Seeing opportunity amidst the rubble Last week's tragic Haitian earthquake means the country will have to be built from scratch, experts say. By Laura Payton Published January 20, 2010    1 Comment

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It was a country that already had so little, and now what they did have is turned to rubble. A week after a devastating 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, people in the country are focusing on immediate aid efforts.

Yet while the Canadian government has been resoundingly praised for its initial response to the quake, aid experts and diplomats are looking beyond the current emergency, fearing carefully-laid plans for development will be derailed in the rush to provide emergency humanitarian aid. Still, they are also hopeful the next phase will allow Haitians to correct some of the longstanding problems of their fragile state.

Canada alone has spent almost half a billion dollars in Haiti since 2006. The tiny Caribbean nation, geographically about a third the size of New Brunswick, is the Western hemisphere's poorest country. It's also Canada's second-biggest aid recipient, with only Afghanistan getting more aid money. It's also a priority country for the US, Brazil and a handful of other Latin American countries. The Haitian diaspora, who live mostly in Canada and the US, sent $1.65 billion (US dollars) in remittances in 2006, accounting for about a third of the Haitian economy.

Despite all the money, Haiti seems doomed to misery. In 2008, it was hit by four massive hurricanes. Haitian elections are often postponed and tarnished both by violence and with low voter-turnout that lessens the legitimacy of the results in the eyes of the population.

It's a disheartening country to want to help. Prime Minister Stephen Harper somberly assessed the country's progress last weekend.

"We felt that in the past couple of years, some progress has been made in Haiti. I'm not going to exaggerate it, but I think important long-term progress had been made. I think it's safe to say that has been virtually wiped out, and we are starting from scratch," he told the media who gathered for a Saturday press conference.

If nothing else, Haitians have always been able to count on their resilience. That, right now, is how they keep going, says Nathalie Menos-Gissel, the country's chargé d'affaires to Canada.

"It is historical. It is within us. We do not have any other choice but to keep going forward. There is no choice for us," says Ms. Menos-Gissel, before quoting a Creole saying: "We are like reeds. We bend but we never break."

Ms. Menos-Gissel is focused on the immediate need to continue the rescue efforts, she says, adding that while she can't thank the world enough for showing such solidarity, it needs to move faster.

Others, however, say the world must not forget the longer-term plans for Haiti.

Brazilian Ambassador Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto, who was the ambassador of Brazil to Haiti for three years before he came to Ottawa in 2008, says he hopes the emergency mobilization to handle earthquake relief efforts will later translate into a concerted effort to rebuild Haiti.

"You cannot measure the suffering of that population. You cannot measure the human loss, but maybe we are facing the opportunity of giving Haiti a better and new start," he said. "It's an opportunity for rebuilding in a better way.

"We have invested so much in Haiti. Maybe this is an opportunity for the Haitian political class to work together with the Haitian people and the diaspora and the international community to really create a basis for economic growth, a more just society," says Mr. Pinto.

Stephen Baranyi, who has worked on international engagement with fragile states for 25 years and who travels frequently to Haiti, says it's essential to bring Haitian leaders into the rebuilding process.

"It's not the international community that is going to rebuild Haiti. They're going to fund part of it but the international community has poured billions of dollars in over the past few decades," he says.

"And one thing that we've learned is it's not effective in generating more equitable, sustainable development unless we have stronger counterparts on the Haitian side who have the will and more institutional capacity to take the lead on development in their own society."

Co-ordinating with the Haitians is also essential so they're able to better lead disaster management in the future, Mr. Baranyi added. And, he warns, there's a risk the immediate need for emergency assistance will draw attention away from the longer-term plans, which were drawn up by Haitians themselves.

"One major challenge is that the political attention, the financial engagements and the operational energy that is dedicated to humanitarian response to the crisis...is always in danger of displacing well thought-out, longer-term priorities and plans," he says, pointing to the hurricane relief efforts in 2008.

"It's actually the government of Haiti that stepped in and says, 'Thank you for helping us, we really needed it...but let's get back to [the poverty reduction strategy] and back to our plans for putting the economy on a better track for growth and equitable development.'"

Jennifer Salahub, a conflict prevention researcher at the North-South Institute, says the extensive damage caused by the quake, and the need for literally rebuilding the country, present an opportunity in a place that desperately needs jobs.

"The city's [Port-au-Prince] practically been levelled. There's a lot of rubble that's going to need to be removed, there's a lot of homes that are going to need to be rebuilt.... These are projects that are going to require a lot of unskilled labour, as well as skilled labour. Let's use that and work with Haitians to involve Haitians in rebuilding their society and their country.

"This is a horrible situation, but if we're going to think long-term we need to think about where the opportunities are in this tragedy. There's very little that we can do to stop it, but we can respond to it, and let's make that response as positive and as forward-thinking, as progressive as we can."

Security was already a concern in Haiti, and between the prison break and desperate looting and rioting that followed the earthquake, it's an issue that Canada must continue to work on as the initial emergency abates, Mr. Baranyi and Ms. Salahub say. Canada already provides corrections workers and police to help train and develop the justice system, and the government was funding a new prison to expand capacity. Mr. Baranyi also hopes CIDA increases its agricultural programming in Haiti, one of the department's stated priorities, to reduce poverty and increase food security.

"It's crucial for poverty-reduction, and it's crucial for social stability and public security because it's one of the few things that will put the brakes on rural to urban migration, which has been feeding the public insecurity in the country for the past 10 years," he says.

If donors don't keep their focus on agricultural development, he says, "we will perpetuate the economic conditions and the weakness of the state that make it very difficult for Haiti to deal with natural disasters and [difficult] to stop being so dependent on international assistance. And to stop, frankly, exporting large numbers of its professional populations abroad."

Ms. Salahub sees an opportunity for some of the Haitian diaspora to return to help rebuild their country, though that's matched by a fear that too many of the country's leaders, as well as some of the leaders of the aid community, died in the quake. Haiti is at a turning point, she warns, and could pull together or end in violent social unrest.

"There's a paucity of indigenous human capital," she says. "Where is that gap going to be filled? It's not necessarily impactful in the short-term...but in the longer term, the people who understand Haiti, who have been working with Haiti, who are committed to the development of Haitian society and Haiti as a country, I don't know if they've been disproportionately affected or if the diaspora community will respond to that gap and start to return home."

Ms. Menos-Gissel says she has spoken privately to Canada's Haitian-born governor-general, Michäelle Jean, and that the two women are trying to provide comfort to each other.

"As Haitian ladies who have just realized that we have lost part of our history, of a country that maybe we will never get back, a country the way it existed in our memory, that part is gone. Now it is forward. Something new. It's renaissance, that's what it is now.

"We are clearly going forward to renaissance and success."

lpayton@embassymag.ca

Haiti by the numbers

12—Canadians have been officially declared dead in the Haitian earthquake

699—Canadians are still missing

947—Canadians have been evacuated since last week

55—Canadians are taking refuge at the embassy compound in Port-au-Prince

1,566—Canadians have been located

13—flights have returned to Canada, evacuating 1,206 people

n DFAIT's Emergency Operations Centre has received more than 26,500 calls

n The United Nations, through the World Food Programme, is now serving over 200,000 people per day

n Another 1,000 Canadians troops are expected to arrive in Haiti this week, boosting the existing number to approximately 2,000

n Canada has sent two navy vessels, the HMCS Athabaskan, docked off the town of Léogâne, and the HMCS Halifax off Jacmel, about 40 km southwest of Port-au-Prince. The Haitian government identified Léogâne and Jacmel as priorities for receiving international assistance.

n The Canadian government initially pledged $5 million in immediate aid and will match up to $50 million in donations from the public. They followed up this week with a pledge of $60 million to the UN to deliver essential services. The biggest chunk, $39 million, will go to the World Food Programme, and the next, $15 million, will go to UNICEF. The rest of the money will be split among several UN organizations, including the International Organization for Migration, the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization. The government is also giving $11.5 million to six Canadian NGOs and $8.5 million to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

n Canada is hosting a Haiti donors conference next week in Montreal. Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said he expects to see representatives from France, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina and Costa Rica, the European Union, the Organization of American States, the United Nations, some of Haiti's immediate regional neighbours and development banks.

n The DART deployment includes engineering, medical, logistics and defense and security personnel, a naval task force made up of a destroyer and frigate and a CH-124 Sea King helicopter, six CH-146 Griffin helicopters, one light infantry battalion standing by to deploy from Valcartier, a C-17 Globemaster and C-130 Hercules airlift support and medical facilities.

n The Canadian Forces airlifted 45,000 kgs of aid into Haiti on Monday, bringing the total to more than 293 tonnes of relief goods. They have also delivered three nomad water purification systems that will each produce 36,000 gallons of clean water per day.

n Anyone with Canadians friends or relatives they believe are missing in Haiti can call Foreign Affairs Canada at 1-800-387-3124.

—Laura Payton