Sun-soaked beaches, palm trees swaying in the Caribbean breeze, and the laid back lifestyle that once typified the tropical tourist cliché, are now just distant memories on Haiti’s shores. In the heart of one of the world's most popular -- and lucrative -- holiday regions, this small nation of more than nine million slave descendants is again at war with itself, mired in poverty and facing a bleak dawn.
According to the 2004-2006 Interim Cooperation Framework (ICF) presented at the International Donors’ Conference in Washington, DC, 75% of Haiti’s people suffer grinding poverty. Having woken to several false dawns in its two centuries of independence, Haiti’s per capita income is still extremely low, barely a dollar a day, ranking 146th in the Human Development Index of nations. The population has increased rapidly from approx. 4 million in 1971 to over 9 million today. This growth rate has led to a skewed distribution of population by age; about half of the population consists of children and youth less than 15 years of age.
There has been a similar growth in labor supply and thus a critical need for jobs. From 1995-2000, the working-age population grew 3‑5% per year. Thus, Haiti’s work force has become younger, with a third below age 24. Combined with the low level of education, this has caused a detrimental surge of inexperienced and unskilled job seekers. The trend is alarming and is expected to continue and become more pronounced because no national or foreign intervention has yet effectively confronted, halted and reversed it. There is no “full employment” policy, no campaign for 100% literacy at the high school graduate level, and no aid programs that require Haiti to create hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs and a functioning middle class. Because of this, many Haitians and Diasporans wonder exactly what and whom are being “developed.”
Nor has Mother Nature been kind. According to the aforementioned report, between 1990 and 1999, 16 cyclones, 25 severe floods, and 7 droughts have caused profound devastation to Haiti. The devastating May 23, 2004 storm was responsible for 1261 deaths, 1414 missing persons, 2399 destroyed houses, and 30,000 people in need of relocation. In the year of its two-hundredth independence anniversary, Haiti was shattered by Hurricane Jeanne that swept the coastal city of Gonaives and the Northwest of Haiti, causing 3000 deaths and 250,000 homeless. Then, less than two years ago, four more devastating storms followed. ”In a span of three weeks, Tropical Storm Fay, Hurricane Gustav, Tropical Storm Hanna and Hurricane Ike pounded the country, killing nearly 800, washing away livestock and millions of dollars worth of rice, corn and plantain crops,” wrote Haitian American journalist Jacqueline Charles in the January 12, 2009’s edition of the Miami Herald. Quoted in that article, Robert Fatton, a Haitian studies expert and professor at the University of Virginia said, ''There is Haiti fatigue, or rather Haiti impatience, that after three to four years [of response and recovery effort], very little has been accomplished and all of those natural catastrophes have compounded the problem.”
This combination of -- shortcomings, vulnerabilities and natural disasters -- has resulted in a 40% increase in forced urbanization. In other words, there has been a major involuntary flow of Haitians to the few coastal cities - Port-au-Prince, Cap Haitian, Gonaives, Les Cayes, Jacmel, Jeremie, etc. - leaving large regions of depleted, deforested and under-funded rural areas across the countryside. In a sense, rural Haitians are having to trade their ancestral lands, their identities and sense of place, albeit poor, for ironically-named slums - Cite Soleil, Cite l’Eternel, etc. - and the unknown “heaven” of plantations and construction sites in the Dominican Republic. Some try to flee the island altogether. The flight results in more abandonment, pollution, deteriorated infrastructure, filth and illness, more joblessness and hopelessness, inevitably accompanied by lawlessness. The grinding poverty and more than 2.5 million unemployed youth have led some observers to believe that Haiti is a time-bomb ready to explode, despite the fragile security and the continuing presence of approximately ten thousand United Nations troops. Indeed, the food riots of early 2008 are a reminder.
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“The choice is either to rebuild Haiti with a fair, equitable and sustainable economy, or else find another country or countries willing to absorb more refugees with dignity,” said Bernier Lauredan, Jr., M.D., president of The Haitian League. “The time for choice is now,” he added
Haiti observers also agree that there is a deadly combination of political crisis, poor governance and economic instability. This makes daily life in Haiti precarious, and undermines traditional survival strategies such as local food production. At worst, whole parts of the country and sectors are effectively ignored. The consequences are deep poverty, environment destruction, unsound and poorly built homes and schools, absence of electricity and proper sanitation, failed drainage and waste disposal, shortage of potable water and overall mismanagement of natural resources in a small country that could otherwise be blessed with tropical abundance. So at best, multilateral and nongovernmental development aid is irregular across geography and sectors. “Haiti has been the site of too many feel-good projectsdraped in national flags,'' World Bank President Robert Zoellick said about the dangers of aid fatigue and the need for new approaches on development assistance.“There have been too many sterile debates about which comes first, security or development,”he added.
The aftermath of the January 12, 2010 offers an opportunity to convert Haiti’s misfortunes into opportunities -- Equitable Reconstitution and Sustained Economic Growth and Development. And the vast Diaspora with its cultural competence and talents is committed, willing, and ready to be involved in a meaningful way to transform it to a more modern State than the |
