What Haiti's President Will Tell Obama

When Haiti's president arrives at the White House tomorrow to speak with Obama, will he come with a supplicant's "hat in hand," as Agence France-Presse puts it?

Not quite. In his meeting with Obama, President Rene Preval says he plans to make a different (and counterintuitive) request: Please stop sending Haiti water and food.

"I will tell him (Obama) that this first phase of assistance is finished," Preval told reporters in Port-au-Prince yesterday. "If they continue to send us aid from abroad -- water and food -- it will be in competition with the national Haitian production and Haitian commerce," he said.

There's no quibbling over the vast extent of resources that are needed to help rebuild Haiti: last month, the Inter-American Development Bank estimated that reconstruction costs would number in the range of $8 billion to $14 billion. So far, the UN has launched a $1.44 billion appeal for aid to Haiti -- the largest request it's ever made -- but that figure will only see Haiti through the rest of the year. It's also just 10% of what the IDB predicts is needed. (So far, the U.S. has spent some $700 million in the country -- for a breakdown of that spending, see previous coverage here).

As Haiti's president arrived in Washington, DC, offices all over Capitol Hill snapped into action. On Friday, the Senate passed a unanimous resolution supporting debt relief for the country. This morning, Sen. Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus threw his emphatic support behind a bill backing Haiti-specific trade benefits. But according to Preval, Haiti needs something more than that. The country needs the ability to educate, rebuild and feed itself, the president says.

That means support for the reopening of Haiti's schools. (Nearly 40% of the country's population is under age 15.) It means further backing the development of employment options. It means more support for strengthening buildings and investment in the country's agricultural systems, which have been badly decimated over the years -- thanks to the intervention of the World Bank and IMF, as well as the U.S. (The former which threatened to cut off the Haitian government's financing if it supported irrigation and fertilizer for its poorest farmers; the latter which compelled Haiti into accepting the hemisphere's lowest food tariff, in exchange for re-instituting Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.) It means supporting Haitian farmers in their efforts to grow food, not simply flooding the country with subsidized sacks of U.S. rice.

In the short term, Haiti needed an emergency influx of supplies: water, meals, et cetera. But nearly two months after the quake, it also needs more than just a friendly handout from the U.S. -- it needs a partner in its economic development, as well.

Photo Credit: United Nations Development Programme