LAFF Society

CLIPPINGS

Building Back Better: Revisiting the Roles of Government, Donors and INGOs in Haiti's Reconstruction

 

Steven Lawry was at the Ford Foundation from 1992 to 2006 as Program Officer in Namibia, Representative in Cairo and Director in the Office of Management Services. From hausercenter.org

Submitted by Sherine Jayawickrama on January 31, 2010 – 3:04 pmOne Comment
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.

One Comment ┬╗

  • Peter Freeman says:
    We cannot accept or support the reconstruction of slums or anything like it. I agree with the four guidelines Ms Lockhart offers.They will take time. There are urgent measures to address before tackling the results of years of ineffective government and piecemeal assistance via the steps you laid out. Yet the way immediate needs are addressed can set the stage for longer term actions in Haiti. I am copying below an email I sent to a friend and colleague, Lou Lucke, who is coordinating USA's emergency food and other assistance at present in Port au Prince regarding what must be accomplished in the next 6 months to set up live-able tent cities that contain the elements of future permanent communities that are indeed better. Ambassador Louis Lucke Port au Prince Hi Lou. Am I glad to see you involved! (per Washington Post article today Jan. 31). I have been fretting about what happens after the emergency health and nutrition needs are addressed. I was in the DR many years ago(mid 60's) workng with the O.A.S. when a hurricane destroyed many houses in a community in the southwest of the country. Reconstruction was a disaster too. The money was wasted on a handful of nice middle class homes. They could have made the same financial support and materials available to hundreds of families for each to build one hardened core structure..bathroom and adjoining storage area for instance.. and then in a second phase provide the families with materials, design and help to add on to the core structure, using their own labor and according to their needs and the site characteristics. I would like to offer some suggestions about the work that must follow the urgent survival support actions you are coordinating” namely the creation of liveable, temporary tent cities before the rains and the hurricane season set in, that is between now and July or August. These tent cities are likely to be inhabited for a least a year and probably two years, given the imperative to reconstruct homes and buildings so that they are resistant to earthquakes as well as hurricanes. Reconstruction will take several years in Port au Prince and other cities with major destruction. Rebuilt structures and neighborhoods need to be hurricane proof to the extent feasible and resistant to earthquakes. Reconstruction needs to be be preceded by planning and infrastructure for sustainable, efficient, live-able urban livelihoods. We need to embed green technologies into the reconstruction process: Solar energy capture and energy conservation. Photovoltaics, water heating, external move-able louvers to shade building facades, building design that facilitates cooling via air flow. Rain water capture from roof tops and cisterns. Grey water diversion to nearby agricultural fields or gardens. Recycling of urban organic wastes (excepting human and hospital wastes). Recycling and/or reuse of metals, plastics, cardboard, etc. etc. There is much we have learned. Pathways for pedestrians and bicycles apart from roadways. Parks. Playgrounds. Petionville and other such unplanned communities probably did not have a sewerage system. These should be built along with an improved potable water treatment and distribution system. And storm sewers. Reconstrcution along these lines will take several years to plan, organize and implement. We cannot accept or support the reconstruction of slums. Meanwhile in the tent cities, there will be a need to provide for shelter in case of severe weather and hurricanes. Tents will not withstand hurricanes. They can shelter from heavy rains but not high winds. With luck there will only be rains. Of course, tents will need platforms to raise them above the ground during the rainy season and tent cities must have storm water evacuation in place” a system of ditches at the minimum. My suggestion is to build hurricane proof facilities in the tent cities using modular construction methods. In case of a severe storm or hurricane people could take refuge in these structures. They could include primary schools, primary health care facilities, storage facilities, structures that house community administrative work and meeting rooms/places of worship, community washing and bathing facilities, community latrines. These structures will facilitate the provision of needed community services and governance. They should be equipped with the green technologies listed above. These structures should be designed to be dis-assembled and moved to a permanent location in the communities and areas that are to be re-built once the infrastructure is ready. The tent cities will need the different functions of these modular structures, just as will the eventually reconstructed neighborhoods which could 'inherit' them. They would provide the displaced, homeless dwellers of the tent cities with a tangible bridge to the future. Who can design and spec out these structures? I couldn't find much online about modular construction using Google. Architects for Humanity was already working in Haiti on a few structures. I would send an appeal for suggestions and assistance to them as well as faculties of architecture and architects associations in the USA, Puerto Rico, and Central America. The US building industry is in a slump,notably in Florida. They should be challenged to come up with designs and methods to use both US and Haitian talent, materials, labor. Modules could be built in Haiti. Participants in the annual Department of Energy's Solar Decathalon should be contacted. One entry from Texas in last summer's decathalon focused on using local materials suited to the Gulf Coast climate. An online planning process should begin ASAP to establish the specifications for the different kinds of modular structures. Identify a lead entity for each kind of structure. For instance for neighborhood primary care facilities get Medicins sans Frontiers involved in establishing specs. Neighborhood Primary care facilities would include pediatric as well as adult women and men care, treatment of basic illnesses and simple wounds, basic diagnostics and dispensing of medicine. Requirements for exam rooms, provider offices, waiting/reception rooms, power, water, waste disposal, storage, etc. Preference for green technologies. Human waste could be dealt with using the clivus multrum composting toilet technology that the US and State park services have installed in various locations, including on the George Washington Memorial Parkway, not far from where we live. (Clivus multrum is a Swedish invention by the way). And there is the successful use in India of treating human waste in bio-digesters that generate methane gas for cooking and yield, eventually, excellent compost. Let me know if and/or how I might be able to advance these ideas. My hope is that better minds than mine have already figured this out and it's already underway. All the best to you and and Joy and may your work be blessed, Peter

 

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in these pages are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LAFF Society.


 

Members log in to comment