Joel Brinkley
The last time the
That was 12 years ago. Just over 12 days ago,
Weisenfeld spoke a few days after Haitian President
But Preval announced grand new plans -- to be executed with other people's money.
"We officially want to launch the reconstruction phase to allow these people to get out from underneath the tents," he proclaimed. "It will not be easy, and it requires a lot of resources." That will spawn an orgy of thievery. It has already begun.
In the spring, for example, Viettel, a Vietnamese telecommunications company, bought a majority share of
Five years ago, more than 100 leaders of nations and donor agencies issued the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, after decades of unproductive work in dozens of underdeveloped nations. Their primary conclusion: "Ownership: Developing countries should set their own strategies, improve their institutions and tackle corruption." In other words, let the national government take the lead.
But
Some officials had hoped the earthquake would change the status quo because nothing so terrible had ever happened before.
"When even the president of the country doesn't have a home, he is walking around in a daze, just like the rest of the people, you know that something has to shift if we don't want to waste another
That's not how it turned out. Sen.
Aid officers rightly point out that their work in the first months of recovery averted any major outbreaks of disease, like cholera or diarrhea. That was the easy part. Now donors have pledged up to
Clinton is a busy man, so primary responsibility falls back upon President Preval. Now, almost seven months after the earthquake, he hasn't gotten around to appointing an executive director for the reconstruction work. Could it be that he doesn't want to lose control of the money?
What's more, foreign governments are caustically noting that Preval has shown direct interest in only one group of displaced people, the residents of Champs de Mars, a squalid tent city that has grown up in front of the Presidential Palace. He is trying to clear them away.
If the world wants to help
Available at Amazon.com:
At War with the Weather: Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes
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(C) 2010 Joel Brinkley