Foreign Policy collects a series of photos from Haiti under the headline: "Why Does Now Look So Much Like Then?" The images are the thing - the text is brief stuff, but here's a sample:
Twelve months ago, with most Haitians nearly paralyzed by shock and the scale of devastation, attempts to clear the rubble -- a necessary first step toward rebuilding -- stalled. Lately, attempts to clear are finally picking up steam. But Jacques Gabriel, Haiti's minister for public works, recently estimated that it would be five years until the government would have sufficient infrastructure to function properly.
This should not be particularly surprising. Part of the failure here is due to the way we've learned donations flow - and, as Fox's Kathleen Foster notes, a lack of transparency for the entire process:
A year later, Americans are still seeing images of Haitians living in tents and wondering why. Their $10 dollar text donation may have helped pay for those gray tents with the black stripes. But Ben Smilowitz from The Disaster Accountability Project (www.disasteraccountability.org) says if donors want to know, they should ask.His watchdog group did just that, asking 200 aid organizations operating in Haiti to detail how much money they raised and how they are spending it. Only 38 of them responded to the survey. Those 38 collectively raised 1.4 billion dollars and say theyâ??ve so far spent about 700 million of it. However, Smilowitz says many refused to state clear goals and provide a breakdown of how they are spending donor money. He says transparency among aid groups is key to evaluating success in Haiti, but realizes it could also point out some flaws.
Of course, there are also barriers fundamental to the Haitian experience, which can certainly be read as being at odds with any sort of ordered liberty. One of the best essays on this topic is by former Latin America USAID guru Paul Bonicelli published last year in The City, which you can find here.
