This blog is frequently littered with reports of suffering, continued inaction and overall bad news, but today I am excited to write of a hopeful message for human rights in Haiti. This country now has special meaning to students of the Center for the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights due to the recent visit of Anne Hastings, the commander of the largest micro finance institution in Haiti. Through her visit, we heard a optimistic message of how non-profits are improving the lives of Haitians. Now, there is reason to dream big for Haiti. After the HOPE II Act passed last year in the House of Representatives, Haiti has begun to show improvements. Furthermore next month, international donors will meet in Washington to talk of increasing aid to Haiti.
As many of you know, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has long been suffering from famine, corrupt governments and disease. Last year, America proclaimed their commitment to the country by passing a 9 year act that offers Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to U.S. markets (HOPE II). Though this has had an important effect on Haiti, according to Ban Ki-Moon (the Secretary General of the United Nations) with additional aid at this moment in time, there could be a substantial increase in economic development. I found his argument in the New York Times to be quite persuasive. Here is the heart of it:
“HOPE II, as the act is known, offers Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to U.S. markets for the next nine years. No other nation enjoys a similar advantage. This is a foundation to build on. It is a chance to consolidate the progress Haiti has made in winning a measure of political stability, with the help of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, and move beyond aid to genuine economic development. Given the country’s massive unemployment, particularly among youth, that means one thing above all else: jobs.
As many of you know, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has long been suffering from famine, corrupt governments and disease. Last year, America proclaimed their commitment to the country by passing a 9 year act that offers Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to U.S. markets (HOPE II). Though this has had an important effect on Haiti, according to Ban Ki-Moon (the Secretary General of the United Nations) with additional aid at this moment in time, there could be a substantial increase in economic development. I found his argument in the New York Times to be quite persuasive. Here is the heart of it:
“HOPE II, as the act is known, offers Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to U.S. markets for the next nine years. No other nation enjoys a similar advantage. This is a foundation to build on. It is a chance to consolidate the progress Haiti has made in winning a measure of political stability, with the help of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, and move beyond aid to genuine economic development. Given the country’s massive unemployment, particularly among youth, that means one thing above all else: jobs.
My special adviser on Haiti, the Oxford University development economist Paul Collier, has worked with the government to devise a strategy. It identifies specific steps and policies to create those jobs, with particular emphasis on the country’s traditional strengths — the garment industry and agriculture. Among them: enacting new regulations lowering port fees (among the highest in the Caribbean) and creating the sort of industrial “clusters” that have come to dominate global trade.
In practical terms, this means dramatically expanding the country’s export zones, so that a new generation of textile firms can invest and do business in one place. By creating a market sufficiently large to generate economies of scale, they can drive down production costs and, once a certain threshold is crossed, spark potentially explosive growth constrained only by the size of the labor pool.
That may seem ambitious in a country of 9 million people, where 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day and half of the food is imported. Yet we know it can work. We have seen it happen in Bangladesh, which boasts a garment industry supporting 2.5 million jobs. We have seen it happen in Uganda and Rwanda.”
For further reading, following this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/opinion/31iht-edmoon.html?_r=1&ref=global
I hope that the international donor committee heeds this advice in Washington and capitalizes on this moment to significantly impact the lives of the Haitian people. Haiti has suffered for too long.
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