How Serious is U.S. Commitment to Haiti's Government?

by Te-Ping Chen · 2010-02-03 11:37:00 UTC
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On the one hand, you could see it as a scramble for political cover. After all, the U.S. has taken some serious fire over its handling of aid delivery in Haiti -- what better way to sidestep that argument than by strenuously affirming U.S. collaboration with President Préval?

Still, though, at yesterday's press briefing, it was refreshing to see USAID administrator Raj Shah take every opportunity (and then some) to emphasize U.S. efforts to partner with the Haitian government on the ground.

Maybe U.N. Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti Paul Farmer's message, delivered last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had gotten through. Or maybe (possibly?) the U.S. has started to sober up after its long, conspicuous track record of failure in Haiti (well-documented by the National Academy of Public Administration in a 53-page brief, titled "Why Foreign Aid to Haiti Failed").

Usually, attempts to hedge about donor failure overseas can take the form of an awkward kind of fan dance. Not so with Haiti. Multilateral donors have been incredibly frank about their lapses in Haiti (though failures could hardly be overlooked, considering that even before the quake, Haiti was 25% poorer than it was in 1945). Even the World Bank sums its track record up quite baldly, calling the effect of its assistance to Haiti since 1986 "negligible."

Why the failures? After reviewing the evidence, NAPA finds that shortcomings in aid "likely originated because donors collectively failed to address Haitian politics and governance as the important drivers of success, from which everything else would follow." They're not alone in that conclusion, either. According to the World Bank, without improved governance and institutional reforms, the Bank and other donors "will be able to accomplish very little."

Those are no uncertain words. Yet even with all the State Department's encouraging rhetoric on government engagement, I'm not convinced. Money talks. And right now, with less than a penny of every Haiti-bound dollar of U.S. aid going to Préval's government, it sure looks like the White House is still sitting on its hands.

Photo Credit: US_Air_Force

Te-Ping Chen Te-Ping Chen is a freelance writer and U.S. Truman Scholar whose writing has appeared in the Nation Magazine, the South China Morning Post magazine, Le Soir, and Slate.com.
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