Successes and Challenges for U.S. Policy to Haiti: Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, July 15, 2003

Chairman Richard Lugar opened the hearing by describing Haiti as the poorest country in the hemisphere, with annual per capita income of $225 and life expectancy of 52.4 years, and by noting that Haitians in the United States send more than $708 million home each year. The first panel brought the administration's view from the State and Treasury departments, including the announcement that Haiti had cleared $32 million in arrears to the Inter-American Development Bank, that the bank was expected to approve a $50 million loan with $35 million disbursed at once, and that $146 million in previously approved loans could begin to disburse.

The State Department statement gave more than $120 million in humanitarian assistance over two years and said the United States was the largest donor. The second panel heard Dr. Paul Farmer, who reprinted a Lancet article on the unjust embargo of aid to Haiti, Steven Forester of Haitian Women of Miami and Dr. Rudolph Moise of the Haitian Broadcasting Network. The record also contains statements by Senators Biden, Coleman and Dodd and answers to questions for the record.