Kinda Late to Help Haiti

Photo by UN Photo/Logan Abassi UNDP Global

As everyone now knows, on January 12^th Haiti had been struck by a devastating earthquake that killed thousands of people.  According to the United States Agency for International Development, the estimated death toll is 100,000, and nearly 3 million people have been affected.  Clearly, this is a terrible tragedy.

So, what was the U.S. response to this catastrophe?  Surprisingly, America had a better response time to supporting Haiti than it did its own city of New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  Within a day, the U.S. sent over American soldiers, firefighters, paramedics, and humanitarian workers.  In fact, President Barack Obama promised Haiti $100 million in hard earned taxpayer dollars, and has stated that much more aid is on the way.

However, one has to stop and think about whether or not this sudden love for Haiti will pull them out of their economic instability.  The world has a short attention span. Thus, when the media ceases to broadcast the turmoil Haiti is facing from the earthquake, which will probably be in two weeks or so, it will be as if the earthquake had never happened.  It will have become a footnote in history.  The dead will have become nothing more than shadows and dust in the eyes of the citizens of the world.

Haiti’s greatest problem was not the earthquake, rather its abysmal economy.  International monetary aid to support Haiti might help them recover from the earthquake, but what then?  In a 2009 International Monetary Fund paper, Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Progress Report, Haiti was described as “facing a host of political, economic, and social challenges such as the steady decline in national production, weak human capital, degradation of its territorial space, low levels of public security, underperforming institutions, and a limited supply of public goods and services.”  The paper also states that according to “1990 statistics, 56.8 percent of Haitians in the country as a whole were living on less than US$1 per day…” and that by 2005 “the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty increased by two percentage points to 56 percent…”  Another interesting piece of information from the paper was that “in 2000, the proportion of the population living on less than US$2 per day (PPP) stood at 65 percent. In 2005, the proportion of the Haitian population living on less than US$2 per day surged to 76 percent…” It is clear that this Caribbean country is a bit beyond repair.

In a few lines, Donald J. Bordeaux, a distinguished economist and author of the blog, Café Hayek, truly captures how Haiti has dug its own grave:

“Registering 7.0 on the Richter scale, the Haitian earthquake killed tens of thousands of people.  But the quake that hit California’s Bay Area in 1989 was also of magnitude 7.0.  It killed only 63 people.

This difference is due chiefly to Americans’ greater wealth.  With one of the freest economies in the world, Americans build stronger homes and buildings, and have better health-care and better search and rescue equipment.  In contrast, burdened by one of the world’s least-free economies, Haitians cannot afford to build sturdy structures.  Nor can they afford the health-care and emergency equipment that we take for granted here in the U.S.

These stark facts should be a lesson for those who insist that human habitats are made more dangerous, and human lives put in greater peril, by freedom of commerce and industry.”

Works Cited

Romero, Simon, and Marc Lacey. “Fierce Quake Devastates Haitian Capital.” New York Times. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., 12 Jan. 2010. Web. 14 Jan. 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/americas/13haiti.html

United States. United States Agency for International Development. U.S. FOREIGN DISASTER ASSISTANCE. HAITI – Earthquake. 13 Jan. 2010. Web. 14 Jan. 2010. http://www.usaid.gov/locations/latin_america_caribbean/country/haiti/eq/documents/01.13.10-USAID-DCHAHaitiEarthquakeFactSheet01.pdf

Silva, Mark. “Obama: $100 million in U.S. aid for Haiti.” Web log post. The Swamp. Chicago Tribune, 14 Jan. 2010. Web. 14 Jan. 2010.  http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2010/01/obama_100_million_in_us_aid_fo.html

Haiti: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Progress Report. Rep. no. 09/290. International Monetary Fund, 14 Sept. 2009. Web. 14 Jan. 2010. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=23283.0

Bordeaux, Donald J. “A Tale of Two Quakes.” Web log post. Cafe Hayek. Donald J. Bordeaux, 14 Jan. 2010. Web. 14 Jan. 2010. http://cafehayek.com/2010/01/a-tale-of-two-quakes.html

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Cover image by UN Photo/Logan Abassi UNDP Global, from Flickr