(2009-05) Haiti: Is Economic Security Possible if Diplomats and Donors Do Their Part?
Summary — A USIP Peace Briefing by Robert Perito on the 2009 diplomatic surge around Haiti: the UN-sponsored Collier report, the April donors' conference, and what it would take to convert pledges into economic security.
Key Findings
- The April 2009 donors' conference pledged $324 million in new assistance. The Collier report proposed garment-assembly growth poles leveraging HOPE II trade preferences. Implementation depended on weak ministries, land and infrastructure bottlenecks, and fragile security. Perito argued pledges must disburse quickly through capacity-building mechanisms to produce visible results.
Full Description
This May 2009 USIP Peace Briefing takes stock of an unprecedented diplomatic push on Haiti: visits by the UN secretary-general, the Security Council, and Bill and Hillary Clinton; the UN-sponsored report by economist Paul Collier proposing garment-assembly growth poles under the HOPE II trade preferences; and the April 2009 Inter-American Development Bank donors' conference that pledged $324 million in new assistance. Perito weighs the opportunities against Haiti's implementation constraints, including weak ministries, land and infrastructure bottlenecks, and the still-fragile security environment, and argues that economic security will depend on donors disbursing quickly through mechanisms that build Haitian capacity, on the government delivering visible improvements, and on sustaining the security gains that made the opening possible. The briefing distills the optimistic pre-earthquake moment when Haiti was cast as a test case for internationally backed economic recovery.
Notes
USIP Peace Briefing; original publisher PDF recovered from Wayback (direct file capture)