If Paul Farmer were to have his way, the answer is yes. Farmer–cultural anthropologist, medical doctor, and health advocate for the poor–testified on January 27 at the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on Haiti. Farmer is also now the U.N. Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti, working with the Special Envoy, President Clinton.
Farmer first described the Haitian people’s tragic loss of life and loved ones, their new fear of sleeping inside buildings, the massive logistical challenges in providing for basic needs including food and water and toilet services, the need for emergency health care now and rebuilding clinics for the future, restarting schools that still stand and rebuilding those that collapsed, and enabling farmers to plant their spring crops by replacing tools and providing fertilizer.
He then turned to the financial resources needed from donors and how they should be managed. He suggests the “potential for an entirely reconsidered relationship between the two oldest independent countries in the Americas.” Such a newly imagined U.S.-Haiti relationship would include the following:
• Disbursement of funds that are pledged: Only about 15% of the $402 million the U.S. pledged in April 2009 to support the Haitian government’s Economic Recovery Program have been disbursed.
• Reform the structure and goals of U.S. aid within Haiti: lower the overhead charged for operations and trim back NGO involvement unless related to the public health and education sectors; focus on creating jobs for Haitians through “cash-for-work” programs and building infrastructure; work to reduce dependence on aid.
• Debt forgiveness to ease the financial drain.
• Creation of a recovery fund managed in Haiti by the Inter-American Development Bank.
• Share the goals of the Haitian people: social and economic rights, job creation, local business development, watershed protection, access to quality health care, and gender equity.
• Provide cash transfers to women.
• Build resilient housing and provide communities with access to clean water.
• Reforest the countryside.
Near the end of his remarks, Farmer said: “As a doctor, I can tell you that bad infrastructure and thoughtless policy are visible in the bodies of the poor, just as are the benefits of good policy and well-designed infrastructure.”
Image: “Paul Farmer and crowds I,” from flickr user Mira (on the wall), licensed with Creative Commons.
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