New York Times Editorial

The Interim Haiti Recov­ery Com­mis­sion was set up after the Jan. 12 earth­quake as a joint Haitian-international effort to effec­tively chan­nel bil­lions of dol­lars of donated recon­struc­tion aid.

Like every­thing else about the recov­ery effort, the com­mis­sion, led by Prime Min­is­ter Jean-Max Bel­lerive and for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton, has been too slow off the mark. But we were encour­aged by its sec­ond meet­ing in Port-au-Prince this month, where it announced dozens of new projects with clear bench­marks and the com­mit­ment of more than $1 bil­lion to com­plete them.

The com­mis­sion finally has its exec­u­tive direc­tor, a Hait­ian, Gabriel Ver­ret, a for­mer eco­nomic adviser to Pres­i­dent René Pré­val. About 30 cru­cial staff posi­tions are still unfilled, a trou­bling sign. With­out a full, per­ma­nent staff, the com­mis­sion will surely have a harder time show­ing results and press­ing donors to meet pledges.

The goals out­lined at the meet­ing include clear­ing a mil­lion cubic meters of rub­ble in Port-au-Prince and build­ing enough short-term hur­ri­cane shel­ters for 400,000 to 500,000 peo­ple — both by Novem­ber. The longer-term plans include a two-year, $4.3 bil­lion rein­ven­tion of Haiti’s pub­lic school sys­tem, a $200 mil­lion pro­gram for agri­cul­tural devel­op­ment, and a $15 mil­lion, 320-bed teach­ing hos­pi­tal in Mire­bal­ais, in cen­tral Haiti.

The hos­pi­tal is a project of Part­ners in Health, an exem­plary non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion whose founder, Paul Farmer, has spo­ken force­fully about the need to break bad old habits of inter­na­tional aid, which in half a cen­tury has never reached the goal of cre­at­ing a func­tion­ing coun­try run by Haitians for Haitians. At a Capi­tol Hill hear­ing in July, he noted that only 3 per­cent of earth­quake aid had gone to the Hait­ian government.

The low fig­ure is under­stand­able, since the gov­ern­ment was weak to begin with and dev­as­tated by the quake. Dr. Farmer’s larger point is valid. Rebuild­ing Haiti requires build­ing a func­tion­ing, respon­sive Hait­ian state. A hos­pi­tal that teaches a new gen­er­a­tion of Hait­ian doc­tors and nurses, meet­ing an aching need for med­ical care while spurring the home-grown econ­omy, is a fine exam­ple of how to do that.

Com­mis­sion mem­bers and sup­port­ers insist that by the stan­dards of inter­na­tional bureau­cra­cies, they are mov­ing quickly and effi­ciently. Per­haps. But Haiti’s urgent and unmet needs are staggering.

The Inter­na­tional Fed­er­a­tion of Red Cross and Red Cres­cent Soci­eties recently announced that it was dis­trib­ut­ing new plas­tic tarps to 80,000 fam­i­lies. They are replac­ing old tarps that have frayed in the last seven months while peo­ple have waited, fruit­lessly, for homes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/opinion/30mon2.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss