From Emergency Aid to Development in Haiti

Hi everyone! My name is Prasanth Pattisapu. I’m first year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine and a new blogger with SGHE. I’m going to upload my bio soon, but till then, I figure I’d put up a quick post on Haiti. I welcome any feedback/criticism.

Moving to the recovery stage ... a man builds floorboards for a tent in a makeshift camp at a golf course in Port-au-Prince. Photo: AFP/UN/Marco Dormino. Linked from Brisbane Times

As we try to move past the devastation in Haiti, all eyes are on the aid effort. To Americans, stories of FEMA during/after Hurricane Katrina leave us with bitter memories of aid mismanaged. To Haitians–as with many developing countries–unfulfilled promises for foreign aid from the U.S. and other wealthy nations have been all too common. With this acute awareness of the limitations of disaster assistance, the transition to a more sustainable form of aid is urgent.

Aid projects can be divided roughly into relief projects and development projects (and those in between). Relief projects tend to include building refugee camps and medical missions. They are concerned with the short term goals of disaster assistance. Development aid include education projects and infrastructure development. These projects focus on the long term, and helping sustain a higher standard of living. Ideally, the aftermath of a disaster sees relief aid slowly transform into development aid, in the aim of bringing the country to a new–and better–standard of living.

In Haiti, we’re seeing the beginnings of the short term relief process. Admittedly, there are shortfalls. The New York Times outlined how delays in food aid and monetary support have affected the people of Port-au-Prince. One can blame these shortfalls on infrastructure and governance, but this is an unsatisfying answer when history points the blame equally upon previous aid efforts and economic/political intervention in Haiti. At the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Meeting this past Thursday, Dr. Paul Farmer described the disaster as an “acute-on-chronic” situation, alluding to Haiti’s troubled history with previous disasters, including hurricanes and political upheavals, before the earthquake even hit.

The current emphasis, as one Senator in the committee mentioned, is to “get it right this time,” to plan relief aid with development aid in mind.

It is instructive to look at previous aid efforts in other countries to learn from their lessons. First, I highly recommend reading Carol Lancaster and Samuel Wangwe’s book, Managing a Smooth Transition from Aid Dependence in Sub-Saharan Africa. The book takes a very brute-force analysis of aid to Africa, looking at those nations that have achieved aid independence and those that haven’t, and asks, “what’s the difference?” The central finding of this work is that countries are most likely to achieve aid dependence when external organizations work within the development plan and resource allocations of the government leadership. This places the responsibilities for managing aid on two sets’ of shoulders: NGOs/donors to follow the rules and the recipient leadership to set the rules.

Key examples here are countries like Burundi and Rwanda. As Dr. Farmer notes in the video above, Rwanda essentially told all NGOs that if they could not work within the framework of development that the government had set, they would not be allowed to work in the country. It seems harsh, but it prevents NGOs from becoming disorganized, overextending certain areas of the public works’ budget while leaving others lacking. The net effect is that the government authority is undermined, a phenomenon Haiti has seen in the past.

There will be a lot to watch for in the coming weeks in Haiti. But I urge readers to keep an eye out for the transition to local management of the relief effort. In my opinion, that will be the key to effective aid.