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Relief and Reconstruction Watch
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Questions? E-mail haiti(at)cepr.net.
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The USAID Inspector General (OIG) released an audit this weekend of Chemonics’ Haiti Recovery Initiative II program (HRI-II), funded by USAID. HRI-II, the successor to the HRI program which began right after the earthquake, aims to “help Haiti strengthen its economy and public institutions in the three strategic development corridors of Port-au-Prince, Saint-Marc, and Cap-Haitien,” according to the OIG. But, as the Associated Press reports today:
A newly released audit says the largest U.S. contractor working to stabilize Haiti after the 2010 earthquake is “not on track” to compete its assignments on schedule, has a weak monitoring system and is not adequately involving community members.
The audit is the second since the earthquake to find significant problems with Chemonics’ work in Haiti. The AP reported in December 2010:
And an audit this fall by USAID's Inspector General found that more than 70 percent of the funds given to the two largest U.S. contractors for a cash for work project in Haiti was spent on equipment and materials. As a result, just 8,000 Haitians a day were being hired by June, instead of the planned 25,000 a day, according to the IG.
Nevertheless, Chemonics has been the largest single recipient of post-earthquake funding from USAID. For the two HRI programs, Chemonics has received $103.8 million. This same process played out in Afghanistan, where despite consistently failing to produce results, Chemonics continued to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts.
Weak Monitoring and Evaluation
One consistent pattern that has clearly emerged in the aftermath of the earthquake is the lack of oversight of contractors by USAID. As we have described before, after years of hollowing out USAID, it has “turned into more of a contracting agency than an operational agency with the ability to deliver,” in the words of Hillary Clinton. In turn, much of the monitoring and evaluation is actually the responsibility of the contractor itself. USAID’s contract with Chemonics contains numerous reporting requirements, yet allows the contractor to fulfill most of them without any oversight. Chemonics is required to keep an “activity database,” but the contract notes that Chemonics is responsible “for ensuring that the database contains accurate, complete, and up-to-date information.” Additionally, the contract states that USAID and Chemonics “are expected to jointly develop a system of processes and tools for the monitoring and evaluation of the country program.”
As the newly released audit finds however, both the database and the evaluation tools were poorly implemented and “made it difficult to measure the program’s impact,” as well as contributed to delays which have made the program “not on track to complete all activities.”
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In an interview following his meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told Reuters that cholera is “really under control.” Well, that certainly depends on your definition of under control. Since tropical storm Isaac swept across Haiti last month, some 83 Haitians have reportedly died from cholera and this is almost certainly an understatement, as the surveillance system has become increasingly unreliable. Over the same time, more than 8,200 Haitians have been sickened. Since April of this year, when the rainy season began, 514 have died and over 63,000 have been sickened by cholera.
As for the government’s response, according to the United Nations, “national capacity to respond to potential outbreaks, especially during the rainy season, remains very weak.” From May to June this year, just as the rainy season was beginning, three cholera treatment centers and 13 cholera treatment units were closed down, leaving just 17 and 61 left open, respectively. This is down from 38 and 205 last August. Additionally, as CCO Haiti pointed out last month, “many public health workers in the Cholera Treatment Center (CTCs) have not received salaries for several months and there are reports of strikes by front line medical staff to redress this situation. This is a serious issue negatively affecting the effectiveness of the cholera response and it needs to be urgently addressed.”
Of course, this is not entirely the government’s fault. Most of the cholera response bypassed the government entirely and now, as NGOs pull out of the field, the government has been left to pick up the slack without adequate resources. Nevertheless, to the hundreds of Haitians falling ill every day with cholera, Prime Minister Lamothe’s assertion must ring especially hollow.
Update 9/27: The post has been updated to reflect newly posted data on cholera deaths and cases. |
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This past weekend, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah said that by 2015 the goal is to have 30 percent of aid funds going to local groups. This is in line with the goals put forth in the USAID Forward reform agenda, which aims to reach this target agency-wide by 2015. Shah also made a surprising announcement regarding local procurement in Haiti, as reported in the Miami Herald:
Before the January 2010 earthquake, Shah said less than 9 percent of USAID money was going to Haitian organizations. “We’re over the pre-earthquake level now,’’ said Shah during an interview with The Miami Herald. He wasn’t more specific.
As we have noted numerous times before, according to the available data, it appears that far less than 10 percent of USAID funds have gone directly to local organizations. A review of data on USAID contracts for work in Haiti from the Federal Procurement Database System reveals that just 1.3 percent of USAID funds have gone directly to Haitian companies, as can be seen in Table I.
Table I: USAID Contracts by Recipient Location
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In his mandated report on MINUSTAH, the United Nations Secretary General for the first time outlines the creation of a timetable for withdrawal of MINUSTAH personnel from Haiti. UNSG Ban Ki-moon writes:
The plan foresees a narrowing of the Mission’s activities to a core set of mandated tasks that are achievable within a reasonable time frame (envisioned to be a period of between four and five years for planning purposes) aimed at consolidating stabilization gains to a point beyond which the presence of a large peacekeeping operation will no longer be required. The Mission will work with the Government, civil society, the United Nations country team and international partners to agree on a transition compact that will set out a limited number of stabilization benchmarks that will serve as key indicators of progress in the stabilization process.
Calling for a concrete timetable for progressive withdrawal of the foreign contingents is a small, but important first step. Last year’s authorization of MINUSTAH [PDF] lacked any details on withdrawal and instead mandated that, “future adjustments to its force configuration should be based on the overall security situation on the ground.” Ban Ki-moon is now recommending creating a “transition compact” with the Haitian government that would have specific benchmarks on the road to withdrawal. The main benchmark for reducing the number of MINUSTAH personnel would be sufficient strengthening of the Haitian National Police, while other “benchmarks will evaluate the maturity of key rule of law oversight and accountability mechanisms.”
These benchmarks have yet to be drawn up, however, and so the plan could be overly optimistic in terms of its drawdown timetable. Growth and reform of the police has been a key benchmark for MINUSTAH’s mission completion all along, yet eight years after MINUSTAH began, “the country’s still limited police force cannot guarantee the security needed to protect citizens, enforce the law and underpin political stability,” according to the International Crisis Group. (It is notable that the UNSG’s four-five year timeline is compatible with the five-year extension called for by the International Crisis Group, which it recommends in order to, as it puts it, ensure “a third peaceful handover of democratic power …at the end of the Martelly presidency,” and “the completion of the second five-year police development plan.”)
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Last week, four Uruguayan peacekeepers who were repatriated from Haiti nearly one year ago after video evidence emerged showing the assault of an 18-year old Haitian man, apparently inside the Uruguayan’s Port Salut base, were finally charged. The prosecutor, however, is charging the four soldiers with “coercion” as opposed to sexual abuse.
As AFP reported last week:
"The evidence on record does not support findings of sexual assault. The indictment concerns only the crime of coercion," said the prosecutor in the case, Enrique Rodriguez.
The Latin American nation's penal code states that coercion -- a crime punishable by three months to three years in prison -- involves the use of physical or psychological restraint to force someone to take or abstain from an action against their will.
"In this case, force was used to oblige another person to tolerate an action against their will," Rodriguez said, noting that the judge has not yet ruled in the case.
The Uruguayan press, reporting on the charges notes that the judge, even if he finds the accused soldiers guilty, could still forgo giving prison sentences.
The case stands as just the latest example of the problems of holding the UN Peacekeeping mission in Haiti accountable for abuses, from the introduction of cholera to the sexual abuse of Haitians. Under the UN’s Status of Forces Agreement, those accused of abuse are repatriated quickly, where they face judges of their home country as opposed to local Haitian courts where they could face significantly longer and tougher sentences. In March, three Pakistani police were found guilty of rape, yet were sentenced to just one year in prison by a Pakistani military tribunal. Despite evidence implicating MINUSTAH personnel in a cover-up of the abuse, the case in local courts has stalled. In another example of injustice, over 100 Sri Lankan troops were returned to Sri Lanka in 2007 after evidence emerged of their involvement in sexual exploitation and prostitution with Haitian children and women. There is no sign that the troops have faced any form of punishment since.
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