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<DIV>This article indicates that at today's international donor conference on
Haiti, the U.S. Government is expected to announce new commitments to rebuilding
Haiti with a major emphasis on strengthening the fragile Haitian
government. Some development experts say that past approaches to well
meaning, outside support have resulted in a "Republic of NGOs," which has not
produced sustainable development. The role of faith-based organizations in not
only responding to immediate need but contributing to long-term development
merits continued soul searching and dialogue.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG><FONT size=4>In U.S. plan for Haiti, rebuilding
government is key</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>By Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, March 31,
2010; A08 </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>An internal Obama administration assessment concludes that the U.S.
government has provided $4 billion in aid to Haiti since 1990 but "struggled to
demonstrate lasting impact," according to a summary of the review, which has not
been publicly released. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>On Wednesday, at an international donor conference, Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to outline U.S. plans to spend an additional
$1 billion or so to rebuild the earthquake-devastated nation. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>This time, U.S. officials say, they will do things
differently.</STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The most dramatic change is an effort to build up Haiti's fragile
government instead of working around it. In an emergency spending request sent
to Congress last week, the administration said it would pay for new ministry
offices. More broadly, the goal is to develop the framework of a modern state --
spending money to help Haiti create building codes, regulatory systems and
anti-corruption standards. U.S. funds would be used to train and pay Haitian
officials. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"We are completely focused on how to build the capacity of the Haitian
government effectively," said Cheryl Mills, Clinton's chief of staff. "That is
something everyone has recognized as being one of the failures of aid in the
past." </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>For the U.S. government, which spent billions of dollars on nation-building
efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Haiti presents a new and complex test. Even
before the Jan. 12 earthquake, the country's government was dysfunctional and
notoriously corrupt. Now, all but one of its ministries are in ruins. Nearly 17
percent of Haiti's civil servants died in the disaster, including many senior
managers, according to the aid request to Congress. The Obama administration
insists that its plan will help the Haitian government with its own priorities
-- not impose a U.S. vision. Under the emerging plans, U.S. aid would be part of
a vast international effort to rebuild parts of the Haitian state. Canada and
France, for example, would help reconstruct the school system, officials said.
</DIV>
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<DIV><STRONG>'Republic of NGOs'</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Foreign donors have tried to lift Haiti from poverty before, with paltry
results. Even before the earthquake, which shattered the economy, about
three-quarters of the people in the Maryland-sized island country lived on less
than $2 a day. Haiti has remained in poverty partly because of a history of
brutal rulers, foreign intervention and natural disasters. Equally important,
the country's economic and political elite have monopolized the resources of the
government. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"It becomes a large cookie jar for people to benefit themselves. It doesn't
have this real sense of delivering public services," said Terry F. Buss, author
of "Haiti in the Balance," a book about the failure of foreign assistance.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>After large sums of aid money disappeared under dictator Jean-Claude "Baby
Doc" Duvalier in the 1980s, foreign countries shifted their assistance to
nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. That approach has backfired, development
experts say. Haiti has become known as the "Republic of NGOs," with an atrophied
central government and up to 10,000 private groups doling out medicine, food and
services. U.S. aid has gone to large contractors that manage budgets bigger than
those of Haitian ministries -- but they have produced "mixed results," according
to a summary of the U.S. policy review that was obtained by The Washington Post.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>Changing hands</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In an interview, Mills, who led the review, said that past U.S. assistance
to Haiti was dispersed over too many areas to have impact and that no strategy
was in place for transition to Haitian control. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In contrast, the new U.S. plan focuses on four areas: health; agriculture;
governance and security; and infrastructure, with a particular emphasis on
energy. In each one, "we anticipate making investments that would strengthen the
ministries," Mills said. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The plan includes several measures to keep aid from being wasted. It
requests $1.5 million for an inspector general. And the U.S. government would
funnel some of the money through the proposed Interim Haiti Recovery Commission,
made up of Haitian authorities and representatives of donor countries and
international institutions. Its projects would be overseen by an international
accounting firm. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, said
that the government of President René Préval had made enough progress fighting
corruption in recent years that the bank had tripled its direct assistance to
Haiti. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>De Falco, of the bank's Haiti task force, said that officials could monitor
foreign aid to prevent it from being stolen. But whether it produces real
development depends on the Haitian government, he said. "You can go into a
country, build all the roads, electricity," de Falco said, but "if the
institutional framework is not there, the rules of the game are not clear,
you're not going to get the bang for the buck." </DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>