By Lauren Gray, International Rescue Committee

Melissa Winkler/The IRC

While the crisis in Haiti no longer dominates the headlines, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is still on the ground providing critical aid to help Haitians recover in the aftermath of January’s earthquake. Our work now is no less urgent than it was six months ago.

On Thursday, July 22nd, the IRC’s Photos from the Field live webcast will feature powerful images of the IRC’s work in Haiti and the people they have been privileged to help. During the event, you will hear the stories behind the photos, told by the two photographers who took them, IRC’s Gerry Martone and Melissa Winkler.

Both Gerry and Melissa are IRC veterans who have covered our emergency response work around the world, in Myanmar, Congo, Iraq, Sudan, and Thailand, to name a few.

Sarah O’Hagan, IRC Board Co-Chair, will moderate the event while Gerry and Melissa offer their unique, on-the-ground perspective of the IRC’s expertise leading families from harm to home. During the webcast, participants will have the opportunity to submit questions for Gerry and Melissa. Register now.

See all Haiti posts.

A grim anniversary for Haiti … hat’s off to Chile … cautious optimism in the Gulf … determination to improve public-private partnerships …

Haiti.  If you are in the disaster recovery or community development business, watching Anderson Cooper isn’t just depressing, it’s masochistic.  He is in Haiti right now, marking the six-month anniversary of the January 12 earthquake, shining his spotlight on the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps and the lack of progress, and asking important questions about the flow of aid.  

Apparently, only 2% of the pledged aid has actually been disbursed.  The hard truth is that the lack of real governance, coordination, and direction are acting as powerful deterrents.  Many companies are begging us to do something about the customs situation, but the Haitian government doesn’t have full control over their own people.  We are waiting for the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission to start having real teeth. 

In the interim, BCLC is working with Executives without Borders, CHF International and a number of companies to develop four projects where we think we can move the needle.  For more info, contact Taryn Bird.

Chile.  This is a country that was rocked by an earthquake 500 times more forceful than the Haiti quake. 

Read more…

Yesterday a good friend of mine, Lauren Petty, posted a few photos from BCLC’s recent delegation trip to Haiti.  (See also: Firsthand Look at Haiti Five Months After the Earthquake by Shane O’Connor, FedEx.) Lauren is incredibly creative and entitled the entry “Good Will Hunting.” Her choice in words got me thinking about the movie and the parallel with the youth population in Haiti.

On the trip, we had the chance to visit some of the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps, which you find all over the city. One of the overwhelming characteristics about these camps is the massive amounts of children you find inside each of them. I had the opportunity to speak with some of kids and was amazed at their ability to communicate and the amount of children who spoke multiple languages. The majority of them spoke Creole and French (which I do not) however many of them also spoke Spanish and/ or some English. I found this to be incredible considering they are bi- or tri-lingual with little to no formal education structure in place.

We all remember of the story of Will Hunting and his journey from a frustrated, delinquent janitor at MIT to unleashing his sheer brilliance as a mathematician. Along the way he is accompanied on this journey by professions who guided him and rationalized, his otherwise chaotic and diluted life.

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We have said many times after disasters that you have to give people a reason to return to the area and reinvest.  This includes appropriate housing and job opportunities, and the systems structure of schools, hospitals, roads, police, etc. that keep a community functioning normally. 

In Haiti, we need to give people a reason to invest in the first place. 

Some of BCLC’s staf just returned from Port au Prince, where we led a business delegation to the country in partnership with CHF International and Executives without Borders.  (See also: Firsthand Look at Haiti Five Months After the Earthquake by Shane O’Connor, FedEx.)During the trip, we saw first-hand the incredible devastation that the earthquake caused, the countless tents where internally displaced persons (IDPs) are now living, and the poverty that far too many people face daily. 

But even before the earthquake, Haiti was the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.  According to the CIA World Factbook, Haiti’s per-capita GDP (purchasing power parity) was $1,300 in 2009.  Neighboring Dominican Republic had a per-capita GDP (PPP) of $8,300 in 2009. Before the earthquake, Haiti needed investment and opportunity.   After the earthquake, Haiti is even more desperate for investment and wealth creation.

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By Lisa H. Lindgren, BCLC graduate fellow and joint MA/MBA candidate at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and Columbia Business School

Far right: Lisa Lindgren

As a graduate intern based out of Brussels at the State Department’s U.S. Mission to the European Union last summer, I learned first-hand the importance of U.S. diplomatic efforts in a traditional government-to-government sense.  I attended events with other interns and officials from the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the EU member state offices of Permanent Representation to the EU and participated in conversations with officials on issues related to economic policy and regulatory cooperation.  Although only one small component of U.S. diplomacy around the world these discussions are part of a long-term strategic dialogue that cements the transatlantic relationship.  The importance of our country’s international presence is necessary and unquestioned. 

But what about diplomacy through business?  Do we not generate just as much goodwill (if not more) through U.S. corporate involvement, through international trade of goods and services, and through economic development inspired by the private sector?  As a fellow at the Business Civic Leadership Center this summer, I am exposed to another type of diplomacy – the ways by which many U.S. companies are aiding U.S. Government-led diplomacy with their engagement in communities throughout the world. 

Read more…

“Je voudrais Prestige.”

It’s no accident that one of the best roads in Haiti stretches out in front of the Prestige brewery.  It’s one of the smoothest beers you will ever taste.  Frankly, I’m surprised some enterprising exporter hasn’t made it famous across the United States already (hint, hint Corona, SAB Miller, Anheuser-Busch, MolsonCoors).

This was just one of the little revelations we experienced in our brief site visit to Haiti just completed. 

I was almost embarrassed at how well we ate on the trip.  Mangoes, pineapples, plantains, and other fruits were all excellent, and don’t get me started on the coffee.  If I had any coffee expertise whatsoever, I’d set up a coffee importing company specializing in Caribbean flavors, starting with Haitian and Jamaican brands first.  Green Mountain, Starbucks, Caribou, Maxwell House, this is a lay-up for one of you guys. Read more…

This Thursday at 3pm ET, BCLC is going to hold one of our crisis briefing calls. This one will be unprecedented however, because we will be providing updates on four different crises: the response to Haiti, the response to Chile, the response to the Tennessee floods, and the response to the Deepwater oil spill.

In every case, there are many roles that the private sector can play, but we have to figure out ways to use our strengths and assets to greatest effect.

Take Haiti for example. Haiti has roughly the same population as the Dominican Republic, the country with which it shares the island of Hispaniola, and yet has roughly one-eighth the per capita income. Engineers should be swarming the island – looking at sewage and sanitation, traffic and transportation infrastructure, environmental remediation, and so forth. Of the $5 billion or so that have been donated to Haiti, surely $15 million can be found to fund a fiber optic cable to bring Haitian communication costs down to the average for the rest of the Caribbean. There are any number of companies that the housing authorities should be engaging to find more permanent solutions than tents and tarpaulins. And don’t even get me started about how much we could help Haiti’s entrepreneurs, franchisers, and small and medium-sized enterprises. With over 70% of the population unemployed or underemployed, building up Haiti’s SME base would be a significant step forward in breaking the culture of dependency.

Read more…

On Thursday, April 8, 2010 at BCLC’s “Investing in the Millennium Development Goals” forum, hosted in coordination with the UN Office for Partnerships, President Bill Clinton delivered the following remarks via video:

Petra Nemcova, Phillip Caputo, Taryn Bird

The Happy Hearts Fund has positively impacted 31,000 students and 331,000 community members globally since 2005. Their mission?  “To improve children’s lives through educational and sustainable programs in natural disaster areas.” 

Petra Nemcova founded the organization ito serve children affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.  Today, the organization’s Sustainable Schools Program plans to enter Haiti to make a difference in the lives of children there who otherwise have no access to education or technology.  Their goal is to build at least 15 schools in Haiti in the next five years and have a diverse portfolio of donors and investors in the project.

“The question I’m most often asked is how are we able to move quickly,” said Phillip Caputo, the organization’s Executive Director.  “The answer is partnerships.”

The Happy Hearts Sustainable Schools Program in Haiti–as in all countries Happy Hearts serves–will have three major components:

Education
HHF identifies schools in areas adversely affected by natural disasters and builds or rebuilds them allowing children to start the healing and recovery process. 

Read more…

Haiti has been a huge development challenge since the country gained independence more than 200 years ago, but for some development workers and businesses, the post-earthquake situation has become a massive opportunity.  Now aid and government money is more readily available to bolster otherwise unfeasible business projects there.

Coca Cola, for one example, just spent $3.5 million to launch a sustainable mango juice industry in the country.  The five-year plan should double the income of more than 25,000 Haitian mango farmers, and empower local entrepreneurs to create products that will be consumable, manufacturable, and exportable, Jeffrey Sachs pointed out during his talk at “Investing in the Millennium Development Goals.”

Meanwhile, the Inter-American Development Bank will boost investment to $7.5 million in the project, dubbed “The Haiti Hope Project,” and Coca Cola will further benefit by gaining primary access to Haitian producers and designing a market that will fit with their corporate strategy.

“This is a business model that has a social benefit and will create jobs,” Sachs said and noted the need for more such partnerships: self-sustaining, scalable projects made possible because of initial investment by governments and businesses working together toward a common goal.  “We need to experiment more,” Sachs urged.

After Sachs’s talk, Salil Shetty, Director of the UN Millennium Campaign, noted Five Q’s business leaders should ask themselves when planning long-term strategy and seeking effective partnerships in the developing world:

• Are we generating jobs for the poor?
• Are we creating wealth for and with the poor?
• Are we increasing their capacity?
• Are we influencing government policies that affect the poor?
• Are the taxes we pay reaching the poor?

For more stories of success toward the MDGs, see www.endpoverty2015.org.