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UN’s Muñoz Misses the Point
In the face of headlines such as “
3 years after Haiti's quake, lives still in upheaval” and “
Haiti: the graveyard of hope,” Heraldo Muñoz,
U.N. assistant secretary-general and director of the Regional Bureau for Latin America & the Caribbean at UNDP,
had a defensive piece in
Foreign Policy Tuesday titled “
Haiti’s Recovery is Real.”
It may be true that some media coverage and commentary has been
unfairly focused on the negative to the exclusion of any mention of
progress. But, while overwhelmingly negative coverage of Haiti fits
into tired stereotypes, there is a real danger in exaggerating what has
been accomplished when so many
emergencies remain.
The UNDP deserves credit for accomplishments that have indeed made a
difference, which Muñoz lists throughout his piece. But passages such as
this one are troubling:
The UNDP has also helped train more than
7,000 people in home reconstruction, strengthened Haiti's national
disaster risk-management system, and launched environmental protection
programs. The results have been significant and tangible -- a direct
outcome of the international support that followed the earthquake and
that remains a critical lifeline. The government of Haiti is now
building on these achievements and developing a longer-term development
roadmap toward a truly inclusive, resilient society.
It is hard not to read this as propaganda, considering the wasted
resources (financial and human), wasted time, and perhaps most
importantly, wasted opportunities that have been the focus of
much other analysis and commentary on the state of affairs after three years. Truly inclusive society? Tell that to the
tens of thousands [PDF] of camp residents who have been forcibly evicted, the many others who
lack clean water [PDF] or toilets, or the garment factory workers who are
paid below minimum wage.
Muñoz misses the point with the overall premise of his article. He
writes:
With support from national and
international partners, Haitians are rebuilding a better, more resilient
country -- a fact that has been repeatedly overlooked in the
international press. Among Haitians, however, the sense of progress is
unmistakable.
If Haitians are really at the center of the relief effort, as they
should be, and UNDP sees this as a good thing, then one might wonder why
Haitians – unaccompanied by foreigners - would be
automatically barred
from relief coordination cluster meetings (in which UNDP participates),
or why such meetings would be conducted in English – or French – and
not kreyol.
Muñoz
notes that:
Gallup also found that an unprecedented 46
percent of Haitians expressed confidence in national government
institutions. (In 2008, just 24 percent reported confidence in the
government and by 2010 that number had fallen to 16 percent.)
One might then ponder why the international community continues to
express so little confidence in the Haitian government, giving it less
budget support in 2011 than it did the year before the earthquake, and
just
one dollar out of every $100 [PDF] spent in humanitarian relief.
Muñoz puts a happy face on things when he writes that “more than 1.1
million people who were displaced by the quake have been moved out of
camps and into long-term housing, also with UNDP support.”
But he neglects to mention that some 66,566 of these people
had been forcibly evicted
[PDF] by the end of last April. Many others were encouraged to leave
camps with payouts through the Martelly administration’s “16/6” plan,
but the Under Tents campaign
noted
that “In the absence of work opportunities, families’ ability to pay
rent one year from now is dubious. Advocates have also raised concerns
that residents of the original six camps were not told about the plan or
given input into how it would affect them.” Under Tents also expressed
concern that “human rights advocates worry this ‘relocation’ has not
ensured basic human rights such as access to water and sanitation
services.”
Muñoz highlights that “Neighbourhoods, roads, and houses have been rehabilitated, creating thousands of jobs in the process.”
But according to the Shelter Cluster, only
18,725 houses have actually been repaired, and just
5,911 new houses have been built, while
1 million
people were living in houses marked as either red (in need of
demolition) or yellow (in need of repairs to make safe enough to live
in) as of June 2011.
Muñoz
writes
that “Haiti's remarkable recovery, moreover, has been largely driven by
Haitians themselves. Within neighbourhoods, community members have set
priorities for rebuilding homes and infrastructure, ensuring that the
unique risks faced by city-dwellers are satisfactorily addressed.”
Despite their exclusion from decision making by international groups
and NGO’s, many Haitians have of course worked together and accomplished
much, beginning right after the earthquake when people removed rubble –
by hand in many cases – to rescue trapped survivors. Many quake
survivors quickly organized and got to work immediately after the quake
had occurred, as independent journalist Ansel Herz
reported at the time. They received little help from the U.S. military, which assumed the central role in the relief effort and which
prioritized “security concerns” instead of the humanitarian emergency, while media outlets such as CNN described “
a frenzy of looting” which in fact never took place.
The Haitian people – often normal, everyday people who are not paid
by anyone to do the work they do - are responsible for much of the
progress of the relief effort. This is why so many both within and
outside of Haiti have clamored for three years for the international
community to do more to provide these people with the resources and the
support that they need. The
numbers three years later – punctuated by
egregious examples of waste – demonstrate how the international community has failed to do that, compounding the tragedy of how little has been achieved.
A
dedicated trust fund has been set up by the United Nations to boost
youth volunteerism and harness the energy of young people around the
world to contribute to achieving development goals while enhancing their
own lives.
