By Steven Lawry
It is well known that international NGOs had a huge presence in Haiti before the devastating earthquake of January 12th. Upwards of 8,000 NGOs were working in nearly every developmental and humanitarian assistance sector. The greater portion of foreign assistance was channeled not to the Haitian government, but directly to NGOs. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive in
an interview on CNN with Christiane Amanpour on January 23rd estimated that 80 percent of all development assistance to Haiti before the earthquake went to NGOs. He added that 90 percent of US official assistance goes to NGOs.
While some NGO recipient organizations are locally-led and governed, and international NGOs employ large numbers of Haitian staff, Haiti's development sector is largely led and managed'effectively controlled'by international NGOs and their donors.
The important question of accountability goes a long way toward explaining how this state of affairs came to pass. International donors have lacked confidence in the ability of the Haitian government to manage development assistance in an effective, efficient and corruption-free manner. Donors believe their funds are more likely to be used for agreed purposes and will reach intended beneficiaries if the money goes to international NGOs and contractors directly accountable to donor governments. But Prime Minister Bellerive went on in the CNN interview to raise a fair question: how can Haiti's government be called to account for the management of development assistance when 80 percent of funding goes directly to international organizations that are not accountable to the Haitian government itself?
While international NGOs have contributed significantly to the well-being of Haitians over the years, the near complete control they exercise over Haiti's development sector is not without its problems. The lack of accountability to Haiti's government, which I have noted, is among them. Another is the missed opportunity for donors to work closely with Haitian institutions in developing Haitian capacity to manage development programs (including exercising some measure of authority over the work of international NGOs and contractors) in ways that are free of corruption and which give Haitians valuable leadership, policy and management experience.
Harvard professor
Paul Farmer and co-founder of
Partners in Health, a health and human rights organization that has worked in Haiti for 20 years, spoke to the need to change the relationship among donors, the Haitian government and international NGOs in testimony
before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on January 27th: “The aid machinery currently at work in Haiti keeps too much overhead for its operations and still relies overmuch on NGOs or contractors who do not observe the ground rules we would need to follow to build Haiti back better. The fact that there are more NGOs per capita in Haiti than any other country in the hemisphere is in part a reflection of the need, but also in part a reflection of the overreliance on NGOs divorced from the public health and education sectors.”
Sentiments similar to Farmer's have been expressed by many public figures in recent days.
“Building back better” has become a frequently used term in the past three weeks. A return to the pre-earthquake status quo of ineffective official authority and “the Republic of NGOs” in the development sector is not acceptable. Many advocate, and I agree, that Haitians must take principal responsibility for Haiti's reconstruction, with official aid agencies and international NGOs playing strong supporting roles.
Let's consider for a moment the attributes of a post-earthquake reconstruction and development era that Haitians would be proud of and the international community would have confidence in.
Clare Lockhart is executive director of the
Institute for State Effectiveness, an organization based in Washington, D.C. that specializes in the study of failing or failed states. The Institute's research has drawn out important lessons from the experience of recently failing or failed states that have put themselves on a path toward legitimacy, effectiveness and accountability.
In an extended interview on BBC radio on January 23rd, Lockhart shared four lessons learned from studies of Mozambique's and Rwanda's recovery from failed-state status that she thought Haitian leaders, donors and international NGOs might consider carefully. These are:
- A broadly unified and inclusive national political leadership
- Zero-tolerance for corruption
- Investment in human capital development, particularly in education and health
- Heavy investment in local economic growth and especially the growth of indigenous businesses and enterprises. (Here Lockhart noted the likely enduring value to the Haitian economy of reconstruction money for roads and other infrastructure being directed to local firms as opposed to large international contractors.)
To “build Haiti back better” is in the first instance a reform agenda, requiring fundamental changes in how the Haitian government, donors and international NGOs understand their appropriate roles and their collective responsibilities to the citizens of Haiti. Lockhart's list of lessons learned from failed states recovering from terrible traumas provides useful guideposts toward shaping that agenda.
Steven Lawry, Senior Research Fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, is currently based in Juba, Southern Sudan, where he heads a USAID-funded project assisting the Government of Southern Sudan to develop a new land policy.
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