to them, but not let vanity get in the way of allowing the right people to respond to the right problems; that to the greatest extent possible, they will work with local authorities and apparatuses to ensure a coordinated effort; and that they will begin planning now for the process of withdrawing aid resources that will inevitably come months, years, whenever down the line when the next crisis hits.

Haiti Needs: Infrastructure, Development, and Local Entrepreneurship: This quake is as devastating as it is because Haitians are poor. Period. A quake of this magnitude would do a fraction of the damage in a richer country, and this must force us to consider the real face of global inequity.

While right now is relief time, there has to be some path to development that is as locally owned as possible. The debate about what development means is a good one to have. I tend to think there is a role for international NGOs, local entrepreneurs at all levels, and government, but the point is that if we are actually committing to Haiti as more than the crisis of the moment, we can't let that commitment end when we've safely made sure all the people are pulled from the rubble.

Haiti Needs: Real Political Power. Haiti's history is an unkind one. The site of the the most brutal slave system in the western hemisphere, its colonial and post-colonial pattern has never given the citizens of Haiti the chance to develop effective civil, economic, and political systems. The villain in that story has had many faces, including our own international development policies, and if we are truly having this conversation, politics must be a part of it.

At the end of the day, entrepreneurs and development programs do not have the power to grant rights; governments do. Haiti's internal political system is ravaged, and much of it has to do with interference from the outside. To be committed, we need to understand our political representatives' ongoing role in this country and work to ensure it is as productive and empowering as possible.

One of the most remarkable stories of the last twenty years is Rwanda's post genocide rebirth. A country that was shattered with the stains of one of the most depraved and violent episodes of modern history is growing into a power of its very own. Should there be any hope that Haiti can do the same, we must recognize it deserves far more than just relief.

(Photo: UNDP Global)

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How to help Partners in Health.

The TED Community has been trying to find ways to help and reached out to Partners in Health to ask explicitly what they could do. TED Curator Chris Anderson wrote:

"Numerous members of the TED community have sought to find a way to help victims of the Haiti quake. We believe one of the organizations best placed to make an immediate difference isPartners in Health. They have operated medical facilities in Haiti for more than two decades and have numerous people on the ground. (We had the honor of working with them as part of President Clinton's TED Prize wish. They're trustable and effective.)

We asked how best the TED community could help and this was their response. Do join us in making a donation here.

• Help us track down helicopters! That's our #1 need right now is transport. There are thousands of badly injured ppl in Port-au-Prince, and there are PIH hospitals, supplies and teams standing ready to treat them in the central plateau. It's a long, difficult drive over uncertain roads -- OR a 10-min helo ride.
• Satellite phones! Cell communications are mostly down and we can't send docs out into PAP with no way to be in touch
• Donate medicine, food, blankets, supplies ... anyone with in-kind products to donate can write to procurement@pih.org
• Lend your time and skills -- we need experienced trauma surgeons, pediatric trauma surgeons, burn specialists, nurse anesthetists, trauma nurses
• We need solar chargers, generators, fuel for generators
• Water purification that does not require electricity -- so massive quanitities of water purification tablets or a system that is standalone
• Transport -- we have had a few offers of private planes plus a big Air Canada jet -- we are filling them with doctors and supplies and mobilizing
• Donate at http://www.pih.org/home.html."