In an almost comical turn of events, more second-hand and counterfeit goods are on their way to Haiti. These sorts of efforts, while certainly well intentioned, are not constructive. They do not contribute to real reconstruction and recovery efforts.
For a more well developed take on the issue, see here.
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It’s been way too long since I’ve written a real post here. Since before the new year, I was busy preparing grad school applications, writing essay after essay after essay, and every time I’d sit down to blog, I felt a twinge of guilt for not spending that creative energy on my applications. Then there [...]
From the NY Times Editorial Page:
The emergency in Haiti isn’t over. It’s getting worse, as the outside world’s attention fades away.
Misery rages like a fever in the hundreds of camps sheltering hundreds of thousands of the 1.3 million people left homeless by the Jan. 12 earthquake. The dreaded rains have already swamped [...]
Published on Toward Freedom
An interview of Haitian peasant advocate Chavannes Jean-Baptiste by Beverly Bell
Chavannes Jean-Baptiste is the Executive Director of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP by its Creole acronym) and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP). He gave this interview last month in MPP’s training center [...]
From Michael Deibert:
A huge recovery challenge lies ahead for Haiti after its devastating earthquake, but could the rebuilding programmes bring about an essential economic restructuring? Michael Deibert reports from Port-au-Prince.
The incremental economic progress that Haiti, an impoverished Caribbean nation of 9 million people, had been experiencing over the past [...]
Below is a summary of recent positive signs in Haiti’s political and economic development. They come from testimony by Mark L. Schneider, Senior Vice President, International Crisis Group to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection on Haiti’s Reconstruction: Smart Planning Moving Forward, 4 [...]
I continue to be overwhelmed by the acts of solidarity I am witnessing. My former Peace Corps community, Batey 8, a Haitian and Haitian-Dominican village and itself one of the poorest settings in the Dominican Republic, is sending volunteers into Haiti and to the Haitian-Dominican border town of Jimani to assist with the relief efforts.
For [...]
The sad truth is that the international community does not have a long attention span. Humanitarian relief efforts galvanize millions, even billions of dollars in the short-term, only to lose steam once the cameras turn off and the reporters go home.
In this regard, it’s crucial that we support organizations that were present in Haiti before [...]
Watch a new video CGAP has produced about Fonkoze’s Chemen Lavi Miyò (Pathway to a Better Life) program for Haiti’s poorest. It will inspire you.
Why is it never the sound of car windows shattering, nor mobs shouting, nor gunshots firing that first alerts me to the occurrence of another student protest. Instead, it’s a faint tingle, then slight burning in my throat and nose. The product of tear gas launched into orbit by riot police.
Is this a preventive strategy? [...]
The world’s poorest women don’t need loans. They don’t need micro-credit. Their needs are too great and too urgent. Instead of calculated investment, dire circumstances force the poorest to consume with their loan. For many, it’s a question of watching your children go hungry so you can invest today and reap tomorrow, or consuming for [...]
There’s something addictive about “the field.” Out in the countryside, among peasants, where the roads transform into rocky, uneven earth. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely remove myself from this environment. It’s refreshing, rejuvenating.
Here in Haiti, the countryside is certainly not the idyllic, contented landscape it’s often romanticized to be. Haiti’s countryside [...]
According to the Times, no new agreements were reached at Haiti’s recent investment conference. Nevertheless, the simple fact that we are talking about an investment conference, and not a donor conference, is a huge step in the right direction. And even if no landmark deal was conceived, it is significant that investors from all over [...]
The UN’s dynamic duo, former President Bill Clinton and public health saint Paul Farmer, arrived in Haiti today to see what they could do about helping Haiti “escape it’s history,” as Clinton has put it. They spoke today at my favorite spot for Wifi and a good Hamburger, Haiti’s lovely Karibe Hotel. It’s also a [...]
I have dengue for the third time. It’s been confirmed. Thanks modern science. I found out at a glossy, seemingly state of the art hospital here in Port-au-Prince. The only really caveat is that all the rooms are about 33% smaller than they’d be in the States. Smaller doctor’s offices, smaller waiting rooms, smaller bathrooms. [...]
I just got back into Port-au-Prince from a few days of field-work in Cap-Haitian and some surrounding towns. The seven to eight hour trip up to Haiti’s northern coast is bad enough under normal conditions, see here, but making the trip while suffering from what I assume was dengue made a bad trip a nightmare.
[...]
But there should be something up soon. With the past few weeks of vacationing, essay writing, and more vacationing, there’s tons to reflect on. Soon.
In the meantime, here are some shots of the Dominican Republic’s most famous batey – Batey #8.
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Tagged: Cap-Haitian, Haiti, Haitian Moonshine Distillery, Jacmel
Life is about telling stories, narrating events. With this in mind, allow me to share the story of how I arrived in Haiti:
My story begins in the Dominican Republic, across the border from Haiti, where I was a Peace Corps volunteer. The Dominican Republic is a steadily developing, middle income country. Because of its stunning [...]
My trips out to the field are rejuvenating even if physically draining. Clients poor enough to qualify for Fonkoze’s “Ti Kredi” program – micro, microcredit – tend not to live in or nearby large population centers. And it’s not uncommon to spend two hours trudging along narrow dirt paths before reaching their small, sparsely populated [...]
Yes, indeed! I’ll be leaving Port-au-Prince again tomorrow on another eight hour trip up to Haiti’s emerald green north coast. As already discussed, Fonkoze’s Ti Kredi program is expanding and that means new or expanded programs in four northern branch offices: Lenbe, Milot, Trou-du-Nor, Cap-Haitien.
Point of clarification: Haiti has two official languages, French and Haitian [...]
IF a sizeable market is required to achieve economies of scale, is it therefore less likely that a small nation could provide sufficient incentive for multiple economic interests to invest heavily in producing the same product? And if not, does this not incline the market toward fewer producers and…oligarchy?
This is something I began pondering while [...]
I woke up this morning in Gonaїves. It’s an arid city in an already arid northwest that gusts chalk-white dust. It was 4:08 am.
The day before, I left Port-au-Prince on what was supposed to be an 8 hour trip to Haiti’s northern coast. I had planned a meeting with my Ti Kredi team for that [...]
Bill Clinton arrived today in Haiti, making his first visit as United Nations Special Envoy where he will try to focus international attention on the small Caribbean nation. And, as luck would have it, I think I saw his motorcade passing through downtown Port-au-Prince.
I had a bit of a headache toward the end of the [...]
If a woman is too poor to take care of one child, what is she doing with seven? That’s my question. It’s not out of reproach, it’s just that I’ve seen my share of too-poor-for-a-single-child women carrying for five, six, seven, and yes, even twelve children. And then there’s often a bulge in her belly [...]
This book apparently does: it’s called What’s Wrong with Microfinance?
But don’t be too quick to write it off as a cynic’s polemic. The chapter summary makes it look like a book written by concerned microfinance practitioners – not by ideologues with an axe to grind.
But concerned about what? Concerned that too many institutions are jumping [...]
I have this video and I wanted to show it as an example of Haiti’s musical prowess – but the night was dark and the lighting wasn’t spectacular. The power and precision of the drummers is remarkable, though hardly visible here. Instead, what is on display is a brief window into Haiti’s drum-culture and a [...]
It’s been surprising to see that Michael Jackson’s death is even being mourned here in Haiti. Today on the radio, at least three radio stations paid tribute to the King of Pop. It’s been all Michael, all the time.
Tagged: Haiti, King of Pop, Michael Jackson
Here is a microfinance-expert and microfinance-cynic. He’s currently writing a book on the question, available free online here, and is not on board with the “hype” surrounding the field’s power to reduce poverty.
The expert in question is a research fellow at the well-respected Center for Global Development, a Washington-based think tank dedicated to “Independent research [...]
What do some bright statisticians say about the elections in Iran? Was there tampering? Look no further than here and here.
Tagged: Columbia University, Fraud, Iran, Iranian Elections, Statistics
The international development field has a martyrs’ mentality. Because the field is dedicated to alleviating poverty and suffering, many development practitioners feel obliged to live in some form of poverty and take on hardships they wouldn’t seek out if in a different field. These hardships take many forms, but range all the way from not [...]
How do we end world hunger? Here’s an attempt led by Bill Gates, the World Food Programme, and some African despots.
Because I get to spend days out in the countryside “transferring assets” to some of Haiti’s poorest women. Here I am transferring a goat.
Tagged: Goats, Haiti
Yesterday, an afternoon downpour achieved what all the Haitian National Police probably never could – at least not peacefully – that is, disrupt the university students’ increasingly aggressive protests.
Our peaceful drenching also allowed me a smooth commute home after work because people weren’t jamming into a few “safe” streets in order to avoid being hit [...]
Haiti’s university students continue to protest the current minimum wage of less than $2 a day. For about the past week, downtown Port-au-Prince has played host to afternoon confrontations between university students and national police forces. The students have blocked traffic with burning barricades and some within the larger mass have been throwing rocks at [...]
Here is a “Konbit,” when many get together to make work lighter. I’ll write someting more when I’ve got a spare moment, but I wanted to get the video online. The konbit takes place out in Haiti’s rural Central Plateau.
Tagged: Agriculture, Central Plateau, Haiti, Konbit
For the past few days, university students have been protesting against Haiti’s official minimum wage. The heart of the protests seems to be a university located not far from Fonkoze’s central office. As I’ve already written, Fonkoze is close enough to the protests to feel the tear gas shot off by the Haitian National Police.
The [...]
Today marked my first experience with tear gas. I wasn’t burning tires. I wasn’t protesting. I wasn’t even shouting. But this afternoon as I sat outside eating lunch my nostrils began to tickle, then burn. My throat did the same as my eyes quickly watered up.
It turns out that university students were protesting nearby and [...]
Humans have been settling land based on prevailing weather patterns and possibilities for agricultural production for thousands of years. In today’s rich countries, such a settling-criteria would be considered largely anachronistic. Nevertheless, in developing countries large swaths of the population still rely on subsistence farming, and so weather patterns continue to mean the difference between [...]
Today we begin a week of intensive training for the new group of Ti Kredi credit agents. We’ll be covering topics as diverse as micro-enterprise management, literacy, sexual/reproductive health, children’s rights, and environmental protection.
This is what is often referred to as “microfinance plus,” because of the additional focus on aspects of people’s lives that keep [...]
For the first time, I’m sitting on the side of the table that asks the questions. The side of the table that, without trying and without wanting to, makes nervous hands shake and unsure voices weak. It’s really a place fear-mongers should really never be allowed to sit in, because they’d have too much power.
As [...]
Ti Kredi, Fonkoze’s micro-finance program for the very poor, just received a sizable grant to expand in new areas across the country. That’s great news because, according to the agreement, we should be reaching about 3,800 new clients over the next year – clients too poor to fit into the plans of other microfinance institutions.
What’s [...]
Haiti was the first black republic. The first and only example of a slave revolution that successfully left a nation in its wake. On May 18th of each year, Haitians come together to remember these facts and their valiant revolutionary leaders as they celebrate their national Flag Day.
I spent this May 18th with some friends [...]
How have I been spending my time in Haiti? Here’s a list of this past week.
Visiting a Haitian artist colony in Croix de Bouquets. The artwork is made from scrap-metal cut and shaped into images of everyday life. The art deserves [...]
Here’s a thought on the question, should development agencies be flying in luxury? I couldn’t say it any better myself, so I won’t even try.
When giving long, formal trainings to someone who has never sat in a classroom, it’s always a good idea to mix in a little “fun.” This video is a quick example of me trying to do just that for a group of Fonkoze’s new CLM members. It’s a song and dance “ice-breaker” I learned while [...]
One of the most rewarding aspects of the Peace Corps experience is that you live life as close to a “local” as any foreigner ever could. Your housing, your transportation (horses, the bed of a pick-up, motorcycles from 1972, your own two feet), your food, your network of friends, they are all local. By the [...]
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