Cen­ter for Eco­nomic and Pol­icy Research: Haiti Relief and Recon­struc­tion Watch

At the UN-backed donor con­fer­ence at the end of March, coun­tries and orga­ni­za­tions from all over the globe pledged over $10 bil­lion for Haiti relief. Over $5.3 bil­lion was pledged for fis­cal years 2010 and 2011. Now, nearly five months after the con­fer­ence, we take a look at the sta­tus of these pledges.

The UN Office of the Spe­cial Envoy for Haiti has been track­ing inter­na­tional assis­tance (PDF) from the top 30 donors, and despite the dire sit­u­a­tion on the ground and an imme­di­ate need for fund­ing, bil­lions have yet to be dis­trib­uted. Not includ­ing debt relief, the top 22 donors pledged an amaz­ing $2.6 bil­lion just for fis­cal year 2010, yet five months later, only 20 per­cent of this ($538.3 mil­lion) has been dis­trib­uted. How­ever, look­ing at where that money comes from reveals that few nations – and very few high-income coun­tries at all – have con­tributed to this. Over $200 mil­lion of that total has come from mul­ti­lat­eral orga­ni­za­tions such as the IDB, World Bank and IMF. Among coun­tries, the top three are Spain, which has dis­trib­uted $126.3 mil­lion, Japan, with $56.7 mil­lion, and Brazil with $55 mil­lion. The United States, which pledged $898.4 mil­lion in 2010, has not dis­trib­uted or even com­mit­ted any money so far.

The Haiti Recon­struc­tion Fund, a part­ner­ship between the Gov­ern­ment of Haiti and the Inter­na­tional Com­mu­nity and described as “the largest source of un-earmarked financ­ing,” has received only $100.7 mil­lion from Brazil, Nor­way, Aus­tralia, Colom­bia and Estonia.

One pos­i­tive is that, accord­ing to the Spe­cial Envoy for Haiti, of the $538.3 mil­lion that has been dis­trib­uted, at least $144.9 mil­lion has gone as bud­get sup­port (PDF) to the Gov­ern­ment of Haiti.  This com­pares with just 0.33 per­cent in bud­get sup­port — out of the $1,876.9 mil­lion — that has been spent in human­i­tar­ian relief.  Donors’ reliance on NGOs over the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment is rem­i­nis­cent of the approach taken by the US and other donors with the Aris­tide admin­is­tra­tion. As Paul Farmer tes­ti­fied before Con­gress:

Begin­ning in 2000, the U.S. admin­is­tra­tion sought, often qui­etly, to block bilat­eral and mul­ti­lat­eral aid to Haiti, hav­ing an objec­tion to the poli­cies and views of the admin­is­tra­tion of Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide, elected by over 90% of the vote at about the same time a new U.S. pres­i­dent was cho­sen in a far more con­tested elec­tion. How much influ­ence we had on other play­ers is unclear, but it seems that there was a great deal of it with cer­tain inter­na­tional finan­cial agen­cies, with France and Canada; our own aid, cer­tainly, went directly to NGOs, and not to the gov­ern­ment. Pub­lic health and pub­lic edu­ca­tion fal­tered, as did other ser­vices of spe­cial impor­tance to the poor.

Farmer added that, “How can there be pub­lic health and pub­lic edu­ca­tion with­out a stronger gov­ern­ment at the national and local levels?”

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/have-rich-countries-forgotten-haiti-key-facts-on-international-assistance