CIAO DATE: 09/2014
February 2006
The National Academy of Public Administration
This paper explains why, after consuming billions in foreign aid over three decades, and hundreds of millions specifically for governance and democratization programs, not to mention billions for other programs, Haiti remains politically dysfunctional and impoverished.
Researchers assembled mountains of documents covering every aspect of foreign aid to Haiti, as well as lessons learned and best practices in providing assistance to developing, fragile, failed, and post-conflict countries. Numerous drafts of this paper have been shared with experts, policymakers, and practitioners in foreign assistance, generally—and Haiti, specifically—for review. Haiti—an island [shared with the Dominican Republic] is a country of 8 million people about the size of Maryland just 600 miles off the coast of Florida—is an extreme case: it has received billions in foreign assistance, yet persists as one of the poorest and worst governed countries in the world. Haiti is strategically important to the United States because of: location; perpetual state of violence and instability affecting the region; support for drug trafficking; potential as a trading partner; strong ties to a large Haitian-American diaspora; counterbalance to Communist Cuba; and relationship with the Latin American and Caribbean communities.
Resource link: Why Foreign Aid to Haiti Failed [PDF] - 1.1M