Vandaag is het 2 jaar geleden dat de aardbeving in Haïti plaatsvond. Rond 5 uur in de middag (23:00 in NL) schudde de aarde gedurende 35 seconden. Daarna was Port-au-Prince veranderd in een grote puinhoop en gehuld in een enorme stofwolk. Twee jaar later, en zo’n 2 Miljard USD verder, vraagt men zich af, wat is er nu veranderd ? Waarom wonen er nog meer dan een half miljoen mensen in tenten ? Waarom zijn er nog vrijwel geen definitieve huizen gebouwd ? Allemaal terechte vragen, maar volgens mij geen reden om erg negatief over Haïti te zijn.

Two years after Haiti’s most horrifying 35 seconds, seeds of progress are evident across this battered nation where a devastating earthquake left 300,000 dead and some 1.5 million homeless in its capital and surrounding cities.

The 2011 Global Study on Homicide by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has published its world survey for 2011. Its published figures on homicide rates place Haiti very low in comparison to the other countries of the Caribbean and Latin America.

According to the study, Haiti’s homicide rate in 2010 was 6.9 per 100,000 people. That compares to Jamaica (highest rate in the Caribbean) at 52, Trinidad at 35, the Bahamas at 28 and the neighboring Dominican Republic at 24. The rate for the U.S. colonies of Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands (2007 statistics) is 26 and 39, respectively.

(Source: haitiliberte.com)

SEVEN PLACES WHERE HAITI’S EARTHQUAKE MONEY DID AND DID NOT GO by Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas

Haiti, a close neighbor of the U.S. with over nine million people, was devastated by earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010. Hundreds of thousands were killed and many more wounded.

(Source: haitiliberte.com)

As 2012 begins, a growing movement of displaced people and their allies in Haiti is actively claiming the right to housing, which is recognized by both the Haitian constitution and international treaties to which Haiti is signatory.

In order to find out why Caracol was chosen, and to get a better picture of the potential “winners” and “losers” in the project, HaitiGrassrootsWatch visited the Northeast, reviewed a half-dozen studies, and interviewed numerous experts and potential beneficiaries.

Human rights activists and politicians in the Brazilian Amazon have warned of an imminent humanitarian crisis, as hundreds of Haitian migrants continue to pour into the region in the wake of the 2010 earthquake.

Aid agencies working in Haiti need to do a better job of talking and listening to the people they are trying to help in order to boost relief efforts and dissipate tensions, experts say.

Hoe valt armoede het beste te bestrijden: met grootschalige hulp of via de vrije markt? Die ideologische twist verlamt al jaren het beleid. Een nieuwe school ontwikkelingseconomen maakt opgang met een pleidooi voor een pragmatische benadering.

NRC-Handelsblad, 14 december 2011 - Hanneke Chin-A-Fo

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee en Esther Du- flo: Arm & Kansrijk. Een nieuwe visie op het bestrijden van armoede. Uitgeverij Nieuw Amsterdam. ISBN: 9789046811702. 320 pagina’s.

Afscheidsetentje bij Café de L’Europe in Petionville

Omdat Jaap de hele dag koffie drinkt en omdat hij weer naar Europa vertrekt ..