Work by Senior Fellow Vijaya Ramachandran and Policy Analyst Julie Walz is referenced in a piece on Canadian aid to Haiti.
To hear Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government tell it, Canadian aid has made a big difference in the lives of Haitians. We are playing a “major role” in the earthquake-shattered nation’s recovery, Ottawa claims, by providing jobs and housing, financing microcredit, sending kids to school, improving mother and infant health care, boosting farm production and fighting disease.
Given all this, why is International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino marking the third anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake by threatening to put new aid projects “on ice,” telling the Star that Ottawa won’t be signing any more “blank cheques” and complaining to Montreal’s La Presse newspaper that “we are not getting the results that Canadians have a right to expect.”
As the Star has written before, not enough aid is getting into Haitian hands. The Center for Global Development reports that of the $6 billion disbursed in official aid since the quake, less than 10 per cent has gone to the government. That leaves it short of cash to put people to work building houses, infrastructure and vital services.
The answer isn’t to slam the brakes on Canadian assistance. It’s to give Haitians the resources they need to shape their own future.