GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT GROUPS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN HAITI

The January 2010 earthquake that plunged Haiti deeper into poverty and the accompanying rush of nongovernmental organizations to the Caribbean nation — a situation that further solidified Haiti’s unflattering reputation as a “republic of NGOs” — have become the dominant narrative surrounding the tiny country, already one of the world’s poorest nations even before the earthquake struck, in the past few years.

10-year-old Mame Roudline sits beside an American Red Cross vehicle

delivering first aid and supplies to the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

That Haiti has been viewed in such light is unfortunate, given the significant strides it has achieved in certain education and health indicators after the earthquake.

Still, available numbers support the claim that Haiti is indeed teeming with NGOs. A 2010 study found that Haiti had effectively substituted its weak state institutions with a cottage industry of NGOs even before the earthquake hit: NGOs were running 70 percent of health care and 85 percent of national education services.

But the ubiquity of NGOs became even more apparent after the earthquake. According to Haiti Aid Map, a mapping initiative that monitors the Haiti projects of members of InterAction, a network of international NGOs based in the United States, 42 groups are currently reporting 171 active projects in Haiti. Members submit information to NGO Aid Map on a voluntary basis so projects noted may only represent a portion of a group's work.

For many of these projects, the timelines are long, with some going beyond 2020. The drawn-out end dates for these activities seem to suggest that Haiti has progressed from relief to recovery — an extended process that could take years to finish.

Weaning itself off NGO dependence would be a difficult feat for Haiti, a complicated task that would involve the committed participation of state and nonstate actors. But in the meantime, global development groups in the Caribbean nation could work toward this goal by strengthening governance — one of the areas where current Haiti projects are focused.

Below, we describe the activities of the organizations with the most projects according to the Haiti Aid Map, as well as the work of a few groups with job openings listed on Devex. While our previous list focused on larger and more prominent agencies, the list below includes lesser-known organizations that are nevertheless doing or at least supporting important work — through on-the-ground operations or partnerships — in Haiti.

American Jewish World Service

AJWS, which has supported grass-roots organizations in Haiti since 1999, used emergency relief grants to provide food and water, among other necessities, immediately after the 2010 earthquake. It also uses grants to mobilize democracy and governance, economic development, and agriculture. Today, AJWS has 10 projects in Haiti covering these same areas.

American Red Cross

For more than a decade, American Red Cross has been working on the ground in Haiti. Today, it has 22 Haiti projects focusing on health, WASH, and shelter and housing. Among these activities is a youth development program for those aged 10 to 25 in both Cité Soleil and Martissant, two of Haiti’s poorest neighborhoods.

Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation

While arriving relatively late in Haiti — it started working in the country in 2008 — the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation is a small but significant organization that has been involved in both relief and recovery work. Its food-for-work project involves the participation of locals — more than 325 Haitians, according to the organization — who receive food by cleaning the streets. More long-term programs, meanwhile, include sending doctors to train abroad for better service in Haiti hospitals.

Creative Associates International

An international development firm, Creative is currently looking for a deputy chief of party for an anticipated project that will be funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The project will help USAID provide the training needed to improve reading and writing in Haitian Creole and French among primary schoolchildren.

Education Development Center, Inc.

In 1991, EDC started its work in Haiti by working to improve learning outcomes in Creole and mathematics. More than a decade after it began its work, the organization included civic education and environmental issues in the curriculum and targeted at-risk and out-of-school youth. Currently, EDC has an opening for a senior education and training specialist.

Food for the Poor

Food for the Poor has been in Haiti since 1986, also the year then-President Jean-Claude Duvalier was overthrown. The organization’s longtime familiarity with Haiti enabled it to quickly respond to the immediate needs of Haitians when the 2010 earthquake struck. Currently, Food for the Poor has 12 Haiti projects in education, agriculture and WASH.

GlobalGiving

An online fundraising platform that works with partner organizations in Haiti, GlobalGiving has supported 50 Haiti projects that span health, education, and economic recovery and development — including a deworming initiative for children.

Life for Relief and Development

Life for Relief and Development’s projects in Haiti are centered on providing food aid, promoting WASH and improving safety nets. Much of the organization’s work is concentrated in Cité Soleil, Delmas and Carrefour. In Ouest, it has also set up small shops where Haitians can buy food at cheaper prices.

Management Sciences for Health

Operating in Haiti for at least 30 years, MSH has a few but nevertheless major health projects in the country. One of these is its supply chain management system, which delivered medicine kits and other supplies to 16 hospitals and 14 clinics in Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.

Médecins Sans Frontières

With more than 2,000 nationals and just over 100 international staff working in Haiti as of 2013, MSF has had a significant presence in the country. Since 1991, or the year MSF started working in Haiti, the organization has assisted in bridging the health gap by providing much-needed emergency care and health services to Haitians. Health care in Haiti is largely privatized, putting those who can’t afford to pay at a severe disadvantage.

Mennonite Central Committee

MCC is busy addressing the causes of the high death toll from the earthquake — unsafe building practices and a densely populated Port-au-Prince. It also currently has projects involving education, WASH, and democracy and governance. According to the organization, around $2 million will be spent on Haiti this year and beyond.

RTI International

RTI is currently looking for a monitoring and evaluation manager for a large value chain and enterprise development project in Haiti. The project aims to boost employment in Haiti by supporting small businesses in construction, textiles and agribusiness.

Salvation Army World Service Office

Economic recovery, safety nets and humanitarian aid are the main priorities of the Salvation Army’s projects, which are concentrated in Fonds-des-Nègres. Like many groups in Haiti, TSA first focused on emergency response, but soon looked toward more long-term programs. A pipeline project, for instance, aims to provide permanent housing as well as training to families, whom TSA hopes will be encouraged to rebuild and settle outside disaster-prone Port-au-Prince.

Save the Children

Save the Children has been working in Haiti since 1978. An overview of its progress report, released in time for the five-year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, shows that in the first year after the earthquake, Save the Children reached around 348,000 people with WASH programs. Currently, it is looking to fill a position for a field office WASH manager who will oversee the day-to-day operations of an urban sanitation project in Jacmel and work with local organization CRESFED.

World Vision

The regions in which World Vision operated in when the earthquake hit Haiti had already been prone to food scarcity. Poor crops and dismal market conditions were the culprit behind the persistent problem — an issue World Vision has been addressing through its work. Economic recovery, WASH and education are the core priorities of World Vision’s projects in Haiti.

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LIBERIA AIMS TO BE EBOLA-FREE BY END-FEBRUARY AS CASES FALL TO 10

Liberia, one of the three West African countries worst hit by Ebola, could be free of the virus by the end of next month after success in curbing transmission, the government said on Thursday.

"There are 10 confirmed Ebola cases as of the 12th of January 2015 in the whole of the country," Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads Liberia's Ebola taskforce, said.

“My projection is that, if we do everything possible, we can reach zero by the end of the February."

Liberia said this week that only two of the country's 15 counties still had Ebola cases.

The worst epidemic of the virus on record has killed more than 8,400 people and infected some 21,200 in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since it was detected in March, according to WHO figures.

More than 3,500 of the dead were from Liberia.

An explosion in infection in the capital Monrovia in August caused international alarm, which grew after a Liberian citizen, Thomas Duncan, carried the infection to the United States the following month.

However, a massive international response -- including the deployment of hundreds of U.S. troops -- plus a public awareness campaign helped and infection rates have steeply declined.

Nyenswah said the hotspot for Ebola transmission was now Grande Cape Mount, near the border with Sierra Leone.

Progress has also been made in Sierra Leone - which has recorded the highest number of cases - and Guinea.

The WHO said on Wednesday that the three countries had recorded their lowest weekly number of new cases for months.reuters

THE END OF AN ERA FOR USAID

Clockwise from top-left: Oxfam Director of Aid Effectiveness

Gregory Adams, former USAID Chief Scientist Alex Dehgan, Center

for Global Development President Nancy Birdsall, ONE Campaign

President and CEO Michael Elliott and Chemonics International

President and CEO Susanna Mudg

Rajiv Shah’s announcement on Wednesday morning that he will step down as U.S. Agency for International Development administrator in February did not exactly take the development community by surprise, but it did elicit some strong — and mostly laudatory — reactions.

Shah’s departure plans have been met with a predictable outpouring of thanks and admiration from his Obama administration contemporaries, but many other leaders within the wider international development community — even some who have been at odds with a few of the USAID chief’s decisions — voiced their support and admiration.

Devex community members still wonder what Shah, the youngest-ever USAID administrator, will do next, and we are eager to learn who will be his permanent replacement. But for now, we’ve taken the opportunity to solicit reactions from leaders in this field who have worked with Shah to reflect on his impact at what many consider the end of an era in U.S. foreign assistance.

Many remarked that Shah has moved USAID forward on a range of “substantive” issues, including food security — through the administration’s Feed the Future initiative — energy access, maternal and child health, and leadership over the response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

‘Initiative fatigue’

Some within the agency, who wished to maintain anonymity in order to share candid, sensitive comments, however expressed relief that a new administration could return a welcome sense of focus to the core business of development. USAID staff are frequently said to suffer from “initiative fatigue,” a sense that Shah identifies and mobilizes new priorities by the day and, in doing so, disrupts ongoing operations and programs.

“[Shah] has chased initiatives while sacrificing core issues in favor of hoped-for deals, gadgets and jargon,” one current USAID official told Devex in an email. “The budgets for economic growth and democracy, rights and governance are negligible, with any loose money being swept into the supply-side [Global Development Lab] or to pursue power investments without attending to the enabling environments for those investments.”

The criticism points to an apparent divide in the appraisal of Shah’s tenure — between those who have embraced the change he has sought to bring about, and those who view it as a distraction from USAID’s traditional portfolio and expertise. Outside the agency, Shah’s leadership has drawn mostly high marks.

Devex will continue to feature community perspectives on what the Shah administration has meant for U.S. foreign assistance and for the daily practice of global development around the world, and we’ll soon publish an in-depth exploration of the the current administrator’s legacy.

Unfinished business

Michael Elliott, president and CEO of the ONE Campaign, shared with Devex that the USAID chief “has the enthusiasm of a kid. I don’t know how he manages to keep his spirits up so uniformly.”

Rajiv Shah, with a great deal of help from leadership on Capitol Hill and from the whole community around town, “has demonstrated that development, fighting poverty and preventable disease is the one thing where everyone in [Washington] can get behind common objectives and make something work,” Elliott said.

“His successor will have to somehow join the rest of us in making sure that everyone understands that 2015 is a really big deal with a new set of development goals and a real re-energization of the movement to defeat extreme poverty and preventable disease,” he added, but pointing out: “That’s not for Raj. That’ll be for the next person.”

Elliott noted USAID has “unfinished business” for 2015, a year he hopes will get “off to an absolutely cracking start with a really fabulous replenishment of Gavi [the Vaccine Alliance].”

Redefining the development sector

For Gregory Adams, director of aid effectiveness at Oxfam, Shah “leaves behind a powerful legacy at USAID.”

“Raj saw early and clearly that dollars alone will never be enough to achieve our development goals; that the United States can maximize our impact if we can exercise world-class intellectual and policy leadership to match our moral and financial leadership,” he told Devex. “He did this by reframing USAID’s mission, to ensure it wasn’t stuck being just a pass through for funds, but a smart, creative partner for local development leaders.”

The most divisive part of Shah’s legacy, according to Adams, was the fact that some longtime USAID partners felt their contributions were being “shortchanged,” but he noted, “few of those same partners would argue that USAID should stand still.”

“Ultimately, those partners who are embracing Raj’s approach are helping to redefine the relevance of the development sector for this new era and marketplace,” Adams concluded.

Pushing the envelope

From the start, Rajiv Shah was Obama’s man to lead U.S. foreign aid efforts, and Nancy Birdsall, founding president of the Center for Global Development underscored how the outgoing USAID chief was a “major force” behind President Barack Obama’s goal to eliminate global extreme poverty by 2030.

Shah, she told Devex, managed to sustain congressional support for the USAID budget, “including by clarifying that development progress around the world helps undergird long-term global stability and U.S. security.”

“I give Shah high marks for USAID Forward. He spearheaded unsexy internal negotiations with the State Department and the White House, which allowed USAID to once again have a serious policy shop, its own chief economist, a focus on technical expertise and innovation, and an office with some budget and planning expertise if not formal authority,” Birdsall explained. “That pushed the envelope of what was bureaucratically and politically possible.”

‘The end of an era’

Alex Dehgan, the agency’s former chief scientist, has expressed concerns about the direction of some of Shah’s initiatives — the Global Development Lab, in particular — but voiced support overall for the administrator’s efforts to effect change.

“Raj Shah was a transformative thinker, who was willing to take risks, and to elevate the role of science, technology and innovation at USAID,” he told Devex. “This was historic for a technical agency that sought to restore its core capabilities, and elevate the importance of development.”

Shah, Dehgan noted, helped meet Obama’s promise to restore science to its rightful place, to make developing world farms flourish, to nourish starved bodies, and feed hungry minds.  

“This was his job from nearly day one when he was thrown into Haiti,” he said. “It is an end of an era.”

A stronger USAID

Many in our community equate the administrator’s success with USAID’s standing among its peer agencies and departments. George Ingram, Brookings Institution senior fellow and co-chair of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network told Devex, “There is no question that Shah leaves USAID stronger than when he entered the agency.”

Ingram described Shah’s leadership as “energizing and innovative, if sometimes disruptive and diffuse,” but noted it is “unfortunate” that Shah is stepping down “before his key initiatives are securely implemented and institutionalized.” USAID’s new Global Development Lab still lacks clear Congressional authorization, as do the Power Africa and Feed the Future initiatives, and U.S. aid does not appear any closer to a rewrite of the Foreign Assistance Act, which many feel is long overdue.

Shah, Ingram wrote, may not be the ideal model for the next USAID chief to emulate. Ingram pointed to Henrietta Fore's brief tenure as administrator as an example to follow.

“She chose a few priorities and today is widely acknowledged for her commitment to USAID as an institution and to rebuilding its staff through the Development Leadership Initiative,” Ingram said, adding that “fulfilling the commitment to transparency and use of data would be a worthy legacy for the next administrator.”

Finally, Chemonics International President and CEO Susanna Mudge also weighed in on Shah’s departure to highlight how his leadership over the past five years “has been instrumental in redefining and elevating the importance and value of development work.”

“It has been an honor to partner with him and USAID to help transform lives around the globe,” Mudge told Devex.

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