Aug
11
Canada’s Aid to Haiti
An article by Ivy Mungcal on August 6, 2010 asks, “WHAT IS THE TRUTH ABOUT CANADA’S AID TO HAITI?” She quotes Roger Annis, a coordinator of the Canada Haiti Action Network, from an article published on Haiti Liberte entitled “Canada’s Failed Aid to Haiti.”
According to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), CIDA’s allocation of $150.15 million in humanitarian assistance includes:
- $32.27 million to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for emergency and transitional shelter, water and sanitation, and health services
- $71.33 million to United Nations humanitarian organizations. Of that amount:
- $43 million to the World Food Programme for food assistance, air transportation, emergency telecommunications and logistics
- $15 million to UNICEF for health, nutrition, protection, and water and sanitation
- $6.58 million to the UN Development Programme for debris removal and processing
- $3 million to the International Organization for Migration for emergency shelter
- $1.5 million to the Pan-American Health Organization for health care
- $1.5 million Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the coordination of international and local humanitarian efforts
- $500,000 to the UN Population Fund for multi-sectoral services for women and girls
- $250,000 to the UN Department of Safety and Security for safety and security
- $46.55 million to Canadian non-governmental organizations and partners, that includes:
- $25.15 million to the Canadian Red Cross for shelter kits, field hospital support, delivery of CIDA supplies, safe medical and surgical interventions through deployment of an emergency response unit, and provision of transitional shelter
- $8.3 million to World Vision Canada for emergency shelter, non-food items such as hygiene kits, and mosquito nets
- $6.2 million to Save the Children Canada for child protection and education
- $3 million to Oxfam Québec for water and sanitation, emergency shelter and non-food items
- $1.5 million to CARE Canada for emergency shelter, non-food items and hygiene kits
- $1 million to Médecins du Monde Canada to support a hospital in Cité-Soleil
- $900,000 to Centre for International Studies and Cooperation for non-food items, hygiene kits and emergency shelter materials
- $500,000 to CANADEM for deployment of Canadian Experts to UN organizations
While this appears to be significant, the Canadian Government actually pledged more than $1 billion, and then fudged the numbers in a variety of ways. For one thing, the total includes funding allocated as far back as 2006. For another, this includes the $220 million donated by Canadian individuals to relief organizations.
According to Roger Annis,
Other figures are also misleading. The $150 million figure noted on July 9 reflected spending announcements in January and April. The $400 million figure was announced by Canada at the March 31 UN Donors Conference. Media reports gave the impression that this $400 million is Canada’s contribution to the Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF) established at the conference. In fact, Canada’s contribution to the Fund is listed on the Fund’s website as “$30-$45 million” [funds listed are in US dollars].
It so happens that $30 million is the minimum payment required to secure a seat on Fund’s board of directors. The HRF’s spending decisions are controlled by international financial institutions, the Fund’s board of directors, and the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission. The latter consists of 26 members, half of whom are non-Haitian. It is chaired by former U.S. president Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Max Bellerive.
This is not atypical. “Few of the countries pledging to the Fund are in a rush to pay up. According to the undated pledge page on the Fund’s website, only three countries have met their pledges – Brazil, Australia and Estonia, for a total of US$64 million. Canada says it will pay up ‘soon.'”
The Canadian government spokespeople then expressed concerns about President Clinton’s very public complaint that countries are failing to meet their commitments. But rather than be embarrassed they should do something about it.
The [Haiti Reconstruction] Fund’s total pledges amount to a paltry US$509 million. The $5.3 billion-plus figure which the international media reports as pledged to Haiti consists of promises by the world’s governments and aid agencies at the March 31 conference, in all forms and covering the next 18 months.
For Haiti, there is a major concern with the promises. The record following previous natural disasters is that the majority of funds promised are never paid. There is every reason to believe that this will again be the case unless significant political pressure demands aggressive and meaningful reconstruction aid from the world’s big powers.
There is another flaw in the international financial promises: very little aid is going to Haitian organizations. Dr. Paul Farmer of the prestigious Partners In Health testified before the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC on July 27 that of the $1.8 billion in earthquake relief sent to Haiti to date, only three percent was delivered to the Haitian government. Even Canada’s outgoing Governor General, the Haitian-born Michaëlle Jean, was moved to say in France recently: “The time has come to break with the logic of aid that has transformed Haiti into a laboratory [for NGOs]” [Agence France Presse, Jul. 20].
Annis’s article concludes by quoting several press and eye-witness accounts that “Aid still desperately needed”:
Canadians who have recently visited or are still working in Haiti continue to express anger and dismay with the slow pace of reconstruction. La Presse reporter Patrick Lagacé wrote upon arrival in Port-au-Prince on Jul. 9: “This is what strikes the visitor returning to Port-au-Prince six months after the earthquake. Nothing has changed. Or very little. Too little.”
Member of Parliament Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt) wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on July 20: “I have recently returned from a trip to Haiti. I was appalled by the living conditions of the victims of the Jan. 12th earthquake. Six months is too long for victims to wait for the rebuilding process to begin,” he wrote. “We must act now.”
The Quebec-based Architectes de l’urgence (“Emergency Architects”) says it has been waiting three months for funds from the UN and European Union so they can begin to construct shelters. “We still haven’t seen a dime,” says its president, Patrick Coulombel.
“Six months after the earthquake, reconstruction has hardly begun,” he told Agnes Gruda of La Presse, as reported on July 9. “This is completely abnormal.”
On July 12, CBC News cited Hans van Dillen, head of mission for Doctors Without Borders, as follows: “What we see when we drive around Port-au-Prince is that the situation is pretty much as it was after the earthquake.”
“Removing the rubble left behind by this disaster, reaching remote areas with building materials, and obtaining permissions to build from landowners remain our main challenges to providing sturdy shelter for families,” Conrad Sauvé, secretary general of the Canadian Red Cross, told the same CBC news report.
Two of the most pressing needs in Haiti today are the clearing of rubble from the streets and neighbourhoods, and the construction of temporary or permanent shelter. According to UN agencies, 125,000 durable shelters are needed, but only 5,000 have been constructed.
With all of the equipment and resources available in wealthy countries like Canada, such immediate needs should be well on the road to being met. Yet, they persist. It is a testimony to the failure of will and good intentions of the world’s wealthy governments.
This is a travesty, but it’s also a reality. Those of us in developed countries must speak out clearly—as President Clinton has done—that the international community must meet its commitments. We must also demand full transparency and accountability for the funds contributed to relief organizations. What is being done is inadequate, poorly coordinated, and increasingly frustrating. Whether it is truly leading the Haitian people, as Annis suggests, “to take their destiny back into their hands and launch the reconstruction effort that their foreign overseers are so demonstrably unable to lead” remains to be seen.
The latest twists in this sad story include some 38 candidates for President—including Wyclef Jean, who until recently was running Yele Haiti, which has been making significant contributions to disaster relief; but Jean is now under a cloud for being hit with $2.1 million in IRS tax liens; and Leslie Voltaire, currently U.N. Special Envoy of the Government of Haiti…