by Kevin Edmonds
It has been more than two years since Haiti was struck by a catastrophic earthquake in January 2010, and the failed reconstruction of the country has led many good intentioned observers to ask how this could happen. With billions of dollars promised to “build Haiti back better”, why hasn’t it happened? The sad reality is that while the earthquake may have destroyed a significant part of Haiti, it did not destroy the predatory and exploitative imperialist system which has historically impoverished Haiti – it unfortunately intensified it.
More than two years later the reconstruction process has shown to be a very lucrative undertaking for many private organizations. Haiti remains in ruins, with non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) benefiting from the extreme privatization of the Haitian state, resulting in a patchwork system of services which are unaccountable to the Haitian people. While many articles appearing around the anniversary discussed and compiled the statistics about the faces of the failure, a deeper discussion needs to occur on why depending on NGO’s and charities as a development model is dangerous, hypocritical and totally unsustainable.
A big problem in discussing NGO’s in Haiti – and elsewhere, is that their presence is systematically portrayed as an apolitical phenomenon. The presence of the Red Cross in a country is often portrayed as a symbol of transnational humanity in action, that NGO’s automatically results in good work being done. The reality in Haiti two years later reveals that it is much more complicated and much more self serving enterprise. Having so many organizations in the country is presented as a symbol of the fundamental failure of the Haitian people and its culture. Corruption is highlighted again and again as the reason why the Haitian government cannot be given any reconstruction funding.
This pattern of discarding the Haitian government in favour of mostly foreign NGO’s became a template for “development” in Haiti over the course of several decades, as the government was regarded as too corrupt and inefficient to be trusted with foreign funding. In particular, the massive amounts of funding would go to these foreign organizations with no accountability to the Haitian people, and unlike the conditions imposed via structural adjustment on the Haitian government – there is no need to follow any procedures of transparency to show where or how the money is being spent. In regards to the international community leading by example in Haiti, it was a classic case of do as we say, not as we do.
After the earthquake, the funding breakdown for the relief efforts reflected the extent to which the Haitian government had been sidelined. The Associated Press reported in early 2010 that of every aid dollar committed to Haiti for relief, only 1 cent would be directed to the Haitian government to help with the provision of services – with 75 cents going to USAID and the US military. Despite this reconstruction plan becoming public knowledge, there was no outcry from the international community or major organizations working on the ground in Haiti, as this was not considered outrageous by any means, but simply a continuation of the status quo.
The hypocrisy of the international community on the issue of “helping build Haiti back better” did lead several high level figures to publically criticize the entire reconstruction plan, and the myth of reckless Haitian corruption. Ricardo Seitenfus was dismissed from his position in late 2010 as the Organization of American States Special Representative to Haiti for telling the truth about corruption and NGOs.
In an interview with BBC Brazil shortly before his dismissal he stated that “The charges of corruption are part of an ideological discussion. There is no corruption, there is the perception of corruption. Haiti has no way of being corrupt because the state has no resources. What can be questioned is how the resources that the NGOs collect, without accounting for them to anyone, are being administered. That is indeed the big question. I make an exception of the work that was done in the emergency, but there cannot be a permanent policy of substituting the NGOs for the state. Haiti is Haiti, it is not [Haiti-NGO]. No country would accept what the Haitians are forced to accept.”
The candid interview by Seitenfus, highlighting the hypocritical and self serving policies being enacted in Haiti was widely ignored by the international media, but went on to earn him the Knight of the Republic Honours, bestowed by the Haitian government. The issues of hypocrisy, the construction of corruption and Haitian incompetence are endless fuel for the presence and justification of self serving, undemocratic NGO’s in Haiti.
Talking about the structural ineffectiveness of charities and NGO’s is difficult for the most part because criticism of charity creates the problematic misconception that an individual is against easing the suffering of others, or the good intention to make the world a better place. This is not true. The problem is the wider framework within which charity occurs. In 2003 for example, Haiti’s debt service was $57 million, whereas the combined government spending for education, healthcare, environment, and transportation was $39 million – for a country of 9 million people. This continued the trend whereby Haiti’s poverty has historically produced a tremendous amount of wealth through debt and interest repayments, and now as a lucrative laboratory of NGO’s.
In order to bring about a development model which can really help reconstruct Haiti, NGOs should all work towards making themselves irrelevant. With the emergency phase of relief over, this means that they should not simply import foreign professionals to do the jobs that locals are capable of, or could be trained to do. Importing teams of Canadian nurses down to Haiti is a tremendous waste of resources considering airfare, accommodation, food, security – when Haitian nurses are sitting unemployed in tent camps because the state hospitals were doubly destroyed by structural adjustment and the earthquake.
The debate regarding the depoliticizing of such a deeply political issue is something which needs to be discussed, as we must develop a system which allows us to move beyond the mere uttering of good intentions. The current shift to and promotion of philanthropy led development further justifies and naturalizes the system which allows an individual to become a multi-billionaire in a world where 80 percent of the world lives on US$10 a day. The focus is on the wrong end of the spectrum. We should not be congratulating the system which created a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, but rather condemn the system which created the 5 billion desperately poor people.
The reconstruction effort in Haiti has revealed that charity and goodwill has become a commodity. The process of helping to alleviate poverty and destruction has been turned into a business – a business which is predominately accountable to their donors, not the people there are entrusted to help.
From my perspective, the lack of progress in Haiti should not come as a surprise, as the portrayal of a socially conscious and politically neutral NGO led development model in Haiti is a perfect Trojan horse for the entrenchment of the most extreme neoliberal economic restructuring documented to date. The goals, vision and business model of the transnational NGO’s are of increased dependency in Haiti, which is directly opposed to goals of the Haitian people who demand a development model which brings about both self sufficiency and allows for self determination.
The role of NGOs in providing nearly all of the basic services in Haiti is an extreme example of neoliberalism in action – and it is failing the Haitian people miserably. The continued expansion of NGOs on the ground signals that for some, these are indeed boom times. Without a serious discussion about the nature of the development industry and NGOs, we can only unfortunately expect the situation in Haiti to happen again elsewhere.
Without changing the wider structure in which these NGO’s operate, it is impossible to expect real, sustainable results. Haiti’s failed reconstruction is a beacon that NGOs cannot replace the state, and that any attempt to do otherwise is destructive and dangerous. The NGOs in Haiti have increased the dependency of the Haitian people through undemocratic and non-transparent projects which serve to entrench the neoliberal ideals of privatized governance, a reduced role for the state, and free mobility of both foreign capital and people – while Haitians stay trapped in the camps. Vast amounts of aid money which could go to support Haitian grassroots organizations, or the Cuban medical missions are spent on frivolous and superficial expenses for temporary, foreign NGO staffers.
The discussion about whether or not charity can exist within such an inhuman an exploitative capitalist system must be pushed to the forefront. While unpopular, it does force people to look into the true nature and motivations of charity in our current system. A simple donation to an NGO does not erase the crimes of history which has created the divide between the rich and the poor. Haiti has become a microcosm of the problematic power relations between the first and third world. The causes are structural. The causes are deep. The first step should be to work with the Haitian people, listen to their demands and give them control over the reconstruction of their own country. Anything less should be considered another form of colonialism. The public demands for the implementation of basic public health and educational systems are not excessive by any means, but are discussed in donor circles as unreasonable programs. It is because such systems would marginalize the NGO’s area of operations. The Haitian people deserve better, yet their oppression has historically generated profits for the rich, either through slavery, cheap labour, debt bondage, or now as a laboratory for NGO led neoliberal development.
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