Haiti: Is Economic Security Possible if Diplomats and Donors Do Their Part?

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.