By Emma Fawcett*

A citizen of Beaumont, Haiti unloads hurricane relief supplies from USAID on October 13, 2016. / U.S. Air Force / Photo by Tech. Sgt. Russ Scalf / Flickr / Creative Commons

Hurricane Matthew, which made landfall on Haiti’s southwestern claw on October 4, devastated citizens’ lives, homes, and businesses – and set back much more across the country.  Some 546 are reported dead, and 128 are still listed as missing.  According to World Bank estimates, the Category 4 hurricane caused nearly $2 billion in damages, including $600 million in the agricultural sector.  The hard-hit southern peninsula provides about one-third of Port-au-Prince’s food supply, and the losses of crops and fishing equipment have long-term implications for food security.  Ninety percent of the homes in the South and Grand’Anse regions were damaged or destroyed, and according to the Environment Ministry, the storm sped up deforestation and has destroyed more recently planted trees.  The relief efforts have been poorly coordinated by Haiti’s interim government, resulting in press reports of looted aid convoys and sporadic protests.

The storm has also set back almost every key initiative underway in Haiti.

• Just two months after the United Nations finally acknowledged its role in bringing cholera to the country in 2010 (for which it subsequently proposed an aid package that includes restitution to victims), flooding and contaminated water have led to a dramatic increase in the number of cholera cases. An estimated 3,400 new cases have been reported in just the last four weeks.  With help from the World Health Organization, the Haitian Ministry of Health will begin administering 1 million doses of the oral cholera vaccine, but addressing cholera also necessitates serious improvements in access to safe water and sanitation.
• Haiti’s elections, scheduled for October 9 and already a year overdue, were rescheduled once more due to the hurricane. They are now set for November 20, but foreign observers and candidates alike indicate that major obstacles remain.  More than 770 schools, which are typically used as polling stations, were destroyed by the storm, and roads throughout the south remain impassable.

Once again, it falls to the international community to lend Haiti a hand, but donors have been sluggish.  During a visit in mid-October, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he was “disappointed by the response of the international community.”  Less than a third of the UN’s $120 million appeal for immediate hurricane relief has been raised – and the UN was already struggling to raise funds for its separate cholera fund.  Donor fatigue in the United States, where the government contributed several billion in tax dollars and more than half of citizens made private donations following the 2010 earthquake, has been deepened by widespread perceptions that money was wasted.  Poor coordination, wasteful spending by aid agencies, and political stagnation have meant that Haiti has little to show for the $9 billion in earthquake relief.  (The Red Cross, for example, spent $500 million on various projects, but, despite its stated focus on housing, famously built just six permanent homes.)  Canada’s anticipated assumption of leadership of MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping mission, from Brazil by the end of the year may help energize aid efforts.  Canada has a large Haitian diaspora population and Prime Minister Trudeau has signaled interest in taking a larger role in Haiti’s recovery, but Canada’s contributions to hurricane relief are still dwarfed by those of the United States.  Once again, Haiti lurches from one crisis to another – and it will continue to until aid and development efforts are better coordinated and the country achieves some measure of political stability.

October 31, 2016

* Emma Fawcett recently completed a Ph.D. in International Relations at American University.  Her doctoral thesis focused on the political economy of tourism and development in four Caribbean countries: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Mexican Caribbean.