By Kerry Kennedy and Monika Kalra Varma — Spe­cial to GlobalPost

WASHINGTON — Over­whelmed by sad­ness, empa­thy and dis­be­lief, the world’s eyes and hearts are focused on the res­cue and relief efforts result­ing from the earth­quake in Haiti.

How­ever, many who have worked in Haiti fear that a pre­ventable and long-term dis­as­ter lies on the hori­zon if inter­na­tional inter­ven­tions do not break with past pat­terns. As inter­na­tional aid pours into Haiti, we have a brief moment to avoid past mis­takes and bring real change to Haiti.

Dur­ing the eight years that the Robert F. Kennedy Cen­ter for Jus­tice and Human Rights has part­nered with the grass­roots med­ical group Zanmi Lasante/Partners In Health in Haiti, we have wit­nessed U.S and inter­na­tional aid efforts that could be char­ac­ter­ized, at best, as unsus­tain­able and, at worst, delib­er­ately harmful.

In 2000, the U.S. and the Inter-American Devel­op­ment Bank approved mil­lions of dol­lars of what would have been life­sav­ing loans to improve water, health, edu­ca­tion and road infra­struc­ture. Later these funds were with­held because of the U.S. government’s oppo­si­tion to then Pres­i­dent Bertrand Aris­tide. While the loans were even­tu­ally released, 10 years later the com­mu­ni­ties where the very first water projects were to be financed still lack access to reli­ably clean drink­ing water, con­tribut­ing to count­less deaths due to water­borne illness.

In 2004, the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity pledged $1 bil­lion to sup­port Haiti. The RFK Cen­ter, along with Zanmi Las­ante and the NYU Cen­ter for Human Rights and Global Jus­tice, tried to track the ful­fill­ment of those pledges, but never received clear and con­sis­tent answers from donor states on the sta­tus of the aid. With no trans­parency or coor­di­nat­ing body to turn to, the Hait­ian peo­ple had no hope of know­ing if that money ever got to Haiti, much less where it was directed and how it could be used to improve their com­mu­ni­ties. Hait­ian gov­ern­ment sources later con­firmed that most of the pledges had never been fulfilled.

In 2008, after hur­ri­canes rav­aged the coun­try, the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity con­vened another donor con­fer­ence result­ing in more than $324 mil­lion in pledges. Before the earth­quake, most of those pledges had still not been fulfilled.

His­tor­i­cally, inter­ven­tions in Haiti have been viewed through the lens of char­ity. The inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, NGOs, inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions and donor states have gath­ered time and again to announce to the world pledges of sup­port, only to qui­etly back away from these commitments.

The good­will of the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity is cer­tainly crit­i­cal today to Haiti’s future but char­ity alone will not be enough to rebuild a safer and more sus­tain­able Haiti. Only by forg­ing a new path, guided by a com­mit­ment to the human rights of the Hait­ian peo­ple, can the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity help to cre­ate real, last­ing change.

<!–

Char­ity is a per­sonal act of choice with no real reper­cus­sions. Human rights are legal oblig­a­tions, grounded in our shared acknowl­edge­ment of human dig­nity — some­thing that every gov­ern­ment must respect and no gov­ern­ment can take away.

In the after­math of this dis­as­ter, every coun­try and inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tion work­ing toward recov­ery in Haiti needs to ensure that their actions will pro­mote the respect and dig­nity of the Hait­ian peo­ple based on con­sti­tu­tion­ally and inter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized rights to water, health and education.

By part­ner­ing with the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment and local com­mu­ni­ties in assess­ing the nation’s recov­ery needs and mak­ing long-term pledges to sup­port the gov­ern­ment of Haiti in meet­ing these needs, donors can pave a sus­tain­able path towards recov­ery. Addi­tion­ally, the donor nations should com­mit to mak­ing their aid trans­par­ent so every Hait­ian knows where funds are going. Account­abil­ity mech­a­nisms are needed to ensure that the gov­ern­ment of Haiti, the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity and NGOs use these funds appropriately.

As the world looks for a way to help Haiti rebuild after the earth­quakes, the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity has the oppor­tu­nity to avert a sec­ond man-made dis­as­ter. The United States and other inter­na­tional donor states and insti­tu­tions must act now to end a painful his­tory of irre­spon­si­ble aid poli­cies in Haiti. In act­ing imme­di­ately, as recov­ery plans are devel­oped, we can honor the sur­vivors of this tragedy by sup­port­ing Haitians as they build a bet­ter Haiti.

Kerry Kennedy is Pres­i­dent and founder of the RFK Cen­ter for Jus­tice and Human Rights. Monika Kalra Varma is Direc­tor of the RFK Cen­ter for Human Rights.