The neglect of an Indian complaint box: Fighting corruption requires active prevention measures. Photo: watchsmart (flickr)

It's known, but not talked about: Sometimes humanitarian aid doesn't make it into the hands of those who need it. Why? Because small-scale local corruption can siphon off money or goods, make aid agencies run less efficiently, or even exploit those who are dependent on such assistance.

A new handbook produced by Transparency International aims to help aid agencies reduce the risk of corruption. Its concrete suggestions cover the mundane, the profane, and everything in between — from how to tell if local staff might be driving agency vehicles outside of work to how to ensure that aid recipients aren't sexually abused by humanitarian workers.

The report offers some overarching suggestions, too: Aid agencies must plan ways to combat corruption in disaster zones before such calamities strike, not afterwards. Over the long term, they must get to know local culture and power structures well, since that is often the key to recognizing sources of malfeasance.

The handbook's recommendations have come just in time to be useful in Haiti, a senior Transparency International Advisor told AlertNet:

It's what I'd call a perfect storm for high corruption risk: you have a seriously damaged institutional infrastructure, a country with endemic corruption, a weak or fragile state in the best of circumstances and sudden influxes of huge amounts of resources to a highly vulnerable population.

Such a report cannot be taken seriously enough.

It will be necessary to rebuild textile factories like this one in Haiti, as well as build more of them. Photo: NewsHour (flickr)

For aid workers and development experts, simply restoring Haiti to its pre-quake conditions will not be enough. Even before the earthquake about half of the population did not have access to clean water and 90 percent of children suffered from water-born illnesses, reported PRI.

What will it take for conditions to improve? Many argue that a robust private sector will be a key part of the country's long-term recovery and ascent out of poverty. As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof opined, "Haiti desperately needs new schools and hospitals, but also new factories." The government services and infrastructure that NGOs and development agencies will help rebuild may provide the groundwork for a healthy economy, but their efforts cannot by themselves make it grow.

The country actually has several factors that amount to unusually good conditions for economic development, argued a report for the UN last year. Unlike many disaster zones, Hait's neighboring countries are stable, while its political leadership "is good by the standards of most post-conflict situations." Haiti's wealthy expatriate community in the U.S. and Canada funnel cash and investments there. (They contributed approximately $1.3 billion in 2008.) Some types of investment look particularly auspicious: Haiti's special trade agreements with the U.S. mean it can export goods there duty-free, making the country "the world’s safest production location for garments," while the labor it would provide manufacturers is the cheapest in the region. Significant barriers to economic growth remain, but Haiti has some often-overlooked advantages in the struggle to recover.

A market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Haiti’s informal economy has begun to flourish despite the destruction caused by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit the country on Jan. 12, the GlobalPost reports.

[D]espite the lawlessness and absence of government, the Haitian people have started to reactivate their street economy amid the ruins, providing a vital lifeline… as the first week since the quake came to a close, Haitians pulled their few resources together to get small shops and market stalls open, rickety buses and motorbike taxis moving and local radio stations on air.

At two weeks after the disaster, many residents are still living and sleeping outdoors. These conditions have contributed to a new street culture in Port-au-Prince, where many are finding new business opportunities. The Miami Herald says barbers, impromptu phone booths and laundry services can be found at almost every street corner.

Even before the earthquake it's estimated that 80 percent of workers in Port-au-Prince operated in the informal economy, according to the Miami Herald. With the city now in ruins, the Herald suggests that many Haitians previously employed in the formal sector are looking for more informal work so they can earn a little money.

Sauveur Celestine, who was once an accountant, tells the Herald that he is now recharging cell phones using discarded car batteries to make ends meet. “This has enabled me to earn some money that is not a great amount,” says Celestine “but at least it is enough for me to buy two meals a day.”

Cassandra Nelson helps to distribute high-energy biscuits to locals at a hospital in Port-au-Prince. Mercy Corps

Yesterday the banks reopened in Haiti for the first time since the earthquake rocked the small island on January 12th.

Mercy Corps' spokeswoman Cassandra Nelson, who is on the ground in Port-au-Prince, stressed the importance of the banks reopening in her latest post on the Mercy Corps blog. "This means a lot to the aid effort, because there are a lot of people in Port-au-Prince who have some money — maybe not a lot — but they were having to live on handouts simply because they couldn't access their money." Without cash on hand, even wealthier Haitians were forced to seek handouts while the banks were closed.

As cash became more readily available throughout the day, Nelson saw the street economy reinvigorate from the rubble of damaged store fronts. Hawkers selling bananas and mangoes are helping restart the flow of food and resources within the country, allowing aid agencies to focus on those who are most in need of help.

You can keep up with the latest news about Mercy Corps' relief efforts in Haiti by clicking here.

View of impromptu tent city in the middle of Haiti's capital. Photo: United Nations Development Programme (flickr)

Haiti has just received another powerful blow. A powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti's capital on Tuesday, devastating a country that has seen more than its share of disasters both man-made and natural over the last few years. The news reports trickling in paint a bleak picture of almost unimaginable ruin.

I was privileged to witness some amazing progress in this tiny country that has long carried the dubious distinction of being the poorest nation in the western hemisphere during my annual and semi-annual trips to the island nation since the election of a new president in 2006. Paved roads and bridges had begun to appear across raging rivers that kept villages isolated. In the small community of 40,000 where most of my work took me, Engineers Without Borders drilled and installed seven clean water wells that dramatically lowered the infant mortality death rate. In a community that had once had just one Cuban-trained health worker who functioned without medicine or equipment, a small staff of doctors and nurses began to provide health care. A fragile sliver of hope had begun to take root.

This earthquake has devastated a country that does not have the resources to recover on its own. Mercy Corps’s has dispatched a response team to rush critical supplies and other urgent assistance to survivors. More staffers will arrive in the coming days.

As more aid workers arrive, they will face huge challenges. Haiti's international airport has just one runway and no taxiways, so airplanes that land there have to do a U-turn at the end of the runway and taxi back to a parking space. I can imagine that right now, that one runway and the airspace around Port au Prince is busier than a Los Angeles freeway. On the ground, the Mercy Corps team may find that accommodations are sparse or non-existent. Reports indicate that even major buildings in the capital city have been heavily damaged or destroyed. Security will also be an issue. The United Nations peacekeeping forces have provided the most reliable security in the country, but they themselves have been devastated by the death and injury of key personnel. Food and safe drinking water were never abundant, but now they will be even scarcer. Over the coming weeks and months Haitians will face tremendous obstacles to recovery.

Thankfully, the professionals at Mercy Corps have seen all of this before. They have a long history of helping earthquake survivors in other countries: Peru, China, Pakistan, and Indonesia. I have no doubts about their capacity to provide the best possible support in this situation. Several people have asked how they could best help with Mercy Corps’s effort. Really, the best way anyone could help is to make a cash donation to the Mercy Corps Haiti Earthquake Fund. As a matter of policy Mercy Corps does not use volunteers or donated materials like clothing from the general public in their relief efforts.

With a combination of generous donations and Mercy Corps' tremendous professional resources we can help Haiti survive this devastating body blow and replant the small seeds of hope that I saw grow there over the past few years.

October's comment of the month comes from James in Portland, Oregon. James commented on our story Poverty Isn't Always Ugly. He reminds us that poverty rears its ugly head in many forms — not just monetarily. For his efforts, we will make a $25 donation to a project of his choice on Global Giving.

There are definitely a few issues to consider and discuss relating poverty. In reading Muhammad Yunus' book "Creating a World Without Poverty". He felt, and I agree, that the definition of poverty isn't going to be the same from country to country. For Bangladesh the Grameen Bank developed there own definition of poverty for their internal purposes and to measure impact over time.

Many organization attempt to place a dollar amount of income/day to determine poverty, we've heard the $2.00 per day used frequently. Income isn't a solid method because it doesn't factor variables outside of money. Location and access to natural resources for instance are variables that change the need for money, or an individuals dependence upon it.

Bottom line, I think it's important to realize that poverty can't be defined the same way in every community we visit. Poverty includes physical need and extends into the mindset of individuals and how they view the world around them. It's also important to be culturally sensitive when working with people around the world. Sure, we have it pretty good here in the U.S. but we have problems too. We shouldn't seek to cookie cut our cultural values everywhere we go.

Keep writing in and share your though-provoking comments for a chance to win $25 towards the well-deserving charity of your choice!

* Lest anyone think $25 is not a lot, consider these figures from our affiliate Mercy Corps: $25 delivers clean, safe drinking water to 50 people in one of eastern Congo's sprawling displacement camps. $25 provides seeds to farmers in cyclone-devastated areas of Myanmar to plant five acres of rice. $25 gives traumatized children in Darfur 12 weeks of activities and psychological care to help them heal.

Poverty isn’t always ugly. But it is always real. I recently visited the small village of Beru in the southwest corner of Haiti. For this slightly out-of-shape professor, it’s a hard day-and-a-half hike into the mountains northwest of Les Anglais. I went up there seeking to learn more about the satellite churches that had been planted by our sister church in Les Anglais. In 20 years of sponsoring our sister church in Les Anglais, no one from our congregation had ever gone up there. I am told that I’m the third “blanc” ever to visit.

Beru perches on the ridge of a mountain peak. Its nearly 2,000 inhabitants live in a few dozen roughly 200 square foot thatched-roof or tin-roof huts that neatly line the one red clay path that is the only “road” in and out of the village. Homes here are a kind of wattle (woven wood) and daub made by combining cow dung and mud that is painted white. Some of the homes have designs drawn on the walls. All of them have little white rock borders filled with gravel around the outside. Most have some kind of flowering plants to decorate the outside. The floors are packed earth, neatly swept. As many as ten people occupy each home. No electricity. No plumbing. The nearest running water is a polluted spring that's a two hour’s walk down the mountain. Food is cooked in a community kitchen, a thatched hut with a charcoal fire constantly tended by two women.

My guide for the trip was Etienne Francois, a young Haitian man that our church had funded over a decade ago to attend school to learn agronomy and veterinarian science. Beru is part of the district that Etienne serves. As we approach the village, it is clear that Etienne is well known and well liked. By the time we enter Beru proper, Etienne is holding half a dozen softball-sized avocados — gifts from those too poor to offer anything else.

Etienne shows me the town’s two churches. The Catholic Church is an open pavilion with one crumbling wall. The rusted tin roof is held up by wooden poles. Part of the roof has collapsed. The church also serves as a community center. Kids and adults have a running game of dominoes going all day. In the evening it hosts our meeting with the town’s elders and farmer’s group. The Christian church, a satellite church planted by our sister church, is in relatively better shape. Its concrete block walls and rusted roof are intact. Inside, it is furnished with a couple of wooden benches and a rough wooden lectern that serves as a pulpit. We’re told that the preacher lives back in Les Anglais and walks ten hours every Sunday to preach a service.

Camera in hand, I was wandering around the village of Beru when I heard singing coming from around the corner. When I poked my camera around the corner of a house, the children spotted me and came running to put on an impromptu show. As the children sang, I wondered how many of them would be here on my next visit; how many would die from typhoid or dysentery caused by polluted water; how many would die of starvation; how many would be drawn to Port au Prince or Cap Hatien looking for work only to end up victims of the sex trafficking trade or lured into drug-related gang activity.

A little further down the road is the government-built school. I’m aghast at what is not there. It’s a scene right out of Greg Mortensen’s book, Three Cups of Tea. The tin roof pavilion is supported by concrete pillars and a partial wall. The floor is dirt. When I ask, I’m told that there are no materials, no books and no teachers for first through sixth graders. They simply sit by grade and talk to one another. The older children look after the younger.

That night I’m offered the master bedroom in the village leader’s house as my own. It’s roughly 12 feet square and Etienne tells me that it would be rude to refuse the honor. I feel guilty knowing that the rest of the family is doubled up somewhere else in town. A tarantula the size of my hand watches over me from a corner. I make sure that my mosquito netting is tucked in tight.

In the morning the village leader’s wife gives us a “walking farewell.” She walks us to the edge of the village, chattering all the way, giving Etienne messages to pass on to other people. Just before she turns back, she hands Etienne another of the huge avocados as a going-away gift. She takes my hand in the almost intimate way that Haitians do when friends chat, kisses me on the cheek European style — another Haitian custom — and through Etienne tells me, “we live in abject poverty. We know that. But when you have no choice, then you must choose to be happy.” As we head back down the mountain, I feel like I’ve just been blessed.

A Royal Caribbean cruise ship docked in Labadie. Photo: Rob Inh00d (flickr)

It's not an uncommon theme in the Caribbean: Beyond the most beautiful shorelines exists some of the most extreme poverty in the world.

The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti boasts an exclusive beach resort in the northwest coastal town Labadie. The Haitian Government sold the land to cruise giant Royal Caribbean years ago to boost tourism, but PRI's The World reports that the fishing village remains poor despite the flock of tourists who come ashore twice a week.

Labadie's 5,000 residents reap little benefit from the cruise ships — one of which is ironically called "Freedom of the Seas" — that dock in their town. Tourists rarely venture past the private beaches and only a handful of locals work for Royal Caribbean. A few years ago, the community developed its own non-profit to deliver the services it needs. Their organization, Vwa Ayiti (Voice of Haiti), built composting toilets that turn waste into fertilizer. Community members are developing a water treatment system, and are partnering with Canadian NGOs to set up a Haitian-run medical clinic in a neighboring village.

Tourists have little idea what life is like in Labadie, preferring to stay close to the pristine shoreline, free from signs of a difficult life. “I don’t want to see poverty,” an American woman told The New York Times. “I’m on vacation. I don’t want to think that these people don’t have enough to eat.”

Vwa Ayiti's efforts can't take on all of the community's problems, but according to The World, the organization has strengthened the identity of Labadie's residents. An elder in the community shared his view on the program: "In Labadie, life depends on God's help and on your neighbors and friends. Without them, you can't survive here."

Photo: Peter Casier(flickr)

This summer, multiple regions of the globe have been hit by water-related disasters, ranging from bone-dry droughts to devastating floods. An international group of water experts is warning of severe social and economic consequences unless significant investments in infrastructure such as irrigation systems and dams.

Speakers at the World Water Congress in Vienna told attendees that infrastructure has to more than double from $80 billion to $180 billion to keep pace with the effects of population growth and climate changes.

According to the World Bank, the major water challenges we face include lack of access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation, water scarcity and extreme weather events resulting from climate change. It is estimated that four billion people will be affected by these challenges in the near future, especially in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East.

Without sustained investment in water infrastructure like irrigation systems and dams, the results could be dire, especially for developing countries. This summer’s news headlines are further evidence. Haiti and other Caribbean countries are reeling from four back-to-back hurricanes, the flooding in Bihar, India is the worst in 50 years, and countries from Australia to Ethiopia are experiencing record droughts.

With the effects of water challenges accelerating so rapidly, it remains to be seen whether world leaders will have the foresight to effectively address these problems preventatively, or be stuck playing catch up — with deadly results.

A new UN Food and Agriculture Organization report predicts that rising food prices will soon begin to slow. However the BBC decidedly reports that cheap food is a thing of the past:

[Food] prices will level off at a far higher average level than seen before the crisis erupted. The long era of cheap food is over.

The sharp rise in food prices over the past year have been felt all over the world but are particularly painful for the poor in developing countries. The World Bank recently estimated that higher food prices and food scarcity could force 100 million people to become impoverished. In response, The World Bank is allocating $1.2 billion for increased food aid. At least $200 million is designated for grants targeting "high risk" countries including Liberia, Haiti and Djibouti.

For the people of Haiti, a country that depends heavily on food imports, the combination of rapidly rising oil and food prices is making life extremely difficult. So difficult that, according to The Guardian, Haiti’s poor are forced to depend on buying hardened patties of clay and water to fill their stomachs. What’s worse, even these are not inflation-proof. In the Guardian article, a mud cake baker says she is struggling to keep costs down, since clay-rich mud needs to be trucked in from outside Port-Au-Prince.

The dire food situation spawned riots in Haiti in early April 2008, and there seems to be few signs of improvement. The government of Haiti is attempting to revive the agricultural sector in the country, a task that will be hindered by “scant resources, degraded soil and land ownership dispute,” according to The Guardian.

The challenges are steep, but a Haitian dairy cooperative called Let Agogo (Creole for “milk in abundance”) is serving as a model of agricultural possibility in this poverty-stricken nation.

In Haiti, milk is the second most imported food item, with 40 million Euro worth imported into the country each year. Rising import prices have made the cost of a gallon of milk as high as $9 – a prohibitive amount for the majority of Haiti's population, 54 percent of whom make less than $1 a day.

Let Agogo’s parent NGO, Veterimed, created a network of 13 micro-dairies and works with the dairy farmers to improve sustainability and productivity. Milk products from these dairies are then sold all over Haiti. This project not only provides Haitians with an affordable nutrient source, but it creates sorely-needed jobs as well.

At present, nearly 75 percent of food in Haiti is imported. While agricultural self-sufficiency might not be possible (or even reasonable), it could be beneficial for Haiti to combat the effects of unstable global food and oil prices by lessening their dependence on staple imports and creating a strong agricultural infrastructure. Let Agogo is one step towards that goal.

Market in Port au Prince, Haiti. Photo: Miguel Ángel (flickr)

I recently accepted an invitation to speak at a showing of the documentary “The Price of Sugar” sponsored by Portland State University. “The Price of Sugar,” which I had not seen before that event, is a powerful documentary depicting the plight of Haitians who toil on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic.

According to the filmmakers, these workers cross the border from Haiti to labor in conditions that the film's central protagonist, Father Christopher Hartley, calls "quasi-slavery." They are housed in sugar company towns called bateyes. Stripped of identification papers, they cannot legally travel elsewhere in the country.

My role in the May 7 event involved offering my perspectives on the economic conditions in Haiti that drive Haitians to cross the border illegally and risk arrest and deportation. Since February 2006, I’ve had several opportunities to travel to Haiti to work on developing economic and educational projects in this poorest of counties in the Western Hemisphere.

Imagine my surprise the morning of the event to receive both an email and a fax at my office at Marylhurst University from the Washington, D.C. office of Patton Boggs, LLP informing me their law office represents the Vicini family, “who are involved in various business ventures in the Dominican Republic including sugar.”

According to the 29-page document, the Vicinis are the victims of misrepresentation by the makers of the documentary; the documentary contained no less than 53 errors, omissions, or fabrications that allegedly amount to defamation of the Vicini family and businesses; and a “cease and desist” motion had been filed in a United States District Court in Boston, Massachusetts. “What,” I thought, “kind of mess did I just step in?”

A careful reading of the legal document revealed that I wasn’t a target, but simply being informed that a legal effort has been underway to stop the distribution and showing of the video. Since I had no direct knowledge of the information contained in the video, nor was I in any way responsible for obtaining and showing the video, I chose to go ahead with my prepared remarks on general economic conditions in Haiti and show my own photos from recent trips to that country.

What’s important here, and both I and my hosts at the video screening were careful to point this out, is that anyone interested in learning more about the economic, political, and social conditions of people engaged in trade around the world are obligated to choose their information sources wisely and carefully.

Researchers seeking support for their own agendas and ideas can easily find sources that will support their position. We are human after all and we gravitate toward those bits of data that seem to resonate with our opinions. But careful researchers who desire to build a real knowledge of the world have a much tougher challenge. Researchers seeking an accurate picture of the conditions under which people labor around the world may find it harder to find unbiased, neutral, accurate data.

It is not my intent here to pass judgment on the veracity of the information contained in “The Price of Sugar” or to comment on the legal claims of anyone connected with the video. My intent is to caution viewers to be diligent in their pursuit of true knowledge by exercising a reasonable amount of skepticism and to engage in critical thinking any time they are learning something new.

U.N. and World Bank officials say "the perfect storm" of factors has led to skyrocketing food prices, leading to riots in places in Haiti.

Haitians took to the streets this week, with The Times Online reporting that protesters compared their hunger pangs to the burn of battery acid. U.N. Peacekeepers used rubber bullets in attempt to control the situation.

The riots in Haiti are not the first uprisings over food prices, which have risen 65 percent in the last six years. There have been riots in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal. A survey by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute says staple foods have risen by 80 percent since 2005. The price of rice is at its highest in the last 19 years and wheat is at a 28-year high.

“There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50 to 60 percent of income goes to food,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told The Times Online. “This is due to higher demand from countries like India and China, where GDP grows at 8-10 percent and the increase in income is going to food.”

Community Health Workers in Haiti have had one of the most astounding responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in industrialized or developing countries worldwide. When the epidemic first came to Haiti’s shores, many world leaders thought the country was too poor and underdeveloped to make intervention worthwhile. In the decades since, they have been proven wrong. The World Security Institute writes that "Twenty-five years after the AIDS epidemic was given a name, it is a plague with tangled ties between the wealthiest and the poorest countries in the hemisphere. With HIV rates second only to those of sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean islands that conjure visions of sun, sand, and tourism now highlight the interplay between poverty and the epidemic in this hemisphere."

This short film, In Focus - Haiti's Hope by the Pulitzer Center, showcases what health clinics in rural and urban Haiti are doing, in order to create a sustainable approach to treating disease – and help the Haitian people move out of the world’s most dire poverty level at the same time.