By Beverly Bell
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Apr 24 2012 (IPS)

In honour of Earth Day, we run an interview with Yves-André Wainright, who discusses ways that poor governance and the role of foreign donors have contributed to the country’s environmental catastrophe.

He also lays out a blueprint for what could turn the situation around, effectively mobilising both government and the population to begin restoring the environment.

Yves-André Wainright served twice as Haiti’s minister of environment. Trained as an agronomist, Yves-André’s work has focused on environmental management, especially management of natural resources and waste.

His comments follow:

My approach towards management of the environment is to have Haitians who face (the same environmental) challenges come together. We might not all share the same economic interests, but if we work together, we can reach a compromise where one’s interest won’t trump another’s.

A second issue is that (central) government ministries act as competitors rather than allies. As a result, information is not shared and institutions are not organised to provide assistance and directives to local government or NGOs (non-governmental organisations, and international agencies).

Since management of the physical environment is a crosscutting and long-term challenge, it’s very difficult to maintain continuity from one government to the next, which hinders the implementation of required programmes.

For example, in the 1990s, I led the preparation of an innovative programme to fund peasant-managed micro-enterprises for families who depended on cutting down trees in national parks. All state institutions including local governments, the judicial system, the national police, and key ministries would be able to give input and would receive training in the sustainable management of biodiversity.

The project facilitated coordination among the various stakeholders, public and private, through various management committees. The first disbursements were made two weeks before I left the government.

(When I returned,) the project was considered overall as having failed. The governance structure of the project was considered too complex, and (since) normally in the government, people from different ministers don’t talk to each other, the project’s implementation lacked leadership.

There were even 70 or so agronomists trained, and about 10 who went abroad for professional specialisation, but none of them were never put to use. And, the peasants never benefited from the comprehensive technical and financial assistance I had dreamed of.

The third issue I wish to highlight is the role of donors from the international community. They put too much emphasis on ‘transparency’ toward their foreign constituency and lack sensitivity to the process of building democracy within communities receiving aid.

I admire the abundance of documentation donors have accumulated on Haiti but feel that not enough effort is put into making this information available to local stakeholders. This has facilitated the creation of an oligarchy of consultants and specialists who monopolize the field of international assistance. Donors don’t seem to trust the initiatives from people outside of this circle.

For instance, during my first term as minister of environment, USAID and the World Bank were the main donors providing assistance to the process of clarifying the role of the newly created ministry and prioritising actions for environmental management and rehabilitation.

I started to organise multi-stakeholder platforms towards preparation of a National Action Plan for the Environment, but the donors decided to replicate the preparation process from various African countries – a plan written by specialists and validated afterwards by the civil society. They succeeded in having beautiful documents prepared, which are currently embellishing shelves of libraries in foreign universities.

What is needed is to help Haitians develop partnerships around common environmental concerns.

(In 2010), the office of the prime minister organised a forum on lessons learned from watershed management over the past 30 to 40 years. That forum had a large participation of funders, with data- rich presentations by the experts.

These presentations confirmed that, during the period considered, more and more short-term NGO-led projects promoted market-linked incentives for environmental protection instead of building of decentralised state capacity so that the government ensures respect of environmental norms.

(Participants of the forum) acted as though the state were outsiders of the process and that the government should be replaced by the market as the driving force for livelihood improvement.

But the problem is that the market promotes individualism and a spirit of competition. It can’t instill the feeling of community and citizenship needed to stimulate Haitians to take part in the rehabilitation of the environment.

We must have regulations that guarantee the socioeconomic and environmental rights of all citizens: the right to be informed of initiatives affecting their environment; the right to have input into (environmental) mitigation measures to be implemented; the right to an unbiased judicial system to (ensure) the application of norms.

We must also have an appropriate democratic governance structure able to implement this at the regional and local level. Otherwise, even if the billions of dollars pledged would be effectively disbursed, we won’t resolve anything.

One of the principles in the Rio Declaration on Sustainable Development (endorsed by 165 countries in June 1992) states, “Peace, economic development and protection of the environment are interdependent and indivisible.” There is no peace without social justice. I’m not preaching anything new.

Fortunately, there is progress being made. In October 2005, the government adopted an important environmental decree. It integrates most of the international principles for managing the environment promoted by the Rio Declaration. It identifies nine priorities (to be implemented by government authorities and) the private sector. By the private sector, I don’t just mean the bourgeoisie in town, but also peasants and small merchants.

There are ways to improve governance of the environment around these themes, provided they are integrated into a comprehensive and progressive land-use zoning process.

For example, alleviation of the pressure of agriculture production on mountainous lands should be a common objective for all groups working on any of these nine issues. With more than 500,000 families depending on subsistence agriculture on eroded lands, there’s no potential for improving living conditions.

Policies must be proactive in providing alternative means to make a living, and we have to invest more in building governance capacity at the municipal level.

We have to start working collaboratively. We can be successful in the nine priorities listed, but only if we admit that whatever our capabilities and our excuses, we’re condemned to fail without cooperation. By we, I mean the government, the ministries, the parliament, the NGOs and their networks, grassroots organisations and social movements, enterprises and trade unions, donors and others.

*Read the full, unedited interview with Yves-André Wainright here.

Interview translated by Larousse Charlot and David Schmidt.

Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance and is working on the forthcoming book, Fault Lines: Views across Haiti’s New Divide. She coordinates Other Worlds, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Alexis Erkert is the Another Haiti is Possible Coordinator for Other Worlds. She has worked in advocacy and with Haitian social movements since 2008. You can access all of Other Worlds’ past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti here.

Excerpt:

We may soon look back on this period in Haiti with greater appreciation.

Funeral of Samuel Georges, an 18-year-old who died eight hours after contracting cholera. Cholera is on the rise in Haiti. Credit: Ben Depp, www.bendepp.com

Amidst the world-historic levels of death and suffering from last January’s earthquake, citizens have at least been spared the scale of government violence that has marked much of their nation’s past (notwithstanding attacks against internally displaced persons during forced evictions, and occasionally against street protesters.)

This may change under Michel Martelly, the incoming president. For starters, he wants to bring back the army that former president Jean- Bertrand Aristide dismantled in 1995. Since Haiti already has a police force to maintain public order and the country is not expected to go to war, Martelly can have only one aim for reintroducing armed forces: to reclaim the tool that past presidents have used to shore up their power by means of violent repression of dissent and competition.

Forces are already readying for violence, which will likely be exerted both through the army and through gangs.

Journalist Isabeau Doucet filed this eyewitness report last month: “For over a year, on a hillside south of Port-au-Prince, around 100 former soldiers and young recruits train three times a week. They claim to have a network of camps all over the country where Haitian men meet and exercise, learn military protocol and martial arts and receive basic training… The black-and-red flag of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s party hangs in their tarpaulin dressing room… Somebody is paying for this, even though they claim that it’s all-volunteer, and the current government is turning a blind eye, if not giving tacit support.”

Just how the forces of violence may ally with various backers – some combination of Martelly and those surrounding the returned former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier – is one question. Another is how much they may tyrannise a citizens’ movement which is demanding solutions to widespread homelessness, unemployment, and extreme poverty.

Two U.S.-based groups supporting community organising in Haiti are already preparing emergency responses in case significant political violence should erupt.

Beyond Martelly’s plans for an army, his past associations raise concerns about what policies he may bring to office. Martelly was public in his support for the death squad-friendly regimes that reigned after coups d’état against Aristide (1991 and 2004). More recently, Martelly has made such public statements as “I would kill Aristide to stick a dick up his ass.”

Martelly won in a run-off in which less than one in four registered voters bothered to turn out, meaning he was endorsed by 16.7 percent of all registered voters. If this sounds abysmally low for a mandate, it is lofty compared to the 4.6 percent who are believed to have supported Martelly in the first round.

No one knows the figure for sure, because that round was so fraudulent that even the government’s Provisional Electoral Council refused to ratify it with a majority vote.

While legally, this should have nullified the first round, the Organization of American States and the U.S. government intensively pressured the Haitian government to approve the elections and send Martelly to the run-offs. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even traveled to Haiti to ensure these outcomes.

After Martelly was declared president, Clinton said, “Now he has a chance to lead and we are behind him. He is committed to results. He wants to deliver for the Haitian people. And we are committed to helping him do so.”

Other bad news dogs Haiti. The lives of those left displaced from the earthquake are growing more, not less, vulnerable, contrary to what one might expect with the passing of time and the many billions of aid dollars circulating.

A primary risk is cholera, which is due to spike once the imminent rainy season hits, because the near-daily storms will leave standing water and mud in most camps. The camps are already the perfect breeding ground for this disease of poverty, with their densely concentrated populations who are frequently weak and ill, often lack water – not just drinking water but often any water at all – and suffer from a dearth of hygiene options and medical care.

A recent study in the medical journal The Lancet predicted 779,000 cases and 11,100 deaths from cholera by the end of November.

With all humanitarian and international agencies in Haiti aware of the dire risk of this illness, which can result in death only a few hours after infection, 39 percent of ‘transitional shelters‘ still do not receive water or basic sanitation services.

Michelle Karshan, an American advocate engaged in anti-cholera efforts, reported: “There is a deadly shortage of available cholera prevention and treatment supplies. And the most important prevention of cholera transmission – creation of a water system infrastructure making treated water widely available – is still not off the ground, while distribution of water continues to reach only a minuscule number of camps. The majority of the resource-poor camps are left to fend for themselves.”

The U.N. Cholera Appeal for Haiti has only received 45 percent of the funds it needs.

The deeper worry is why, with up to 1.5 million people still homeless after 16 months, water purification tablets and port-o-potties are being discussed as a solution. The only way to make people safe from this disease is to resettle them into decent housing. Yet still neither the international community nor the Haitian government has any workable plans.

The government has yet to invoke its constitutional right to declare eminent domain and claim large plots of unused private land in order to relocate people. International aid has yet to be significantly employed in clearing rubble, 80 percent of which remains, rendering much of Port-au-Prince uninhabitable.

Another hazard that internally displaced persons (IDPs) face is being forced out of their camps, left in even greater precariousness. According to the International Organization for Migration, 820,000 of the original set of IDPs dwellers – more than half – have left the camps, but not because they have found a better situation.

Only 4.7 percent have gone to new or repaired housing. The remainder, as reported by the International Organization for Migration and substantiated by many community watchdog groups in Haiti, have fled for two reasons. One is an anywhere-but-here response, in which families have escaped to dangerously earthquake-damaged structures, ravines, crowded rooms, or whatever they can find. Others have been evicted in a growing wave of expulsions – some violent, many illegal – by both government institutions and private landowners.

As they have since the earthquake, coalitions of progressive NGOs, community groups, and camp committees are trying to mount pressure to win gains in a broad-based agenda which includes democratic participation and socio-economic rights. Predominant strategies include popular education, legal support for camp residents, policy advocacy, and grassroots mobilisation.

A snapshot of some of the groups’ activities in the three-week period surrounding this article includes: a three-day May Day mobilisation for workers’ rights; a three-day symposium critiquing disaster capitalism, “What Financing for What Reconstruction?”, and a three-day exchange to strengthen efforts to force resettlement of IDPs, “International Forum for the Right to Housing”.

These movements currently lack funding and cohesion. At many points in Haitian history, however, pressure from below has proven to be the critical variable in forcing change. Given the disappointing track record of the international community and development industry, and the ominous prospects of Martelly’s presidency, they may be Haiti’s best hope.

*Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book ‘Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance’. She coordinates Other Worlds, www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.