Random thoughts on Haiti…literally

I hope that the Washington Post’s Alec MacGillis just googled “experts Haiti” for his recent story on rebuilding the country. The article appears to be a set of random and somewhat contradictory ideas from a haphazard survey of people who know something about Haiti. If it reflects the actual policy discussions taking place, they country will only improve by luck.

MacGillis starts with the standard discussion of poverty in Haiti:

Development efforts have failed there, decade after decade, leaving Haitians with a dysfunctional government, high crime and incomes averaging a dollar a day.

MacGillis then talks a bit about how the crisis gives Haiti a chance to start over with a new and improved set of policies and institutions:

“It’s terrible to look at it this way, but out of crisis often comes real change,” said Ross Anthony, the Rand Corporation’s global health director. “The people and the institutions take on the crisis and bring forth things they weren’t able to do in the past.”

The early thinking encompasses a broad swath of issues. Policymakers in Washington are considering whether to expand controversial trade provisions for Haiti and how to help fund the reconstruction for years into the future. The rule of law needs to be strengthened…

the recovery effort must build up…the Haitian government and civil society…

“National disasters, as awful as they are, you want to seize those moments…said Jordan Ryan, the assistant administrator of the United Nations Development Program.”

OK, I got it. Things were really bad in Haiti. The silver lining in the crisis is that it presents an opportunity to get a new and improved Haiti. MacGillis then seems to lose the thread of the story:

There is, to an extent, a development framework in place from efforts underway before the earthquake involving the Obama administration, the United Nations, a huge network of international aid groups and a Haitian government that, despite corruption, was viewed as more reliable than any in years…the Haitian economy actually grew by 2.5 percent in 2009, despite the global recession.

“We were really making progress,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday, before visiting the devastated capital on Saturday. “We had a good plan that was a Haitian plan. The Haitian government created the plan. It was realistic. It was focused. We worked with them…And it was certainly on track to be, in my view, a very positive effort.”

Now I am confused. If the country was making progress, why not stay with what was working? MacGillis doesn’t say. He doesn’t even acknowledge he wrote the exact opposite in previous paragraphs. Instead, he moves to the role of the Haitian government in reconstruction:

… some development veterans say a full rethinking is now in order. Gerald Zarr, who was the U.S. Agency for International Development’s director in Haiti between 1986 and 1990, said even more must be done to involve the Haitian government…

Others aren’t so sure. Putting more faith in Haitian authorities can only be done if there is a crackdown on corruption, said Stuart W. Bowen Jr.,… inspector general for the Iraq reconstruction.

Right. So the experts say we need to involve the government more. They also say the government should have less of a role. MacGillis never addresses this contradiction, either. Instead, the article moves to a few random policy areas that might be important for Haiti’s recovery:

William Loris, director general of the International Development Law Institute in Rome, points to another lesson from the tsunami: the role of the rule of law…

The international community is already wrestling with one major factor hanging over Haiti’s economic future, its crushing foreign debt…

Here, too, some progress had been made, with the International Monetary Fund announcing in July that the country’s reforms had qualified it for $1.2 billion in debt relief of the more than $1.9 billion it owed. On Friday, France contacted the so-called Paris Club, the informal group of financial officials representing the world’s wealthiest nations, to discuss speeding up relief.

OK. The international community has to get serious about reducing Haiti’s crushing foreign debt…even though they have already reduced it by two-thirds and promised to do more. Does MacGillis know he has stopped making sense? Does he care? Does the Washington Post have editors?

MacGillis then moves on to foreign aid:

Meanwhile, Peter Yeo, vice president for public policy at the United Nations Foundation, said the Obama administration needs to develop its strategy for appealing to Congress for additional aid for Haiti, beyond the $100 million in emergency aid Obama announced last week.

The use of meanwhile suggests that MacGillis isn’t even trying to make this coherent, but let’s get back to the policies:

But creating a new economy will rest on more than sacks of food and aid dollars, which is why others say the United States should revisit trade policies with Haiti…

James Roberts, a former foreign service officer in Haiti now at the Heritage Foundation, argues for liberalizing the fabric rules further, to lower Haitians’ costs. He also called for revisiting the “really destructive” U.S. tariffs on sugar to encourage growers in Haiti. Others say the United States should make it easier for Haiti to export its mangoes, which are prized by many American consumers but have faced hurdles with U.S. food safety rules

Some experts say that the answer is a rice revival.

OK.  So what do we learn from this article about what can help Haiti recover?

1. Things were bad in Haiti before the crisis.
2. Things were good in Haiti before the crisis.
3. The Haitian government needs to have big role in the recovery.
4. The Haitian government needs to have small role in the recovery.
5. Haiti needs to improve the rule of law.
6. Creditors need to write down Haiti’s debt.
7. Creditors reduced Haiti’s debt burden by two-thirds before the crisis and have already promised to do more.
8. Haiti needs more aid.
9. Encouraging the following exports may be helpful to Haiti’s economic recovery: textiles, sugar, and mangoes.
10. Haiti should grow more rice.

As I wrote earlier, I hope that MacGillis just randomly called a bunch of people who know something about Haiti and that the Washington Post has no editors, because if this is the type of advice the Haitian government is getting, it will only recover by luck.