More Thoughts on Helping Haiti and Disaster Relief in General

If you have not read the January 23RD-29TH 2010 edition of the Economist, you should. The reason is this: As I read the two (and a half?) articles on Haiti I felt affirmed/ vindicated in my previous thoughts on helping Haiti.

The first article on Haiti, “A plan for Haiti”, had the same sort of focus as my recent blog entry: authority. The subtitle to this first article in the Economist is: “Haiti’s government cannot rebuild the country. A temporary authority needs to be set up to do it.” However, the article did not seem so worried as I am about the possible looting and mini-tyrants running around. I read something similar about the problem of looting being too prominent in media reports. However, I remain worried – and I think justifiably so – that the power gap will often be filled by cruel people if good people do not step into it. In fact, the article, ‘A plan for Haiti”, seems to finally take the same position: “The longer it lasts, the more likely that desperation turns into violence.”

The second article focused on the problems that foreign aid agencies had in distributing aid and in dealing with the situation. The third article, which was somewhat of a mini article is very interesting and titled “Too much of a good thing?” This article focused on what can be learned from the 2004 tsunami relief effort. This article underlined the need for authority and organization as well. But I bring this article to your attention because it affirmed my thoughts about how effective donated money is. Apparently, only 39% of the money NGOs had promised to spend had actually been spent within 9 months (the article doesn’t say what happened with that promised money after the nine month period). Also, 75 tonnes of out-of-date medicine was destroyed by Indonesia.

Although this last paragraph might lead to skepticism regarding donating to relief funds, it should not. Even if opening up our hearts sometimes comes at the expense of turning off our brains, I am encouraged that so many people are willing to open up their pocket books. Also, the simple solution to this is for relief funds to set a donation cap, where they receive money into the specific relief fund up to a point (say $10 million – just a guess) and make sure to tell people who are donating after that cap has been reached that their donations are now going into their general fund and will come out of their general fund to help the specific cause if it is needed. Doctors Without Borders has done something similar and I think it is quite intelligent and less wasteful.

In fact, I think there are several solutions to the problems that we have seen with Haiti, namely a general disorganization of aid due to certain factors. Instead of all aid coming at once and bottlenecking, it might be good if a small group of people capable of assessing the situation came in with helicopters and surveyed the disaster area. This way, several important plans can be made, such as how much aid is actually needed, and the best ways to get the aid to where it needs to be most. At the same time as the “assessment group” comes in, a small group of aid-deliverers comes in, so as not to bottleneck, but still to deliver aid. (Of course bottlenecking will not always occur, but it will be one of the factors that we need to be aware of.) Then, after the “assessors” have made up a quick plan, the plan should be implemented immediately, taking into consideration such questions as: 1) How much construction equipment needs to be brought in so that the aid can have clear roads to travel on? 2) How much aid is really needed? 3) How can we coordinate with the locals and already established aid organizations? 4) What is the best way to establish order and a proper authority structure?

In fact, I would be surprised if the UN did not already have something like this plan in their books. If not, someone certainly needs to figure out a proper manual for disaster relief. Something like this will happen again and I am sure that faster, more effective aid can be delivered.