Rebuilding a Stronger Haiti

Check out Paul Farmer, co-founder of GHC partner Partners In Health’s, recent congressional testimony on the opportunity that the horrific tragedy in Haiti represents to rebuild a stronger, more stable and more prosperous Haiti.  His remarks focus on the need to work with the Haitian government in rebuilding efforts and prioritize job creation as a means of not just rescuing Haiti from this current crisis, but investing in long-term development:

“In other words, if we focus the reconstruction efforts appropriately, we can achieve long-term benefits for Haiti. The UNDP is helping to organize programs of this kind, which should be supported and extended around the country. Putting Haitians back to work and offering them the dignity that comes with having a job and its basic protections is exactly what brought our country out of the Great Depression.

This was always the right thing to do, and aid programs persistently fail to get it right. So here is our chance: if even half of the pledges made in Montreal or other such meetings are linked tightly to local job creation, it is possible to imagine a Haiti building back better with fewer of the social tensions that inevitably arise as half a million homeless people are integrated into new communities.”