(2009-09) Haiti After the Donors' Conference: A Way Forward (Special Report 232)
Summary — USIP Special Report 232, by Robert Maguire, assesses whether the $353 million pledged at the April 2009 donors' conference can reverse Haiti's poverty and instability, and lays out priorities for aligning donor action with Haitian government capacity.
Key Findings
- Donors pledged $353 million at the April 2009 conference, on top of hundreds of millions from earlier pledges. Past aid surges that bypassed the Haitian state failed to build lasting capacity. The report urges investment in agriculture and decentralized growth beyond Port-au-Prince, alongside the Collier report's export-assembly poles. Security gains from 2007 remained fragile without jobs for at-risk urban youth.
Full Description
Written after the mid-April 2009 Inter-American Development Bank donors' conference that pledged $353 million for Haiti, this September 2009 Special Report surveys the country's persistent poverty, inequality, and vulnerability to external shocks following the 2008 storms and food-price riots, and asks what would make the new resources count. Maguire reviews the Collier report's growth-pole prescriptions, the government's poverty-reduction strategy, and the record of past aid surges that bypassed the Haitian state. The report argues for strengthening government capacity rather than routing aid around it, investing in agriculture and rural livelihoods alongside export assembly, decentralizing economic opportunity beyond Port-au-Prince, and sustaining security gains through jobs for at-risk youth. It closes with recommendations for U.S. policy, urging patient, coordinated engagement anchored in Haitian institutions. Published four months before the January 2010 earthquake, it captures the pre-quake development debate whose themes recur in every subsequent recovery plan.
Notes
USIP Special Report 232; original publisher PDF recovered from Wayback (direct file capture)