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Questions? E-mail haiti(at)cepr.net.
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The AP reports on a speech Bill Clinton gave to aid organizations working in Haiti. Clinton issued a stark warning; if urgent efforts are not made to relocate those displaced, up to 40,000 may die during the rainy season. Clinton stressed the need for aid organizations to empower the Haitian government, and make efforts to turn Haiti into a self-sufficient nation, echoing statements made by human rights groups to the Inter American Commission earlier in the week. The AP reports that Clinton said:
Every time we spend a dollar in Haiti from now on we have to ask ourselves, 'Does this have a long-term return? Are we helping them become more self-sufficient? ... Are we serious about working ourselves out of a job?
As Haitian officials have consistently said, they face serious budget issues and are unable to pay many workers, as such, Clinton asked organizations "to allocate 10 percent of their spending in Haiti for government salaries and employee training." Clinton also urged organizations in Haiti to "participate in an online registry and make their expenditures transparent."
To read the entire article, click here. |
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Following is the most recent column from CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot. The article was published by McClatchy-Tribune News Service:
Haiti Relief Effort Needs Immediate Ramp-Up to Avoid Another Disaster
President Clinton apologized on March 10 for the role that his government played in destroying a big part of Haitian agriculture: “It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked . . . I have to live every day with the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti, to feed those people, because of what I did.”
Beginning in the 1980s, subsidized U.S. rice wiped out thousands of Haitian rice farmers and made the country dependent on imported food.
Clinton’s apology is important and presents an opportunity to change U.S. policy toward Haiti, which has been a major cause of suffering in this desperately poor country.
Most urgently, the current relief effort has to be ramped up immediately to help the 1.3 million homeless Haitians before thousands are killed by rains or the hurricane season. A relatively brief rain on March 19 brought images of Haitians struggling through mud in squalid camps to try and keep from being overwhelmed by flooding.
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Yesterday, President Obama formally asked congress (PDF) to approve ammendements to the budget in the amount of $2.8 billion. It is important to note that most of this money can be used to reimburse funds that were already spent by the agencies, so the total new assistance will not be the total $2.8 billion. The BBC reports that the Senate is " is said to be close to a bill meeting Mr Obama's request." Following is the breakdown of agencies that would receive funding:
$150 million to the Department of Agriculture (food aid).
$655 million to the Department of Defense.
$220 million to the Department of Health and Human Services.
$60 million to the Department of Homeland Security.
$1,491 million to USAID and the State Department.
$219.8 million to the Department of the Treasury.
$5.2 million to the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
You can read the whole document here, and see the breakdown within agencies. |
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A number of human rights groups and NGOs testified at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights yesterday. The groups stressed a human rights based approach to foreign assistance and requested the commission to visit Haiti to investigate the human rights situation. Mario Joseph of Bureaux des Avocats Internationaux said:
International aid has been given generously, but distributed poorly, without input from earthquake survivors. As a result, children are going hungry, women are at risk of sexual violence and exploitation, and families are sleeping in the rain, without waterproof shelter.
The groups had previously issued a series of recommendations in advance of the donor conference.
To read the testimonies and other documents that were submitted to the Inter-American commission, click here.
The groups were: Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), Partners In Health (PIH), the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center), and Zanmi Lasante (ZL) |
The Huffington Post has started a Haiti blog, "Rebuilding Haiti: Dispatches From the Relief Effort." The blog will have posts from relief workers, both from the ground and from international support teams. Yesterday, Rowan Moore Gerety of UNICEF, posted about the relocation plans for Port-au-Prince. With the relocation moving extremely slowly, the sudden movement may mean that beyond public health problems, there could be social health problems:
In Haiti, the rainy season is about to begin, necessitating relocation of the score of people displaced by the earthquake and currently living in over crowded camps. There are plans to move roughly 150,000 people currently living in the camps to the center of Port-au-Prince by May, yet only one site with a capacity of under 4,000 people has been secured to date.
When rains drenched the capital on Thursday night, the Golf Club de Pétionville turned to mud. It was a frightening preview of what the rainy season will hold for the 45,000 people who live there if they stay. Tents collapsed. Ditches overflowed with sewage. People and their belongings were swept downhill.
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