what's going on with Haiti now?

A more serious post today.

I was revisiting an episode of This American Life that aired on May 21 called "Island Time," and it reminded me of a question that always seems to plague international aid. Simply: why isn't it working?

It seems that the more aid that is being pumped into so-called "developing" nations, the worse off they are.

Haiti has long been that sort of nation in the Western Hemisphere, becoming increasingly worse off within the past fifty years. Now, with the incredible influx of aid due to the earthquake, there is potential to do great good, but how? For example, one of several dilemmas: a lot of the aid money right now is going to food aid since many people are still stuck in displacement camps. But this means that it is no longer profitable for farmers to begin growing food since they will be competing with aid. Is it more acceptable to stop destabilizing an already poor country's economy, but at the same time stop providing food to people who desperately need it and make them buy it instead?

This podcast tells an amazing story of how these questions coupled with bureaucratic issues hinder the path between idea and implementation through a woman in the mango-growing town of Casale (shown below on google maps). All she needs is a small irrigation canal, but instead years go by, organizations (10,000 of them!) eat up money in negotiations, and nothing.

What spoke to me the most, having worked at USAID, is just how fickle aid agencies are. They want to see results quickly. They want success stories to put into newsletters and websites. But the fact is, real lasting success takes time. It takes building up community and allowing them to take ownership of their successes, but it's often just quicker to have foreigners in NGOs dream up projects in action memos but never have enough funding to see them through. I've seen USAID answer to the whims of Congress in ways that open and close projects, moving around funding from country to country, like a capricious child. No wonder aid doesn't work.

I hope that doesn't happen in Haiti. So many households in the US, even in this recession, gave money due to the recent tragedy. Let's not see that squandered. We might not see quick success stories, but we should let our congressman know it's the long term, community built success that counts.