Haiti

In January 2010, a massive earthquake devastated the small and impoverished country of Haiti. Generous people and governments around the world gave billions in relief and reconstruction money for Haiti. And yet, a large portion of the Haitian people are still living in makeshift and dangerous tent cities, and disease is running rampant. How can it be that a year later, the Haitian people are no better off than they were a week after the quake?

Even before the earthquake, Haiti was already very large recipient of Foreign Aid from many sources. And yet, the World Bank report on Haiti stated :

“The outcome of the World Bank assistance programs [to Haiti] is rated unsatisfactory, the institutional development impact, negligible, and the sustainability of the few benefits that have accrued unlikely.”

Translation: It’s been a waste of money.

I believe Haiti stands as another sad example that the current foreign aid model simply doesn’t work. Throwing money at a dysfunctional and/or corrupt governments does not end up bettering the lot of the people. You all know the saying, “give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” Well, billions of fish later, many Haitians aren’t even eating for a day.

Haiti needs jobs for its people. Haiti needs education facilities for its people. Haiti needs clean water and sewage disposal. But as the tent camps and the Cholera outbreak have shown, and despite all the good intentions of the aid workers and the money donors, the Haitian people have few to none of those things.

So where has all the money gone? Billions and billions were promised and sent and yet the poor Haitian people are in worse shape today than they were 1 year ago.

I think it’s safe to say that it’s nearly always a country’s elite that is the problem. Until a country has an honest government structure, which respects the rule of law and has a serious reconstruction plan, our good intentions and generous foreign aid dollars do little help the average citizen. Meanwhile the country’s elite get richer, and in the end our money has done little of benefit.

And Haiti is not the only example of a country where our generosity has being misapplied or misappropriated.

It seems quite clear that an entirely new approach to aid is needed. Because this approach just isn’t working.