Haiti is drowning in a flood of foreign aid. Despite receiving almost $1.5 billion since 1990 from the United States alone, 80 percent of Haitians still live below the poverty line, less than a third have formal jobs, and its government is one of the most corrupt in the world. Clearly, foreign aid has failed Haiti.
But you can be sure that once Haiti finally recovers from last month’s devastating earthquake, the floodgates of foreign aid will once again be unleashed, and the misguided kindness and sympathy of the industrialized world will continue to suppress the growth of domestic Haitian political, social and economic institutions.
Already, there have been proposals for multi-billion dollar development programs. But any such program, just like those of the past 20 years, will surely fail. The reason is that Haiti suffers from an institutional deficiency. At the core of its problems are an ineffective judiciary, a crooked political system and a corrupt police force. Without the necessary institutions in place, most of the foreign aid to Haiti simply falls through the cracks of inefficiency and corruption. The rest usually ends up usurping the responsibilities of the government and private sector, which only serves to further stunt the development of Haiti’s institutions.
The failures of the United States’ aid policy for Haiti are made clear in a 2006 report from the National Academy of Public Administration entitled “Why Foreign Aid to Haiti Failed.” We build up Haiti’s infrastructure, but the government refuses to maintain it – so we do it for them. We provide food aid, which ends up putting the farmers of Haiti’s predominately agricultural economy out of business. We try to make aid conditional on the promotion of democracy and good governance, but Haitian politicians know that we’ll still give them aid even without making concrete improvements. We even train many of their teachers and doctors.
But how long is this cycle of dependency going to last? If all we’re going to do is pour more money into the same failed strategies of the past, Haiti might as well apply for statehood, because it will never be able to take care of itself. But as the first independent nation in Latin America and the first black republic to declare its independence, I doubt that’s what Haitians want to do.
A new strategy is needed. Foreign aid can’t improve Haiti’s political and economic institutions – only Haitians can do that. But first they must be given the opportunity. So the United States should develop a strategy that focuses on weaning Haiti off its dependency.
A good start would be to gradually reduce aid to Haiti over the next 10 years, which would force Haitians to take more initiative over their economy and empower them to choose the course of their own future. Of course, the road out of poverty won’t be easy, and it certainly won’t be quick. But history has shown that the more independence a country has during this transition, the greater the chance that the results will be long-lasting.
