Haiti: Dreaming beyond the rubble

FOR the hundreds of thousands of Haitians still living in tents or in the streets following the earthquake that devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince, on January 12th, life remains a thing of quiet anxiety. When rain falls, as it has most evenings this month, it turns ground to mud, buckles tarpaulins and bed sheets, washes possessions down slopes and creates toxic cesspools. Even when dry, the camps are hazardous. Although police have started to patrol the largest camps at night, residents still fear theft and rape, especially in unlit areas. Police have also evicted tent-dwellers from some parcels of private property, in some cases by force. Many Haitians would prefer to be somewhere else, especially by the time the hurricane season starts in June—but where?

在1月12日地震摧毁了海底首都太子港之后，对于成百上千依旧住在帐篷或大街上的海地人来说，生活依然是一种无声的烦恼。同这个月大部分的夜晚一样，雨水使街道变得泥泞，压弯了防水油布和床单，冲洗着斜坡下的财产，留下了有毒的污水坑。甚至在无雨的时候，临时居住地也很危险。尽管警察已经开始在夜间对最大的居住地进行巡逻，居民，尤其是无灯地区的居民，依然对偷窃和强奸心有余悸。警察也将住帐篷的人从一些私人领地中驱逐出去，有些时候会动用武力。海地人民更愿意住到别处，尤其是在飓风季节开始的六月——但是住到哪里呢？

The government has at last found a place for some of them. This month it designated a large patch of land at Corail Cesselesse, near the sea north of Port-au-Prince, where it plans to relocate up to 50,000 families. It is starting with those living in the areas most susceptible to floods and disease. Their transfer may take months. Last weekend the first buses took just over 100 people from the Pétionville Club, an undulating golf course that was once a haunt of rich Haitians and where 45,000 people are now camped out in squalor. Aid workers complain that the government did not give them enough time to prepare the site at Corail Cesselesse by, for example, laying gravel to prevent dust storms and flooding. “Future moves cannot be done in this last-minute fashion,” said Marcel Stoessel, who heads Oxfam in Haiti.

最终，政府为一些人找到了容身之处。这个月，在太子港北部的临海地区Corail Cesselesse，政府选定了一大片土地，打算重置约5万户家庭。在易受洪水和疾病影响的地区，人们首先开始迁移，这也许会持续几个月。上周末，第一批公共汽车仅仅将100多人从佩蒂翁维尔俱乐部载出，那里曾是富人聚集的波浪形高尔夫球场，现在却有4万5千人在污秽中露宿。援救工作者抱怨政府没有给他们足够的时间建设在Corail Cesselesse的安置点，例如，他们没有铺设能够防止尘暴和洪水的砾石。牛津饥荒救济委员会在海地的负责人，马赛尔•斯托赛尔说，“进一步的措施无法在现在这种紧急关头得到体现。”

Still, the designation of the site is a milestone in a painfully slow process of rebuilding a country shaken to its core. It is the first significant act by Haiti’s government, which was disabled and rendered homeless and all but invisible by the quake. In the immediate aftermath, aid workers grappled with chaos unusual even by the standards of severe natural disasters: there were supply bottlenecks at airports and warehouses, communication networks were down, and mountains of rubble blocked roads. Aid agencies sometimes seemed keener to hoist their own flags than to work together, prompting Sir John Holmes, the United Nations emergency relief co-ordinator, to castigate them for their lack of co-ordination.

虽然如此，对一个被地震折腾的元气大伤国家来说，安置点的选定是缓慢的重建过程中的里程碑，也是海地政府的头等大事，这一过程令人非常痛苦，而海地政府也在地震中瘫痪，被夷为平地，无处可去。在随后的余震中，救援工作者在狼藉中奋战，这狼藉即使用严重的自然灾害的标准来看也很不寻常：机场和仓库供给困难，通讯网络瘫痪，如山的碎石阻碍了道路。有时，比起合力工作，救援机构更热衷于升起自己的旗帜，这使得联合国的紧急救济协调专员乔恩•霍姆斯爵士对这些机构缺少合作精神的行为进行严厉批评。

These problems—a weak government and a welter of aid agencies with clashing agendas—predate the earthquake in Haiti, which long had a reputation as a “Republic of NGOs”. By some (inexact) counts, there are more than 10,000 of them operating there—more per head than anywhere else in the Americas. Only about 550 are registered with the government. Because of worries about government corruption and incompetence, donors have long tended to channel their aid through NGOs, which in turn provide the bulk of social services, from hospitals and sanitation systems to orphanages and schools.

这些问题——一个羸弱的政府和一批各自为政的救援机构——在地震发生前就存在于海地这个国家了，使之有了“非政府组织共和国”之称。一些统计（并不准确）表明有超过1万个救援机构在海地运行——超过了美洲其他地区的人均水平。只有约550家在海地政府登记过。由于担心政府贪污和不作为，长久以来捐献者更愿意通过非政府组织进行援助，依次提供了包括从医院和卫生体系到孤儿院和学校的大量社会服务。

Aid dependence means that the government lacks the means to pursue development policies. Take the Ministry of Agriculture. Its sources of funding are so many, dispersed, small, and fickle that Michel Chancy, the deputy minister, says he is unsure of its total budget. “The entire structure of foreign aid must be overhauled” if rebuilding is to help, rather than hinder, Haiti’s development, Mr Chancy said. 更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

救援依赖是指政府缺少继续发展政策的手段。以农业部为例，其资金来源具有多、散、少、变的特点，以至于副部长米歇尔•昌西说他不确定农业部的整体预算。他表示如果重建欲推动，而不是阻碍海地的发展，“整个外国援助体系必须彻底检修”。

One of the few bits of good news for Haiti is that the urgent need to strengthen the public administration was recognised at a donors conference held in New York on March 31st, at which almost 60 countries and institutions pledged $9.9 billion. The question is whether good intentions can be turned into good public policy.

在3月31日纽约举行的捐助者会议上，加强海地的公共行政的急迫需求得到了承认，这是为数不多的好消息之一，同时在会议大约60个国家和机构承诺捐款99亿美元。问题是好的动机能否转化为好的公共政策。

The government asked donors for $350m in direct budget support between now and October (and a total of $1.2 billion over the next 18 months). That is because it has lost most of its meagre revenues, 85% of which came from in or near the capital. It needs the money to pay wages and an electricity subsidy and to invest in farming. Bill Clinton, the former American president who is the UN’s special envoy for Haiti, has urged donors to spend 10% of their grants on improving government capacity, including budget support.

政府要求捐赠人在现在到十月之间给予35亿美元的直接预算支持（并在未来的18个月给予12亿美元）。那是因为它失去了大部分少量的财政收入，85%的收入来自首都或首都附近地区。它需要钱来支付工资和电力补助，并投资农业。美国前总统、联合国海地特使比尔•克林顿，督促捐助者拿出承诺资金的10%来提高政府能力，包括预算支持。

The New York conference also approved the setting up of a single authority to co-ordinate aid. The Interim Haitian Reconstruction Commission—chaired jointly by Jean-Max Bellerive, Haiti’s prime minister, and Mr Clinton—has the authority to seek, approve and co-ordinate projects. The government hopes it will also blunt donors’ worries that their money might be stolen rather than spent. The committee will include eight Haitian government officials, representatives from trade unions and business, ten donor nominees and a Caribbean Community representative. Groups with observer status include the Haitian diaspora in the United States. A trust fund administered by the World Bank will manage the money.

纽约会议也同意建立一个统一的机构来协调救援工作。过渡阶段海地复原委员会——由海地总理马克斯•贝勒里夫和克林顿共同主持——有权力请求，同意并协调项目。政府希望可以打消捐助者的疑虑，证明他们的钱是被花掉了，而不是被贪污了。委员会将会包括8名海地政府官员及来自工会和商业界代表，10名获提名的捐助者和一名加勒比共同体的代表。在美国的海地移民将会以观察员的身份参加。由一家世界银行运行的信托基金将会管理资金。

This structure echoes a plan drawn up for the government in 2008 by Paul Collier, an economist at Oxford University. It represents the best chance that this time Haiti will not be permanently weakened by natural disaster, as so often in the past. Whether it will be approved by the Haitian people remains to be seen. René Préval, the president, has been barely visible since the quake, and is now unpopular. A presidential election was due to be held in November; according to Mr Clinton, this should still be possible. Haitians and their outside helpers must urgently find a way to balance short-term survival and longer-term development.

这个体系附和了在2008年由牛津大学经济学家保罗•科利尔为海地政府提出的一个计划。在过去，海地经常受到自然灾害的长期影响，国力羸弱，但是现在这个体系给海地一个绝好的机会，可以避免相同的厄运。但是其是否能被海地人民通过还有待观察。海地总统勒内•普雷瓦尔，自地震后很少抛头露面，现在很不得人心。总统选举将在11月举行，据克林顿说，选举仍然有可能如期举行。海地人民和他们的外国帮手必须尽快找到一个方法，使短期的生存问题和长期的发展问题得到平衡。