Paul Collier recently wrote an excellent review of Paul Farmer's new book on reconstruction in Haiti, entitled, 'Haiti After the Earthquake' with some salient points about Farmer's approach to reconstruction and redevelopment. Farmer, whose work in health has been truly monumental (and will, most certainly, lead to a Nobel Prize at some point in his career), and has been well documented in Tracy Kidder's beautiful tome, "Mountains Beyond Mountains," does not, it seems, play the role of development expert as well as he does health expert. Farmer's recommendations involve the heavy reliance on a national government that was both unable and unwilling to provide services BEFORE the disaster struck; granted, which local ownership of the reconstruction process is a vital component in the medium-to-long term, the immediacy of the impact of the earthquake and the as-of-yet inadequate governmental response to the calamity demands innovative thinking. Thus, the "Interim Haiti Recovery Commission," described by Collier as, "...a potentially far-reaching innovation, one that could serve as a prototype for for aid in fragile states." The biggest challenge since the disaster has been the coordination of the NGO's that have sprung up in its wake; the dissonance caused by too many organizations working in too small of a space has inhibited progress instead of serving to propel reconstruction. Thus, the Commission: "The commission was set up to break the logjam of dysfunction, tell donors what to fund, tell NGOs what to do, and provide the necessary authorizations on behalf of the government. In the longer term, it will need to evolve into something fully Haitian that can supersede those parts of the state that are essential yet, realistically, beyond reform."
Collier had touched on this point in his book, "The Bottom Billion," with his Independent Service Authorities, set up as extra-governmental bodies to, in essence, get the job done on crucial tasks of governance. Thus, there is something to these external-bodies; and in meeting the largest critique, that of the vested interests enjoying the low-hanging pickings of corruption, milking on fickle, external development and humanitarian funds for personal gain, inside the status-quo, Collier answers sagely, "...prickly assertions of soverignty are an inadequate response to reasonable concerns."
Collier had touched on this point in his book, "The Bottom Billion," with his Independent Service Authorities, set up as extra-governmental bodies to, in essence, get the job done on crucial tasks of governance. Thus, there is something to these external-bodies; and in meeting the largest critique, that of the vested interests enjoying the low-hanging pickings of corruption, milking on fickle, external development and humanitarian funds for personal gain, inside the status-quo, Collier answers sagely, "...prickly assertions of soverignty are an inadequate response to reasonable concerns."
