ARTICLE - A RIDDLE WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA

A YEAR LATER, HAITI REMAINS A RIDDLE WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA
(Embassy) - By Anca Gurzu

Nearly three months after a massive earthquake left parts of Haiti in complete devastation, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon stood in front of hundreds of international delegates at the United Nations in New York speaking about a long-term vision.

"While today's conference is a landmark event in Haiti's reconstruction, it should by no means be interpreted as the end of a process," he said on March 31. "It is one of the first milestones on a long road upon which we have just embarked, and Canada is ready to stand by Haiti's side as long as required."

At the time, with the Afghanistan mission set to wrap up in 2011, many had expected, if not outright encouraged, the government to make Haiti Canada's next top foreign policy priority.

There were many reasons to do so, including geographic proximity, the large number of Haitians in Canada, and the destabilizing effect the Caribbean nation's continued instability was having on the region.

But while experts credit the Canadian government for its quick relief response, a year after the disaster struck there is a sense of disappointment in some corners that the rebuilding of Haiti has not taken on the prominence in Canadian policy that many were expecting. In fact, even the efforts Canada has made appear to be wreathed in confusion, with more questions than answers.

The problem, experts say, is that the initial international optimism to build a new Haiti has been overtaken by the realities of political and social instability in a weak state, which make international donor co-ordination difficult and aid disbursement challenging.

Government or not?
Only two weeks after the earthquake, the Canadian government hosted a conference in Montreal on Jan. 25 that saw foreign ministers from more than a dozen countries come together with representatives of other international bodies, including development banks and NGOs, in an effort to shape the roadmap for Haiti's reconstruction.

According to a spokesperson at the Canadian International Development Agency, the Canadian government has provided $150.15 million in humanitarian assistance to Haiti, which includes money to Canadian NGOs and UN humanitarian organizations, including the World Food Program.

At the International Donors' Conference at the UN on March 31, Canada also announced $400 million to support the Action Plan for National Recovery and Development and Haiti, a reconstruction roadmap put together by the Haitian government. Adding everything up with the $550 million already pledged from 2006 to 2011 for Canada's largest aid recipient in the Americas, the government's total contribution to Haiti surpasses $1 billion over this five-year period.

The federal government also sent about 2,000 Canadian Forces personnel to Haiti in the first months after the earthquake, including military medical staff. It also fast-tracked the process of adoption of hundreds of children from Haiti.

But the actual disbursement of funds has been slow, said Stephen Baranyi, professor at the University of Ottawa's School of International Development and Global Studies.

"Canada has been quick on pledges, but it's more difficult to move money out of Ottawa," he said.

Haitian Chargé d'Affaires Nathalie Gissel-Ménos also said there has been confusion over how much of the pledged international money has been delivered. This confusion, she said, does not only come from Canada, but from the entire international community. She said she is not sure how much money Canada allocated from the total it pledged, but at the international level the ratio is at about 20 per cent.

"When you hear that much help promised, your hopes are raised, and the hopes are very high," she said. Then when the promises aren't met, she said, people's hopes are "suddenly brought down to almost nothing."

In addition, the Canadian Press reported on Jan. 11 that the Canadian government turned down a plea to extend its military relief effort in Haiti beyond the end of Canada's official relief mandate. In an interview, the UN's head of humanitarian aid in Haiti, Nigel Fisher, said there was a "strong request" to keep Canadian military engineers in the country because they had been effective in clearing rubble and reopen roads. Still, the military packed up after two months and returned to Canada.

Things appear to have bogged down around the six-month mark, when humanitarian relief efforts were expected to transition to more long-term development, said Tim Donais, professor in the department of global studies as Wilfrid Laurier University, who specializes in post-conflict peacebuilding.

"At the beginning, there was certainly an honest and straightforward desire for Canada to take on Haiti as a key development partner," he said. "There was a lot of optimism. But that optimism might have contributed to overlooking some of the fundamental political issues that didn't go away because of the earthquake."

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and has been marred by political violence throughout its history, having experienced many political coups. The country's government is seen as weak and unstable, with high corruption and crime rates. Canada's engagement in Haiti goes back years before the earthquake hit, as this country's foreign policy focus on the Americas have made the Caribbean nation a priority.

Taking on an even greater commitment towards the rebuilding of Haiti after the earthquake appeared to be a natural transition to a new signature Canadian foreign policy for this government, especially as the Afghanistan mission draws to an end, Mr. Donais said.

"Canada's commitments, on paper, have been that of a leading donor," he said. "But given the challenges and the obstacles, there might have been some rethink over how much Canada wants to be seen as having tied itself to long-term development of Haiti."

The political violence resulting from the first round of disputed presidential elections in November hasn't done the country any favours. The second round of elections has not yet been scheduled, but there are already grumbles from some donors questioning the wisdom of working with the Haitian government, or going through other channels. It appears Canada has made its decision.

"I have the feeling that Canada has taken a step back and is trying to be very careful where they are stepping and really managing their contribution very cautiously, by going through bilateral and multilateral ways and working with the biggest NGOs," said Ms. Gissel-Ménos. "It's what I see, what I hear, what I read. It's my deduction."

There are pros and cons to this, experts say. Providing clean water and emergency shelter can be achieved through non-governmental organizations without having to rely on the infrastructure of the country itself, Mr. Donais said, but governance becomes important once institutional changes are needed.

Since the Haitian government has a reputation of being inefficient and corrupt, donors tend to channel money through external groups, but this bypassing does not generate any capacity for the government, Mr. Donais said, and puts all the development efforts at a long-term risk.

International donors have been taking this path for years, Mr. Baranyi said, since this "stumbling block" in the form of a weak Haitian government has made it difficult for donors to find "legitimate partners" on the ground.

The earthquake, and the increased foreign presence in Haiti, only aggravated this dynamic, he added.

"It is very important that donors like Canada reinvest in the Haitian state to reclaim its ground as leader of all reconstruction initiatives," Mr. Baranyi said.

A report released by Oxfam on Jan. 6, tracing the reconstruction efforts of the Haitian state, international donors and non-governmental groups over the last year, makes a very similar point.

"The international community has not done enough to support good governance and effective leadership in Haiti," the report reads. "Many aid agencies continue to bypass local and national authorities in the delivery of assistance, while donors are not coordinating their actions or adequately consulting the Haitian people and key government ministries when taking decisions that will affect Haiti's future."

The international community believes things must be done in a certain way, said Ms. Gissel-Ménos, but those visions are not easily compatible with Haiti's complex realities.

"There are priorities that the international community thinks should exist," she said. "Now, the government living the realities of things on site, I think may know better what those priorities really are. I think in that sense, sitting down, communicating and explaining to each other and getting all the expertise, international and local, to me that's the only way to success."

The problem is that Canada's overall approach towards Haiti—and that of all other major donors—has been flawed from the beginning, and has become even more pronounced after the earthquake, said Yasmine Shamsie, professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, whose research is focused on peacebuilding efforts in Haiti.

Canada views Haiti as a fragile state, she said, but while there are deadlocks at times among political elites, where political power means economic power, the concept of the country being a fragile state is problematic because there is no civil war or insurgency in the small Caribbean country.

Another issue added to the development dynamic is that "three quarters of what we do in Haiti is about justifying our aid dollars to Canadian tax payers," she said.

"The government feels it is accountable to Canadians, while at the same time saying it is accountable to the Haitian government," she said. "It is a dynamic that drives all donor aid in Haiti unfortunately, including Canada's."

This is what has made international development co-ordination so difficult in Haiti, Mr. Donais said. Since international donors have to return with concrete results to the domestic public, many of them "fly the flag" around their own projects.

"It's easy to say 'We've built so many schools and we trained so many police officers,'" he said.

"But to me the heart of the problem in the case of Haiti is how do you create a government responsible and accountable to serving the citizenry that elected it."

What can Canada do more?
Although Canada has focused many of its projects on security and judicial reform, which are important tasks, Mr. Baranyi said Canada could balance its portfolio by focusing more on economic and social issues. In the context of the current Haitian elections, the Canadian government should use its diplomatic clout to encourage coalition-building among political forces while also strengthening citizens' democratic participation in policy processes.

Canada should also give more aid to agricultural projects, as this is an important sector that can create jobs in the rural areas and address the issue of food security in the poor country, Mr. Baranyi added.

Ms. Shamsie agreed, adding that the Canadian government should consider changing its position towards free trade agreements by allowing the Haitian government "to put tariffs on certain products if it feels the need, in order to ensure the country can feed its people."

On Jan. 11, CIDA Minister Bev Oda announced Canada's aid agency would be funding a number of agricultural projects that would tackle food security and provide financial credit to agricultural enterprises.

Canada could also push for higher international co-ordination at the highest political level and "allow itself to be led rather than being a leader," Mr. Donais said, if there is a coherent development strategy in place that highlights the Haitian government's priorities.

"If this is going to be successful it has to be not about what Canada can get out of it in terms of domestic credibility and international reputation, but the difference it can make in the lives of Haitian, and that requires a different approach, a more altruistic one," he said.

The need for international co-ordination has also been recognized by non-governmental groups on the ground.

Groups like the Canadian Red Cross, which so far has received a total of $54.2 million from CIDA, are still focused on providing relief to Haitians even a year after the earthquake due to the high scale of devastation, said Pam Aung Thin, the organization's spokesperson.

But Ms. Aung Thin also emphasized the need to have a long-term development strategy for Haiti.

"We know as an organization that we will be there for at least 10 years in the rebuilding stage," she said. The Red Cross works within its own system to ensure internal co-ordination among its different branches, "but that has to be co-rdinated with governments and other NGOs to avoid overlap."