Out of Tragedy, Some Good News

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (July 13) -- Since January, news reports about the progress of earthquake recovery in Haiti have been largely negative. It is impossible to ignore 1.5 million Haitians living in the streets.

But often, the bad news rises to the top because good news is harder to define. The earthquake in Haiti is an unprecedented disaster -- the impact was huge, it was urban, and it happened quickly in a country already beset by governmental problems. As a result, there are no good models in place to measure what is success and what is failure.

Should progress be measured by the world's loftiest aspirations for Haiti: a blank slate with a new dream? Or should it be measured by the pre-earthquake realities of Jan. 11?

The government and people of Haiti, as well as thousands of international partners, contributed to the following under-reported, but historic and important achievements in Haiti since the earthquake.


Peace in the Streets

Week after week, the most interesting story in Haiti is what hasn't happened here: no riots, no marked increase of violence, no palpable anger in the streets. Though security remains an issue inside of camps, the general feeling in Haiti is one of stability.

The Haitian people have handled this crisis with a collective calm and grace that will undoubtedly be the earthquake's most enduring and beautiful legacy.

In the first days after the quake, reports of "looting" were largely exaggerated. Journalists and aid workers who walked through so-called "dangerous" neighborhoods were treated with respect, compassion or, at the very least, indifference. The many thousands of photographs that poured out of Haiti in those weeks are evidence enough of the city's accessibility and uncommon safety, even in disastrous times.

Cash-for-Work

Immediately following the quake, commerce came to near standstill in Haiti. People were uprooted from their homes and unable to work or contribute to the economy in any meaningful way.

The Cash-for-Work program, which is funded and administered by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), has employed 116,140 people since January.


Property Surveys and the Assessment Map

More than 300 newly trained Haitian engineers are now traversing Port-au-Prince in a historic effort to assess the safety of every building in the city and create an intricate map that will be the first of its kind in Haiti. Port-au-Prince is a dense city with hundreds of small, impoverished communities nestled in valleys and on hillsides.

The assessment, led by Haiti's Department of Public Works, is an important step toward rebuilding. But the real progress will come from the survey data. Each engineer carries a small PDA and transmits GPS coordinates, as well as reported ownership and census information, to a database now held by the government of Haiti. This data will help Haiti know itself and its challenges for decades.

The Success of Cell Phones

Cellular phone service collapsed after the earthquake, due in part to a lack of back-up equipment. Like most developing countries, cell phones provide the primary telephone service, with more than 3 million subscribers in Haiti.

It took only a day or two for most cellular phone service to resume, and the major providers -- Digicel and Voila -- were among the first businesses to open up shop in tents around the city. They distributed thousands of free replacement phones and SIM cards, and continued to provide one-on-one service even when waiting lines extended around the block.

Digicel is the largest foreign investor in Haiti, as well as the country's primary tax contributor and largest private employer. The company's 12-story building, in downtown Port-au-Prince, was designed to withstand an 8.0 earthquake. It was virtually unharmed by the quake and stands in the center of the city as a monument to the potential and the power of private investment in Haiti.


CNE and the Ministry of Public Works

Armed with scarce resources, the Haitian government's public works department, led by its road-building division, Centre National des Equipements, or CNE, made extraordinary efforts to clean up Haiti's streets after the disaster.

Public works employees went to work just hours after the earthquake and cleared more than 200,000 dead bodies from the affected region in a few days. Though their accounting of the bodies -- as well as their burial strategy -- has been criticized, there is no arguing that the service they provided was difficult, grim and urgent.

CNE was created in 1998, but its capacity and equipment were largely destroyed from 2004 to 2006. Reconstruction funding will focus on enhancing Haiti's infrastructure and roads. CNE will provide an essential building block.

Debt Forgiveness

It's hard to get ahead when you're always behind. Haiti has been saddled with debt since its first days of freedom from France. International experts have long argued that Haiti's foreign debt is the single greatest hindrance to the country's long-term economic development.

One of the most promising outcomes of the earthquake was the international community's effort to speed up Haiti's debt cancellation. In June 2009, two-thirds of Haiti's debt ($1.2 billion) was canceled by the World Bank and the IMF. But $891 million remained.

Since January, the World Bank has totally canceled Haiti's debt to that organization. Venezuela also canceled $395 million in debt owed by Haiti to PetroCaribe for subsidized fuel.

The IMF remains the only major holder of Haiti's debt that has not yet acted. President Barack Obama recently signed into law legislation that urges the IMF to immediately forgive Haiti's remaining debt of $282 million. The IMF is a multilateral organization but is controlled by U.S. veto power. Payments to the IMF are estimated to be 3 percent of Haitian government revenues by 2014.