Out of the ashes: What Next for the UN in Haiti?

Johanna Mendelson Forman

Senior Associate of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington

 

After it had been devastated by three hurricanes in September 2008 Haiti was moving forward in 2009. The country was slowly showing signs of recovery. Private investments had started to return. The assembly sector was creating new jobs. On the day before the earthquake struck Port au Prince a public television program about failed states highlighted Haiti’s progress and suggested that it had turned the corner toward a more sustainable economy. Then disaster struck.

As the dust clears from the rubble that is now Port au Prince the United Nations announced that governments and aid agencies rebuilding Haiti should save at least 10 percent of the money collected to rebuild Haiti for future disasters. This request for a disaster set aside underscores just how vulnerable Haiti is after a 7.0 earthquake on the Richter scale leveled Port au Prince in what must be the worst natural disaster in the history of the Western Hemisphere. (...)

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