Stakeholder Commitment

Tuesday 12 January, late afternoon, Port au Prince, Haiti.

With the beginning of 2010, Haiti was recovering from a series of devastating hurricanes and tropical storms. To make matters worse, the global recession restricted demand for Haiti's exports and dampened the inflow of critical remittances for Haitians working overseas.

The earthquake's epicenter was just 15 kilometers from Haiti's capital Port-Au-Prince, home to around 1 million people.

In a matter of seconds, a difficult environment became an environment of cataclysmic destruction.

The Haitian quake lasted about 30 seconds, and, when it subsided, the landscape, and the lives of 2 million Haitians were transformed... forever.

The earthquake left over 300,000 people dead and over a million were displaced. The loss of life, livelihoods and infrastructure was on a mind-boggling scale. Yet the rippling destruction was followed by an aid response the scope of which was phenomenal and unprecedented in the history of disasters. With so much pledged money, expertise and goodwill flowing into Haiti, there is a general sense of optimism and conviction that it is possible to "build back better." Building back better partly involves the creation of improved infrastructure (e.g. building sturdier structures) , effective operations of public services, and environmental protection (e.g. safeguarding environmental resources, reforestation, and preventing over-fishing).


Reconstruction Sans Poverty

The central component of building back better, however, is ensuring that we do not rebuild poverty. The development efforts must place substantial emphasis on helping Haitians rebuild their lives in ways that also help them move out of poverty. With this as mission, it is clear that it will take much more than the goodwill and hard work of aid organizations to elevate Haiti to its deserved position in the global community.

The initial optimism surrounding the Haitian redevelopment has now settled to the realism of the unique complexities of rebuilding the nation.

In the face of limited resources and competing demands, the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) is developing methods to determine how available funds should be directed in order to improve the quality of life of Haitian citizens and communities.

Central to the IHRCs vision is a holistic plan inclusive of public infrastructure and public service operations because appropriate infrastructure combined with effective operations, supports and sustains economic activities and produces services central to prosperity and the reduction of poverty.


Vital Stakeholders

Without question, the IHRC reconstruction processes will encounter a number of obstacles. These include internal Haitian power struggles, converting pledges to actual funds, divergent donor priorities, local government policies, and enabling and ensuring foreign direct investment.

Currently, the IHRC risks the dissatisfaction (or disinterest) from various stakeholders, especially the private sector which may deem Haiti too high a risk for investment. Other stakeholders may also become disenchanted with the redevelopment efforts. For instance, segments of the Haitian citizenry may express concerns that infrastructure projects are targeted towards regions of influential, while the needs of other areas are being ignored. The donor community may become concerned that the funds pledge may not (or are not) being utilized appropriately to affect improvement in the quality of life in a way that conforms to donor procedures and practices. The Haitian government may become concerned that projects are not being distributed among areas in accordance with national priorities.

The IHRCs ability to bring stakeholders together in a timely, transparent manner is key to starting the reconstruction properly. It is interesting to note the Haitian Governments Action Plan states that the private sector is the engine of wealth. While this is a very important statement, this must not only include local companies but needs to include global leaders of industry which can partner with local firms and the public sector to ensure the building of capacity.

While funding from donors is clearly important, simply pouring money into Haiti does not guarantee success. The IHRC has made it clear that funds will be allocated effectively in order to have a positive impact for the people of Haiti. Indeed, committing financial resources to an island nation trying to recover from one of the most devastating disasters in recent memory is no plan for success. Having said this, the IHRC must recognize that in the absence of proper institutional frameworks that encourage private sector participation there is little point in companies investing resources in a large-scale rebuilding effort.

Additionally, in order for reconstruction to be successful, it must have the involvement of all stakeholders in three key issues - coordination, resource mobilization, and financial commitment.


Elements of Collaborative Reconstruction

It is not simply a matter of cost-sharing, but encompasses the entire reconstruction process, including decision-making and management. Towards this reconstruction partnership the following elements should be seen as crucial to building a better Haiti:

ensure the development environment is culturally Haitian and a source of pride and excitement for the local population

develop a policy framework for ensuring collaboration among ministries, civil society, multinational orgs, the private sector, NGOs, and other players;

jointly plan, monitor and coordinate leadership, ownership, and implementation;

share knowledge, information, technical know-how, and other resources;

assume measures to build mutual confidence, respect, and accountability;

involve the media and other stakeholders in public discussion on development issues;

apply strategies to eliminate long-term dependency on aid, putting more emphasis on local capacity building and reliance on indigenous solutions;

create a medium of managing and coordinating the partnership through legislation, consultation, and awareness meetings;

involve stakeholders in building the minimum critical infrastructures for decentralization of implementation and management at various levels;

channel additional assistance through the UN and credible NGOs; and

collaborate in developing adequate data collection and information systems to assess the status and trends within the respective infrastructure categories.

This Partnership framework incorporates sustainable initiatives into reconstruction in order to meet the present needs and aspirations of stakeholders without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations. Likewise, this framework enables the best operation of both infrastructure systems and the management processes.




The factors arise not only from the engineering requirements, but also from social, political, and donor influences; such as legislation, social need, funding procedures and processes, environmental and political requirements. These diverse requirements need to be taken into account by the IHRC decision makers.


Conclusion

In order to ensure sustainable development the IHRC must establish a mechanism through which the Haitian government, international community, the private sector, and NGOs can be partners in all phases of the reconstruction. Partnerships between the Haitian government, non- governmental organizations, charitable groups and private enterprises can be formed to solve new and long standing problems. In fact, these partnerships can have a 'multiplier effect' on each party's ability to contribute.

High quality, efficient infrastructure will help achieve the development goals of job creation and poverty reduction and is certainly needed to further attract both foreign and local investment in various core industries.

As we all seek to participate in the reconstruction we need solutions that recognize the complementary roles of the public and private sectors and which reflect the political and social realities of within Haiti and throughout the region.