In Haiti, A Long-Term Crisis Requires Long-Term Solutions

As previously mentioned, the crisis in Haiti dates back to its inception as a French slave colony.  This means that the crisis cannot be solved simply by the outpour of donations this past couple weeks for Haiti. 

Some have suggested that this means that people in the West shouldn’t donate or that we have donated enough already. This isn’t true either.

However, there are some ways that we make sure that the donations and aid work that is being done now makes a real difference in the long-term.

1. Give well. Here’s a great blog post about how to do this.

2. Aid should be used well.  Aid organizations should fund Haitians, not foreigners.  Developing countries have increasingly become viewed as “emerging markets”- places ripe to purchase Western products.  We cannot let a bunch of foreign contractors do the rebuilding work in Haiti when Haitians need jobs.

Long-term solutions:

1. Aid organizations and generous Western donors must remain committed to helping Haitians end the crisis of abject poverty, not just recover from the earthquake. Outreach International is going to stay committed to Haiti, will you?

2. The U.S. should open its market to Haitian products (and pay fair prices!). This would dramatically increase the number of jobs available in Haiti. 

3. The U.S should allow more Haitians to immigrate here. As Elliott Abrahams points out in the Washington Post, Haiti could significantly increase its revenue from remittances from Haitian immigrants in the U.S. if more Haitians could immigrate here.

As Mark Danner said in the NY Times: “The world’s greatest gift would be to make it possible, and necessary, for Haitians — all Haitians — to rebuild Haiti.”  We have to make sure that our efforts are supporting empowering real change in Haiti, not just disaster relief.

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