Montreal Gazette, from AFP: Haiti faces NGO

quandary
By Clarens Renois, AFP January 8, 2011

Haitian children attend a massive mass organized by 500 churches around the country as Haitians
commemorate the anniversary of the January 2010 earthquake in Port-au-Prince. Reconstruction has
barely begun in Haiti a year after its catastrophic earthquake, a leading international charity said on
Wednesday in a report sharply critical of a recovery commission led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Photograph by: Eduardo Munoz, Reuters

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (AFP) - Aid groups are filling a void of effective government after Haiti’s earthquake,
but the influx risks hampering longer-term development and is seen by some as an occupation.
Pre-quake estimates for the number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in Haiti ranged
from 1,000 to 10,000 and that number has certainly swollen since.
Haiti’s government was notoriously dysfunctional even before disaster struck on January 12, 2010.
Ministries were flattened and key infrastructure ruined as more than 220,000 lost their lives in one of the
worst ever natural disasters.
When the international airport was up and running again, foreign NGOs arrived in droves, stepping in to
care for the injured, and the children, and working in a host of different sectors from agriculture to
sanitation.
But even before the quake, Haiti had something of a reputation for relying on NGOs and concerns are
growing that without shaking of the shackles of foreign dependence, the country cannot properly recover.
"Haiti has become an NGO state," said Karl Jean-Louis, who heads a local Haitian citizen oversight group
known by its acronym OCAPH, which monitors relief organizations.
"No one knows precisely now many organizations are here, what they are doing, or how much they
spend."
Jean-Louis and others say NGOs may have noble intentions but have worn out their welcome.
"The country is controlled by NGOs," said one Haitian official who asked to remain anonymous.
Michaelle Amedee Gedeon, president of the Haitian Red Cross, said aid from private organizations "was
necessary after January 12 but the results have been mixed."
Others offer a staunch defense of NGOs, arguing they have been critical to helping the country in the
aftermath of the quake and the cholera epidemic that followed.
"The emergency humanitarian response was very successful. We as in all aid agencies working together
kept millions of people alive," said Julie Schindall, a spokeswoman for Oxfam in Haiti.
"The government hasn’t taken leadership but at the same time donors are not supporting the government
to do this. They need support, they are completely overwhelmed."
Schindall said reconstruction efforts have been stalled because of the inaction of the government, which
has the sole legal authority to undertake major projects.
"The critical problem here is a lack of leadership," she told AFP.
Only a fraction of the 5.3 billion dollars in international aid pledged to Haiti has been allocated for
reconstruction, but NGOs say this is not their fault.
"It is extremely difficult at this time because we are looking at a need to implement longer term
construction programs;, but at the same time you have a national outbreak of cholera, with a terrible lack
of infrastructure," Schindall said.
Pierre Salignon of Medecins du Monde (MDM - Doctors of the World) said "we must realize that this is still
an emergency. The disaster has only increased Haiti’s dependence on international aid."
Pierre Tripon of the NGO Action Against Hunger, said that if all aid groups leave Haiti, "there will be a lot
of suffering. Our efforts are still indispensable.
One Haitian at least, identified only as Ognol, said residents like himself appreciated the contributions of
the NGOs.
"There is no doubt, the NGOs have been an immense resource for us," he said. "They are present in
health, education, house. It is thanks to them that Haitians have survived in the absence of the state."
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