Shortly after the earthquake, a Dutch couple started up a job creation scheme in Haiti, building emergency accommodation for the homeless. One year on, the people of Haiti can probably expect more from such initiatives than from the legion of aid organizations that have descended on the country. That’s the conclusion of Radio Netherlands Worldwide reporter Hans Jaap Melissen, who knows the country through and through.

Two days after the devastating earthquake hit, I was driving with Dutchman Kees de Gier through the capital Port-au-Prince. We passed through districts that had been reduced to rubble and others which had emerged relatively unscathed. Bodies covered with sheets were lying on street corners.

At the traffic lights, a young boy aged about 10 approached our car. He wiped our windscreen with a cloth. Despite the chaos that had gripped the city, the boy was back at work. Later we passed UN vehicles, part of the peacekeeping force stationed in Haiti since 2004. “No idea what they’re doing. Unless it’s keeping expensive restaurants in business,” shrugged Kees.

Proud to be Haitian

Photo: HJM

Coffins and cupboards
Kees de Gier and his wife Evelien believe in work. Near the airport they run a job creation scheme in the form of a timber factory. Haitians work there making coffins, kitchen cupboards and school benches. But in the aftermath of the earthquake, Kees decided to expand production to include emergency housing for the hundreds of thousands of homeless.

The houses are made by Haitians themselves. “Many aid organisations are falling over one another to give away all kinds of things. But that’s not the answer. You need to give the people of Haiti a way of helping themselves out of this disaster,” Kees argues.

Bill Clinton
Last summer I saw that his dream had become reality. The whole site had been transformed into a saw mill. The houses were assembled IKEA-style and sent off. At that moment the committee in charge of rebuilding Haiti (with the involvement of Bill Clinton) had hardly got started. But thanks to projects like Kees de Gier’s, the first Haitians were able to move out of a tent and into a wooden house.

A few months after the disaster, former US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush turned up at Kees and Evelien’s doorstep. They were very interested in how the Haitians at their factory were hard at work to make a better future for themselves.

Unrest
“We have now delivered around 2,500 houses. We’re producing around 50 a day,” reported son Peter this week from Port-au-Prince. Before the earthquake, the factory employed around 60 Haitians. Now there are 250 working there. The operation was forced to close down for a few days in December due to unrest in Haiti.

Furious Haitians blocked roads with burning tyres. They were angry about the provisional results of the presidential election. But the main source of frustration was that far too little had been achieved since the earthquake. Despite the fact that an estimated 12,000 NGOs are at work in their country.

Still living in emergency shelter

Photo: HJM

Aid at a standstill
The head of Oxfam, which forms a single charity organisation with the Dutch Novib, admits that the aid effort has come to a standstill. It is a sad conclusion. After all, Haiti was promised 10 billion dollars from around the world. Yet only a fraction of that money was actually donated.

The NGOs and the government point the finger of blame at one another. The organisations say it is up to the Haitian authorities to shift the rubble so that they can do their work. But with so much money to spend, the NGOs could also exert more pressure on the government.

Aid dependency
Even if the reconstruction of Haiti is a success, the country will still have a major problem. The term “reconstruction” suggests reinstating the situation as it existed before the earthquake hit. But even then Haiti was heavily dependent on aid, mainly due to lack of jobs.

The country needs many more projects like the one run by Dutchman Kees de Gier. Or like the American factories who are using Haiti as a low-wage production base instead of China. Under their influence, Haiti could gradually become a normal country with its own service sector, a country that might one day be able to wave goodbye to the aid brigade for good. But even ten years after the earthquake, that is still likely to be nothing more than a distant dream of the future.