The Haiti earthquake story has moved from a straightforward human tragedy to one of recrimination over the delay in channelling humanitarian aid. Reports from the ground suggest that so far only a few trucks carrying food and water have managed to reach the victims. It is deeply frustrating to see emergency supplies and equipment held up through a lack of organisation.
There should be nothing surprising, however, in what has happened since the earthquake. Haiti is not a country thrown into anarchy by a natural disaster; it had no functioning government before the tremors struck. It has not been reduced to poverty; it was already the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.
That Haiti has ended up in such a benighted condition is not unconnected with the vast flows of development aid that have been poured into the country. Over the past 20 years, over $7 billion of aid has been spent, and the flood of money is accelerating: in 2008 alone governments and non-governmental organisations such as the UN lavished $873 million on the country — more than one tenth of Haiti’s GDP.
Yet there is scant sign of much return. A hefty slice, it is safe to assume, has disappeared into the pockets of corrupt officials. An IMF assessment in 2004 revealed that 30 per cent of Haitian civil servants were phantom — they existed only in name for the purpose of extracting salaries from the government.
It is a natural human instinct to help others who are in danger. But when this crisis is over, attention needs to be turned to the 90 per cent of aid which is not emergency aid: the steady drip of development money which in so many cases undermines local economies.
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