Haiti: the limits of the “Aid System”

14/03/2012

The present article looks at the 2010 aid efforts in Haiti, a year in which 2 events resulted in massive humanitarian crisis. The first, the January 2010 earthquake, triggered overwhelming mobilization of aid: hundreds of actors poured into the country, deploying large scale emergency assistance. The second event, a cholera epidemic, started in October and received much media attention, but met with an overstretched aid community. The now traditional UN coordinated efforts aimed to organize aid mobilization for both crises. In the article, MSF exposes an analytic review of the 2010 aid reality in Haiti as well reflections that emerge from the experience: despite the undeniable effort invested in the coordination of aid, the current “aid system” does not seem to have improved emergency assistance; worse, the system itself appears to generate “roadblocks” for an effective response. Various reasons can be evoked for this, notably the much advocated shift to early recovery, while actual immediate needs of the affected population are far from being addressed.