Dupuy: Foreign Aid Mismanagement Holds Haiti Back

Writing for The Sunday Washington Post, Alex Dupuy, chair of African American Studies, professor of sociology, says that Haiti’s “tiny but wealthy elite” that runs the small island nation, and the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), which is co-chaired by Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, have mismanaged the more than $9 billion in aid that was sent to the country after last year’s earthquake, distributing only 10% of it. Worse, the vast bulk of the money that has been spent has gone to foreign contractors and foreign NGOs that “reinforce the country’s dependence on foreign aid and further sap the capacity and responsibility of the government to meet the basic needs of its citizens.”