InfoSurHoy: Haiti: Reconstruction lagging

behind schedule
One year after the earthquake, more than a million Haitians remain displaced.
By Jacob Kushner for Infosurhoy.com—11/01/2011

Tanya Desirald, 20, left, works a hand-powered rubble grinder to recycle debris that will be used to build
temporary shelters in Port-au-Prince. (Jacob Kushner for Infosurhoy.com)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Nearly a year since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake destroyed the nation’s
capital and surrounding areas, much work remains in the reconstruction process that’s way behind
schedule.
More than a million remain displaced in unsanitary – and unsustainable – tent cities, many without
consistent access to clean drinking water, according to the U.S. State Department.
The majority of buildings throughout Port-au-Prince are in the same collapsed state they were in after
being pulverized on Jan. 12, 2010. Fewer than two million of the nine million cubic meters of rubble have
been removed, and debris still clogs city streets, according to the U.S. State Department.
“I think there’s a general feeling – and we share this feeling – that the reconstruction is much slower than
we had hoped,” said Eric Overvest, Haiti Country Director for the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP). “The first six months, all the attention went to humanitarian assistance, which was very
necessary, but the change to development started very late.”
The earthquake directly affected some 3.5 million people, killing 230,000 and injuring 300,000 more,
according to the UNDP. The total damage is estimated at US$7.8 billion – more than Haiti’s 2009 GDP.

Sam Worthington, the president of the Interaction coalition of U.S.-based NGOs, speaks with a woman
who received a temporary shelter from one of the coalition’s member organizations in the Neret
neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. (Jacob Kushner for Infosurhoy.com)

The biggest immediate challenge to Haiti’s reconstruction is finding shelter for the displaced, many of
whom have no means by which to earn money to buy food and water.
Tanya Desirald, 20, sold food as a street vendor before the earthquake took away her livelihood,
destroyed her home, and killed two of her three children. Desirald works for a Catholic Relief Services
reconstruction project, using a hand-powered crusher to recycle rubble to build temporary shelters for her
and other members of her Neret neighborhood in central Port-au-Prince.
“I want my kids to go to school so they can find jobs,” said Desirald, who feels empowered by
participating in Haiti’s reconstruction. “I’m working to save money for school, and to build my new house
where I can live with my [future] children.”
NGOs like the one that’s employing Desirald have been active in providing humanitarian relief since the
earthquake. But directors of some of the largest organizations fear that the transition from humanitarian
aid to long-term reconstruction still is moving too slowly.

Children play in the Terrain Toto IDP camp, which houses about 1,500 families who lost their homes
during the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake. (Jacob Kushner for Infosurhoy.com)

“The scale of the disaster is such that one year in, we’re seeing progress and pretty significant progress,
but the amount that needs to be done far outweighs that,” said Sam Worthington, president of InterAction,
a coalition of nearly 200 U.S.-based NGOs, during a visit to Haiti this month. “Our biggest concern is that
the cost of managing these camps is burning down resources quite quickly. We’re starting to run out of
the relief money, and it’s starting to decrease before we’ve gotten people out of the camps.”
Haiti has 1,150 tent camps, according to the International Organization for Migration, and their residents
have become increasingly vocal in recent months, participating in protests against the recent elections
and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
Many of the displaced say they expected to be living in new homes by now.
The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), a sort of interim governing body charged with
coordinating the reconstruction, has received pledges totaling US$10.2 billion from foreign governments.
But only 28% of the pledged public donor money has arrived, and even less has been implemented,
according to the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Haiti.

A view from Fort National in Port-au-Prince of Haiti’s collapsed national palace, which one year after the
earthquake has not been fixed. (Jacob Kushner for Infosurhoy.com)

“I think we can say that it (the IHRC) has had a slow start. But it has already approved projects worth
around one billion dollars, and I think we’re going to see recovery efforts accelerate into 2011,” said
Emmanuelle Schneider, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office of the Coordination for
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Schneider’s office is preoccupied with the waterborne cholera bacteria that has already infected more
than 150,000 and killed about 3,700 since the epidemic began spreading across the country in October,
according to the Ministry of Health.
“We want to build better and provide services that Haitians have never had before, like access to clean
water,” Schneider said of the post-earthquake humanitarian response. “We want people to go back to
their communities, but we want those places to offer them these services.”
Until those services become commonplace, it will remain difficult to convince tent camp residents, who in
some cases receive free water and food, to move to temporary or permanent housing in areas without
jobs or food handouts, said Mark Snyder, a human rights advocate for the grassroots International Action
Ties.

A girl sits in the doorway of one of the few structures in Port-au-Prince’s Fort National neighborhood that
was not leveled by the earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010. No permanent shelters have been reconstructed in
the area, forcing many residents to live in tents. (Jacob Kushner for Infosurhoy.com)

“I think it’s going to take larger structural changes to occur in the country in order to balance things out,”
Snyder said. “You have 5% of the population owning 70% of the land, and you’re not going to be able to
build transitional shelters unless you’re able to pay exorbitant fees.”
Snyder said the biggest challenge facing Haiti’s reconstruction is the people’s feeling of exclusion from
the process, which has been manifested through the nation’s problematic November election.
“You’re going to need a strong Haitian state [government], one that’s representative of the population and
can make progress by establishing the necessary reforms,” Snyder said.
Like Snyder, Overvest agrees how fast reconstruction occurs in 2011 hinges on how quickly the Haitian
government can gain the people’s trust and become the unquestioned leader in fixing the impoverished
nation.
“It is essential to have a strong government,” Overvest said. “There are many NGOs doing a wonderful
job, but you can only truly move forward if you have a strong government that offers the right incentives to
stimulate progress.”