I was delighted that the White House denounced as “utterly stupid” the Rev. Pat Robertson’s suggestion that Haiti had suffered its earthquake because it had made a “pact with the devil,” and as “really stupid” the comment by Rush Limbaugh that Americans already donate to Haiti through tax dollars — which many took to mean that he discouraged giving, a suggestion he has strongly denied. In any case, I think those comments may reflect a current that many people think even if they don’t articulate, something like this: Those Haitians have screwed up their country, and we already pour money into their economy. We have our troubles at home, we have our needs, so why should our hard-earned dollars go to support Haitians who don’t help themselves. We’ve already been generous, and it hasn’t worked.  First, a fact check. In 2008, the most recent year for which we have figures, the United States donated 92 cents per American to Haiti. Granted, any year can fluctuate, so look at three-year totals. The United States contributed $2.32 per American to Haiti over the last three years for which we have data (about 80 cents a year). That’s much less than other countries do, even though Haiti is in our hemisphere and has historic close ties to the U.S. For example, Canada contributed $12.13 per person to Haiti over three years, and Norway sent $8.44. (Those figures are from David Roodman at the Center for Global Development, and in a previous version of this post I mistakenly said that they were per year.) Other countries that contribute more, per capita, to Haiti than the U.S. are Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Spain and Belgium. True, there are more Americans, so collectively our aid amounts to more than one-quarter of the pot in Haiti, but that’s only because we’re such a big country. Given the per capita sums, we have no right to be bragging about our generosity in Haiti. The Center for Global Development also has a nice discussion on aid in Haiti.  Now it’s true that Haiti has had lousy leadership and lousy governance. But doesn’t it seem rather unfair to tell a kid he’s not going to get his broken leg set because his country has a legacy of bad leaders?  Another point: while the immediate focus has to be relief the long term need is development in Haiti. Critics of aid are right that there are real concerns about aid dependency, and Haiti is one of the places we can see them. And in theory Haiti should be more promising than some other poor countries in the world, because of its location. There should be ways of parlaying Haiti’s status as an island nation close to the biggest consumer market in the world into manufacturing opportunities. Paul Collier, the former chief economist at the World Bank, investigated Haiti’s possibilities for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon a year ago and reported back that the best hope for Haiti was to encourage manufacturing (of garments, for example) aimed at the US market. That is indeed something that we should be pushing for the medium term, and one risk is that the focus on all the poverty and instability — and the insecurity that is likely to become a big problem in the coming weeks — will discourage the investment that is needed.  Haiti also needs investment in human capital, such as education, so that it can develop its business sector. And it needs help with population growth (as I noted in this article and video I did from Haiti a year ago). Obviously the first need is to set broken bones, provide clean water and dig people out of rubble. But let’s not forget the steps that can get Haiti on a better track for the longer term.  For those interested in helping Haiti, by the way, readers have sent in excellent suggestions in response to my last blog post. Go for it. (Note: I’ve tweaked both the numbers and the wording about Limbaugh since this first went up; my Limbaugh wording at first may have overstated his position.)
We haven't been as generous as we think to Haiti, and we also need to think about long term development needs such as building a manufacturing sector.