Haiti's Tent Cities

It has now been fully two years since Haiti was struck by the 7.0 earthquake that was so devastating it killed 316,000 and left one and a half million Haitians as refugees, displaced in hurriedly-set-up camps inadequate to their fundamental needs. Since then, a half-million people remain living in those tent camps in and around Port-au-Prince.

Cholera continues to plague the refugees. There are so many aid agencies that conduct their humanitarian business in Haiti, it has been dubbed the "Aid Central" of the world. With all the international pledges to assist the country, and all the agencies, said to be in the thousands of non-governmental organizations, the dilemmas facing the country has not gone away.

Poverty, ignorance, violence, mass unemployment were rampant before the natural disaster turned the country inside out, and all those social ills remain, unsolved, and more complex than ever. Haiti has always been reliant on the charity of the outside world. It bears little resemblance to the country that shares the Island of Hispianola, the Dominican Republic.

Not all the funding that was promised by the international community has been received, to be sure. But that which was received hasn't been adequately tracked. There's no real way of knowing whether funding has been used for the purpose it was meant for, and how much has simply slipped away, benefiting someone, but not those who need it most.

"It's really hard to quantify what's happening in Haiti because there's an absence of real, concrete facts and statistics. The overarching story is that everything is going at a snail's pace", according to Roger Annis of the Canada Haiti Action Network.

Canada has so far spend $232-million on Canadian International Development Agency-approved projects like health services (cholera vaccinations included), clean water projects, government institutions, police training and infrastructure aid. Another $2.4 million has been pledged for a Habitat for Humanity Canada collaboration with its Haitian counterpart.

The problems with Haiti have always been that its government has been close to useless. "There is evidence of little victories everywhere, but serious gaps and inadequacies in Haiti's basic governance structure remain", according to a status report released by UNICEF. And, according to the United Nations office of the Special Envoy to Haiti only half of the $4.5-billion pledged by the international community has been distributed.

A report by the Canada Haiti Action Network released to Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird in September advises that: "Toilets have been constructed in large numbers, but facilities for washing are limited. Food and water provision is inadequate. Vhiolence within the camp, especially sexual violence against women, is a very serious problem. Security provision is entirely inadequate.

"There are more and more people who are questioning how aid and charity gets used to reinforce the structures of dominance and underdevelopment that cause the problem in the first place. That's what I think we're seeing today in post-earthquake Haiti", claims Roger Annis of the Canada-Haiti Network.

Canada has provided thus far 90% of its pledge to Haiti. Its portion of the aid effort included emergency food aid, water and sanitation services, emergency and temporary housing and a supply of trained medical professionals for 330,000 women during childbirth.

The government of Haitian President Michel Martelly presents itself as one concerned with agricultural investment, housing for citizens still in tent camps, and free education for all children where only one in four attends school past Grade 6 and 80% must pay for their education. Social development is recognized as a priority.

Unfortunately the new government, just like its predecessors, faces charges of corruption. And as long as Haiti's governments continue to be incompetent and corrupt, there will be no trust from the international community and no move toward investment in the country.