Rebuilding Haiti – The Big Challenge Ahead

This week and the next I am in Haiti. It is a little over four months since the devastating earthquake took over 200,000 lives and destroyed most of whatever infrastructure existed in this impoverished city of Port au Prince. It is a daunting task, rebuilding a city, rebuilding houses, and bringing life back to some semblance of normalcy. Over one and a quarter million people still in tents, life is hard for everybody, despite the relief efforts of all the aid organisations which have been working hard since the first day of the disaster.

Just to give you a sense of how people are living, imagine sleeping inside a plastic tent, closed on all sides, with some small ventilation; the tent size is just enough to accommodate a single bed, and a small shelf where you can store your personal belongings; water is from a common source about 50 metres away from where you live; toilets and bathing facilities are common, and there are over three hundred people living in the compound where you live; the temperature during the day is around 45 degrees Celsius. Fortunately there is electricity, but no fans. And you are living there for the past four months.

That’s exactly where I am staying with over three hundred of staff and volunteers from an international humanitarian organisation which is one amongst over a hundred organisations in Haiti, helping rebuild the country.

Now change the picture to this: there are over nine thousand people living in your compound instead of 300; water is about 150-200 metres from where you live, and for each source of water, there are about five hundred people who queue up for it, there is one toilet for about 800 people, and one bath for 500 people; your tent is one of the two thousands in an area the size of an average football stadium. And you have no jobs, no livelihoods, and you are relying on handouts from friends and charities to survive from day to day.

This is exactly how people are living here in Port-au-Prince, over one million of them.

Unfortunately, they will continue to live like this for some time to come. Despite the fact that billions of dollars are available for rebuilding this country, and money is not in short supply.

Therein lies the tragedy of Haiti.

It is estimated that nearly 700,000 houses were destroyed by the earthquake, over three-quarters of this in the capital city. Houses that were destroyed and collapsed need clearing of the site for rebuilding to take place. And clearing rubbles is a painstaking operation when you have two houses in a row destroyed and one adjoining one remaining intact. The streets are small even for a small car, and moving heavy machinery is simply not possible. Then the question comes where do you dump the billion tonnes of rubbles? Things would have been easy if people could be provided alternative land where fresh constructions could begin. Now imagine, if one-third of London is destroyed, where in London would you find new land for these people? You can ship them to Scotland or Manchester, but how many of these people will live there where they can find no employment, no jobs, no businesses?

The problem in Haiti is the same – all businesses and jobs are in Port-au-Prince, and except for some very marginal farming, there virtually is no other livelihoods opportunity outside of the city of Port of Prince. And even there, before the earthquake, it was only a lucky minority that found employment. And the rest lived on hope of finding an employment.

This disaster has been unique. I have seen several dozens of big disasters in all parts of the world in the past two decades – never have a million people so severely affected in a single city with such a high density population.  In this situation, what should the aid agencies do? They have the money, they have the will to do it, but they don’t know where to build the house. Nobody has the answer: should aid agencies build houses wherever they can find land and hope that people will move there? Or should they focus on creating jobs and providing livelihoods instead, hoping that once people have jobs, people will find a solution to their housing problem?

We would like to hear your thoughts – if you have ideas, do share them with us. There are several billion dollars of funds available, there are one million people who lost homes and livelihoods and their near and dear ones. And no easy answers yet.