Deadbeat donors hurt Haiti relief

OTTAWA — Aid groups are calling on deadbeat international donors to pay up and help fix Haiti’s chronic problems.

Nearly two years after a devastating January 2010 earthquake reduced the capital of Port-auPrince to rubble and killed more than 230,000 people, only 53% of promised funds have been paid out.

“Donors must live up to their commitments to ensure that they continue to be part of the long-term solution for i mproving resilience and livelihoods in Haiti,” said Nicolas Moyer, co-ordinator for the Humanitarian Coalition, an umbrella organization of Canadian non-governmental organizations (NGOS).

Canada has dispersed 90% of the money it pledged, but other countries have been laggards in paying up.

According to numbers from the UN office of the special envoy to Haiti, as of September, the U.S. has given 30% of its promised funds, Germany 36% and Mexico 39%.

Gary Shaye, Haiti country director with Save the Children Canada, said Wednesday most NGOS are shifting their focus to longer-term projects as opposed to emergency aid.

He pointed to the country’s chronic problems with cholera. Treatment centres are pricey but necessary, with a 20-bed unit costing up to $100,000 a month to run.

But those funds are easier to get compared to what’s needed to permanently rid the country of the infection.

That requires a “10- to 20-year investment in water and sanitation and behaviour change to really make a dent,” said Shaye.

The country is also struggling with a number of other problems: 70% unemployment rate; 500,000 Haitians still living in tents; a lack of basic services; and 50% of the rubble from the quake still clogging the capital.

But Moyer argues much has been done over the past two years to improve the lives of residents in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

Millions of people have received emergency food, medicine, clean water and shelter, agricultural production is on the rise, and the federal political situation appears to have stabilized.

Canadians made $220 million in private donations to Haiti in the months following the deadly quake. The federal government pledged to match those donations.

jessica.murphy@sunmedia.ca