Contextualizing Haiti’s earthquake

While most coverage of Haiti focuses on the extent of the disaster and rescue efforts, yesterday’s New York Times editorial and op-ed pages had some excellent analysis.

The editorial board links the extent of the damage to poor governance:

Once again, the world weeps with Haiti. The earthquake that struck on Tuesday did damage on a scale that scarcely could have been imagined had we all not seen the photos and videos and read the survivors’ agonizing accounts – of the sudden crumbling of mountainside slums, schools, hospitals, even the Parliament building and presidential palace…

An earthquake this size would have been a catastrophe in any country. But this was only partly a natural disaster. Look at Haiti and you will see what generations of misrule, poverty and political strife will do to a country. Haiti, suffering forever, is in the direst straits. But Haitians do not need condolences. They need help and the ability to help themselves.

Tracy Kidder explains why Haiti remains poor even though it is awash in foreign aid:

…at least 10,000 private organizations perform supposedly humanitarian missions in Haiti, yet it remains one of the world’s poorest countries. Some of the money that private aid organizations rely on comes from the United States government, which has insisted that a great deal of the aid return to American pockets – a larger percentage than that of any other industrialized country.

But that is only part of the problem. In the arena of international aid, a great many efforts, past and present, appear to have been doomed from the start. There are the many projects that seem designed to serve not impoverished Haitians but the interests of the people administering the projects. Most important, a lot of organizations seem to be unable – and some appear to be unwilling – to create partnerships with each other or, and this is crucial, with the public sector of the society they’re supposed to serve.

The usual excuse, that a government like Haiti’s is weak and suffers from corruption, doesn’t hold – all the more reason, indeed, to work with the government. The ultimate goal of all aid to Haiti ought to be the strengthening of Haitian institutions, infrastructure and expertise.

Pooja Bhatia explains why Haitians pray:

…there was singing all over town: songs with lyrics like “O Lord, keep me close to you” and “Forgive me, Jesus.” Preachers stood atop boxes and gave impromptu sermons, reassuring their listeners in the dark: “It seems like the Good Lord is hiding, but he’s here. He’s always here.”…

Why, then, turn to a God who seems to be absent at best and vindictive at worst? Haitians don’t have other options. The country has a long legacy of repression and exploitation; international peacekeepers come and go; the earth no longer provides food; jobs almost don’t exist. Perhaps a God who hides is better than nothing.

Read them all.

The development first crowd (II)

Many countries are poor because economic development is a threat to political control. This seems to be the logic behind North Korea’s recent currency devaluation, which largely destroyed the emerging middle class in the impoverished country. It seems that the government feared the emergence of an economically-independent class of people, so it simply destroyed their wealth. This is not an isolated occurrence. Zimbabwe’s economic nightmare stems from Robert Mugabe’s fanatical devotion to clinging to political power, for example. Lack of political rights facilitates these types of wealth-destroying activities. The main point is that poverty in countries like North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe is a deliberate policy.

Even in countries with more benign governments, such as Nigeria, poverty is the result of elite corruption. The economic development first crowd often treats poverty as an accident. All to often, it’s politically engineered.