Still Shaky
A Year After the Earthquake in Haiti, the Key to Stability Is to Build the State
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Donor Cooperation
In the aftermath of the earthquake, donors effectively coordinated their humanitarian assistance, applying lessons learned from previous disasters around the world. But coordinating reconstruction assistance, as well as ongoing development aid, has proven more challenging.
The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), a joint Haitian government and donor body, was established to oversee this reconstruction and to improve donor coordination. Eventually, the IHRC is supposed to convert into an ongoing Haitian Development Authority without a foreign decisionmaking role. In addition, a multidonor trust fund, called the Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF), has been established for donors to pool their contributions, reduce overlap, and simplify management and administration. The World Bank’s International Development Agency is trustee for the fund. In all, 59 donors have pledged $9.9 billion in support of these plans.
AP IMAGES/BRENNAN LINDSEY
U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama shakes hands with workers from the United Nations and nongovern-
mental organizations during a visit to Port-au-Prince on April 13, 2010.
Our recommendations for donors are aimed at making the IHRC and HRF function effectively, at harnessing the power of NGOs and Haitian communities, and at helping the United States play a leadership role. All major donors, including the United States, should strongly support the HRF, encourage NGOs to support state-building, and exercise political leverage when needed.
It is striking that the United States, which has contributed 40 percent of official aid flows to Haiti for several years, has so far requested congressional authorization to donate up to only $120 million to the multibillion-dollar HRF. Only a substantial commitment to this fund will ensure that the United States has influence over its use — an influence commensurate with the overall U.S. contribution to Haiti. As a general rule, every official donor to Haiti should channel a significant portion of its aid through the HRF, since this fund can support state-building activities most efficiently.
International NGOs, which now have plentiful funds from the outpouring of donations from around the world, should channel the money toward the long-term goal of eliminating Haiti’s need for their support. NGOs should be expected either to make grants equal to 10 percent of their program funds directly to the Haitian state, including for budget support, or to pay customs duties on their imported vehicles and supplies. NGOs should also be required to withhold regular Haitian payroll and income taxes for their Haitian and expatriate staff.
There is no purely programmatic solution to many of Haiti’s problems. Only politics will lead to reform on the necessary scale. Given that donors will be contributing an amount equivalent to 57 percent of Haiti’s gross domestic product through 2011, and given that the top five donors (Venezuela, the Inter-American Development Bank, the United States, the European Union, and Spain) will account for more than two-thirds of this total, these donors should wield substantial influence on the political process. But political leverage will produce results only if it is exercised in a calculated yet discreet, careful, and sensitive fashion.
A prerequisite for better cooperation among donors is better coordination within the U.S. government. As in the Balkans during the 1990s and in Afghanistan and Pakistan today, U.S. policymaking can be strengthened by the appointment of a full-time, high-level coordinator with the rank and access to consult with the Haitian president and prime minister and to oversee the Haiti assistance budgets and policies of all U.S. government agencies. In September, the U.S. Department of State made progress by announcing the appointment of Thomas Adams as Haiti Special Coordinator, after RAND had recommended the creation of such a position. To improve donor coordination, and to support UN Special Envoy and IHRC Co-Chair Bill Clinton, the recently appointed Adams should now lead an effort to create a behind-the-scenes “friends of Haiti” small group of the largest bilateral and multilateral donors.
State-building requires more than sound policies, for it is intimately connected with politics.
Core Priorities
The earthquake was a tragedy of extraordinary proportions. But the recovery effort now provides an opportunity to rectify some of the long-term problems besetting the Haitian state and burdening its people.
We have highlighted the need for improvements in public administration because effective bureaucratic institutions with well-qualified personnel, sound procedures, and clear responsibilities are the backbone of the state. Justice and security are priority areas for reform because they are essential to promoting the stability required for improvements in many other areas. Growth-oriented economic and infrastructure policies are crucial to lifting the Haitian people out of poverty. And ensuring the provision of accessible and reasonably high-quality education and health care is essential to the population’s well-being. Improving these services would also help keep more of the middle class in Haiti, raising the skill level of the workforce.
But state-building requires more than sound policies, for it is intimately connected with politics. State-building in Haiti cannot proceed without executive decisiveness, legislative action, and eventually the development of a national consensus on changing the constitution. A considerable burden rests on the shoulders of Haiti’s political leaders, who will need to rise to the challenge of overcoming a history of fractiousness, patronage, and indecision. Donors have a role to play as well, working behind the scenes to help propel Haiti’s success. 
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