African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
22 p., Discusses how a year and a half after a deadly earthquake devastated its capital, 650,000 victims still wait for permanent housing in more than 1,000 unstable emergency camps across Haiti as a new hurricane season arrives. If reconstruction is to right the many imbalances that have made Haiti poor and prone to disasters, violence and conflict, it is paramount that the Martelly government set out a resettlement policy rapidly that engages the victims and is less about closing the camps, more about building stable, less violent communities and not only in the capital. The pilot plan for closing six camps and resettling their residents his administration has put forward is an important first step that deserves support, but the most vulnerable camps should be added to it quickly.
Reviews the discourse, practice and outcomes associated with three parallel stabilization initiatives undertaken in Haiti between 2007 and 2009. Although they shared many similar objectives, the paper describes how these separate interventions mobilized very different approaches. The specific focus is on United States, United Nations and combined Brazilian, Canadian and Norwegian stabilization efforts and their implications for humanitarian actors, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres.
