OUT OF the mountains of concrete and twisted steel rubble piled high throughout Port-au-Prince has emerged hope that the sustained international attention that Haiti so desperately needed before the catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake has itself been given an electrifying jolt.

International aid has been pouring in from all corners of a world horrified not only by the collapse of buildings, government infrastructure and houses or the deaths which UN officials estimate could total 200,000, but by the sight of the surviving Haitians — young and old — whose weathered faces on the television screen spoke of a lifetime of poverty, suffering and powerlessness beyond our imagination.

Haiti is a country that is steeped in poverty, where 78 per cent of its 9 million population barely survive on less than US$2 a day.

The United States Institute of Peace reports that Haiti has the second largest overall income gap between the very rich and the very poor in the world.

More than 68 per cent of total national income accrues to the wealthiest 20 per cent of the population, while less than 1.5 per cent of national income accumulates among the poorest 20 per cent.

Remittances have been the main source of income for most Haitians. Last year, Haitians living outside their country sent home about US$1.87 billion, amounting to about 35 per cent of the country’s GDP.

The country’s underdevelopment has been blamed on decades of government corruption and political and economic upheavals.

It is a country that has had a violent history over the past 200 years, punctuated by despot leaders whose ruthless army of executioners silenced their opponents with machetes and guns.

Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as ‘Baby Doc’ — the island’s last dictator, now in exile in Paris since 1986 after a 15-year rule by the gun — and his father, Francios or ‘Papa Doc’, who ruled Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971, were responsible for the deaths of at least 40,000 political foes, according to human rights groups.

After several failed administrations, the 2006 election of President René Préval and the government’s subsequent poverty reduction and economic growth strategies seem to have turned a corner with reduced kidnapping and gang violence reported on the island.

The government’s plans were, however, set back by widespread riots in 2008 over the high price of food and fuel, followed by four hurricanes killing hundreds of people, dislocating tens of thousands and leaving damage estimated at close to US$900 million.

At an international donor conference in April 2009, multilateral and bilateral donors pledged US$353 to support Haiti’s economic revival and alleviating poverty.

But now, it will take billions of dollars from the world’s major and multilateral and financial institutions over a sustained period of time for Haiti’s economic and social development from ground zero.

The outpouring of sympathy and tears will have to be replaced by an international commitment to give Haiti a new start.

That sustained period of financial support — grants and not loans, please — will have to continue long after Haiti fades from the international headlines, and long after the attention of Hollywood stars and headline acts is diverted to another ’cause’.

There’s suggestion that Haiti, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, needs a modern-day Marshall Plan to rehabilitate its economy.

The Marshall Plan, named after the US Secretary of State, George Marshall, was designed to rebuild and create stable conditions for countries of Western Europe in post-war 1948-52. The US feared that poverty, unemployment and dislocation in the post-war would have strengthened communist domination.

One of the sectors identified as aiding in the recovery of Haiti is agriculture, which will provide jobs to the rural population and reduce the high import bill.

Haiti consumes around 1 million tons of cereals annually, of which two-thirds are imported.

According to the US Library of Congress, agriculture continued to be the mainstay of the economy in the late 1980s.

It employed approximately 66 per cent of the labour force, and accounted for about 35 per cent of GDP and for 24 per cent of exports in 1987.

Many factors have contributed to this decline, including the continuing fragmentation of landholdings, low levels of agricultural technology, migration out of rural areas, insecure land tenure, a lack of capital investment, high commodity taxes, the low productivity of undernourished farmers, animal and plant diseases, and inadequate infrastructure.

As Haiti entered the 1990s, however, the main challenge to agriculture was not economic, but ecological. Extreme deforestation, soil erosion, droughts, flooding, and the ravages of other natural disasters had all led to a critical environmental situation.

Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agricultural Organization has called for simultaneous efforts to support agriculture in Haiti as the spring planting season approaches.

The priority, he said, must be to provide farmers with seeds, fertilizers, livestock feed, animal vaccines and agricultural tools ahead of the cereal planting season, which kicks off in March and accounts for 60 per cent of Haiti’s agricultural production.

T
he FAO says it has nearly US$50 million worth of projects to boost food production in Haiti, including the distribution of high-quality seeds.

So what is CARICOM’s role in the rebuilding of Haiti? The regional grouping will have an unprecedented role to play, by keeping pressure on the international community to ensure that investments go into Haiti.

CARICOM and Haiti have been building a strong relationship, particularly after the country attained full membership in the regional body in 2002.

There were some concerns at that time that CARICOM might have been biting off more than it can chew with bringing Haiti and all its problems into the group — when other member states were grappling with their own troubling issues.

The regional group, however, stuck behind Haiti — even showing tough love when it suspended relationship with the country for two years after what they considered the unconstitutional removal of the elected Aristide government by the US administration in 2004.

After the 2006 elections, which signalled the return of democracy to Haiti, CARICOM embraced Haiti and its new president, Préval, into the organisation.

The Caribbean has also had high-level officials in Haiti, such as Colin Granderson, who headed the joint UN/OAS civilian mission in the 1990s, and Reginald Dumas, who was United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan’s Special Adviser on Haiti in 2004.

The Caribbean may not have the manpower, or the financial strength to back Haiti, but it can use its collective power as a bloc of countries in the UN, the OAS and the Commonwealth to keep the momentum going to aid Haiti — not only back on her feet, but to chart the course for a sustained growth of its economy, and to break the vicious cycle of poverty that has engulfed the vast majority of its population for decades.
Haiti will need our collective help more than ever.