NewsWhore
01-27-2010, 05:10 PM
Writing in today's Diario Libre, economist Gustavo Volmar focuses on the challenge of building Haiti.
"With the devastation caused by the earthquake, it would appear that in Haiti one has to start from zero, do it all new. This is a magnificent intention, but the fact is that Haiti will continue to have the same problems it had before the disaster, only that these will be more severe. Its deforested territory. Its uneducated population. Its dependency on remittances and donations. Its ungovernability.
It is unlikely that those conditions, which are caused by ecological and human factors, will be resolved with the reconstruction of dwellings, ports or highways.
Reconstruction projects, with resources from the US, the European Union, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, foundations and other organizations, will no doubt generate temporary economic activity that will create temporary jobs, opportunities for foreign and local engineering companies, a great business in construction materials and many contracts for international consultants.
The experience of other catastrophes indicates that the benefit of aid is greater when reconstruction restores previously existing sources of production. That is the case of Aceh in Indonesia, devastated by the tsunami of December 2004, which has achieved admirable recovery.
But where these sources do not exist, dependency on aid becomes permanent.
In Darfur, Sudan, affected for years not by natural disaster but by war, hundreds of thousands of people remain in camps created by the United Nations where they have shelter, food and medical care - for the simple reason that they are better off there than they were before the conflict.
The challenge for Haiti is to create permanent sources of work and to change the real causes that have made it a dysfunctional state, for when Haiti is no longer news and what is deemed as reconstruction concludes.
See: http://diariolibre.com/noticias_print.php?id=231971&s=... (http://diariolibre.com/noticias_print.php?id=231971&)
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#11)
"With the devastation caused by the earthquake, it would appear that in Haiti one has to start from zero, do it all new. This is a magnificent intention, but the fact is that Haiti will continue to have the same problems it had before the disaster, only that these will be more severe. Its deforested territory. Its uneducated population. Its dependency on remittances and donations. Its ungovernability.
It is unlikely that those conditions, which are caused by ecological and human factors, will be resolved with the reconstruction of dwellings, ports or highways.
Reconstruction projects, with resources from the US, the European Union, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, foundations and other organizations, will no doubt generate temporary economic activity that will create temporary jobs, opportunities for foreign and local engineering companies, a great business in construction materials and many contracts for international consultants.
The experience of other catastrophes indicates that the benefit of aid is greater when reconstruction restores previously existing sources of production. That is the case of Aceh in Indonesia, devastated by the tsunami of December 2004, which has achieved admirable recovery.
But where these sources do not exist, dependency on aid becomes permanent.
In Darfur, Sudan, affected for years not by natural disaster but by war, hundreds of thousands of people remain in camps created by the United Nations where they have shelter, food and medical care - for the simple reason that they are better off there than they were before the conflict.
The challenge for Haiti is to create permanent sources of work and to change the real causes that have made it a dysfunctional state, for when Haiti is no longer news and what is deemed as reconstruction concludes.
See: http://diariolibre.com/noticias_print.php?id=231971&s=... (http://diariolibre.com/noticias_print.php?id=231971&)
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#11)