International cooperation in Haiti: re-thinking the assistance model?

Abstract

This thesis aims to assess and analyze the effectiveness of foreign aid to Haiti, while once again the fragile Caribbean country, ranked among the poorest in the world, must recover from a disaster of an unprecedented magnitude. The international community has long been involved in the rehabilitation and development of Haiti, which became one of the main beneficiaries of official development assistance. However, despite this commitment, Haiti continues having difficulties to cope with economic, social and environmental challenges. International donors are now starting to be aware of the failures of the system of assistantship they have established. The first recognition has been the importance to strengthen the capacity of the Haitian state, too weak today to manage the aid and often bypassed for this reason. The second acknowledgment has been the necessity to rethink the governance on the side of the donors themselves. The international community, by failing to coordinate donors’ priorities with those of the recipient country, can indeed be set responsible for its inability to deliver aid in a way that strengthened governance and allowed development. Today the reconstruction of Haiti on the aftermath of the earthquake is the opportunity to put into practice principles of aid effectiveness. It is a test to put in place an inclusive assistance model, based on a Human Rights approach.