African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
7 p., A US nongovernmental organization has filed a lawsuit against the United Nations (UN), seeking compensation on behalf of victims of a cholera outbreak in Haiti, as well as funding to support programs to eradicate the disease and improve sanitation. Haitians deserve great sympathy for their plight, but a successful lawsuit could invite similar lawsuits, regardless of merit, thereby making the US and other UN member states vulnerable to significant financial costs, while leaving those actually responsible largely or entirely unpunished.
World Institute for Development Economics Research, United Nations University
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
48 p., After receiving at least US$20 billion in aid for reconstruction and development over the past 60 years, Haiti has been and remains a fragile state, one of the worse globally. The reasons for aid failure are legion but mostly relate to highly dysfunctional Haitian regimes, sometimes destructive US foreign policy and aid policy, and ongoing issues about how to deliver aid, all in the context of devastating natural disasters. The over-riding cause of aid failure has been the social, cultural and historical context which has led to domination by economic and political elites who have little interest in advancing Haiti, and who are totally self-interested-Haiti's fatal flaw.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
60 p., Explains how the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union should serve as an impetus for stakeholders in the region to address these barriers thereby creating favorable conditions for the production and export of Caribbean entertainment services. Presents an overview of policies in the creative sector in terms of the promotion of services exports in selected CARICOM states: Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.
This paper begins by reviewing briefly at historical changes in the employment of geospatial technologies in major devastating disasters, including the Sichuan and Haiti earthquakes. It goes on to assess changes in the available dataset type and in geospatial disaster responders, as well as the impact of geospatial technological changes on disaster relief effort. Finally, the paper discusses lessons learned from recent responses and offers some thoughts for future development.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
32 p., Suggests that the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti needs a gradual reconfiguration of its operations prior to a withdrawal, to avoid a security vacuum and give Haiti the chance for sustainable development. The real debate is not whether MINUSTAH should leave but when, and what to change in Haiti and in the mission's mandate, structure and behavior to ensure that a phased withdrawal is linked to stronger institutions and progress toward lasting stability and development. Figures, Appendixes, References.
Explores the way writers address the formation and fate of the contemporary American working class in an age of neoliberal globalization. Specifically, the essay examines Russell Banks's 1985 novel Continental Drift, which interweaves the stories of two characters who pull up stakes and head to Florida in search of a better life: an oil furnace repair man from New Hampshire and a young, single mother from Haiti.
Argues that China has gained influence in multilateral institutions, prompting them toward greater acceptance of public spending in developing countries and that recent developments in Cuba show that China is actively encouraging the Western hemisphere's only communist country to liberalize its economy. China sits at the crossroads of these local and global developments, prompting Cuba toward rapprochement with international norms even as it works to reform them.
Washington, DC; Stanford, CA: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford University Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
430 p., Assesses the consequences of civil war for democratization in Latin America, focusing on questions of state capacity. Contributors focus on seven countries: Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru where state weakness fostered conflict and the task of state reconstruction presents multiple challenges. Includes Johanna Mendelson Forman's "An illusory peace: the United Nations and state building in Haiti."
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
52 p., Policy makers, practitioners, and experts alike have increasingly identified the protection of civilians as a priority for United Nations peacekeeping operations and as key to mission success. This report explores the analysis, decisions, and actions of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to protect civilians during 2006-2007. It examines why MINUSTAH was relatively successful in protecting civilians; describes its shortcomings; and draws lessons for other contexts.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
212 p., Analysis of Canadian and US democracy promotion in the Americas, with a focus on Haiti, Peru, and Bolivia in particular. The main argument is that democracy promotion is typically formulated to advance commercial, geopolitical and security objectives that conflict with a genuine commitment to democratic development. Includes chapter "Polyarchy at any cost in Haiti."
Case studies demonstrate how countries in the same region can develop health care policies that represent different biomedical and sociocultural outcomes. For example, Cuba's policies result in the lowest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the Caribbean, whereas Belize experiences the second highest rates.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
9 p., The US has historically provided assistance to support development in Haiti. Over the last several years, Congress has attempted to promote Haiti's economic development through the use of trade preferences for Haitian products. In 2000, Congress extended preferences under the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act to allow for duty-free treatment of apparel through the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA). This report responds to a mandate in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, which requires GAO to review Earned Import Allowance Program (EIAP) annually and conduct an evaluation of the program.
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.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
4 p., This issue brief reviews a draft report [PDF] on Haiti's November 28, 2010 presidential elections from the Organization of American States' (OAS) "Expert" Mission - which recommends changing the result of the first round of the election. It finds the OAS Mission's report to be methodologically and statistically flawed, and its conclusions to be arbitrary. The brief notes that over 1,300 tally sheets, or about six times the amount thrown out by the OAS, were missing or quarantined; and that these tally sheets would very likely have given a different result from that of the OAS mission. Also, the OAS Mission's report is based on an analysis of just 919 vote tally sheets - without any reported statistical inference -- whereas CEPR counted and analyzed all 11,181 tally sheets from the first round of elections.
Haiti's President Rene Preval, second from right, gestures during a ceremony marking Haitian Independence Day, in Gonaives, Haiti, Friday, Jan. 1,2010. Preval spoke in an annual address marking Haiti's Jan. 1, 1804 independence from France in a slave revolt At right, first ladytElisabeth Debrosse Defatour, second from left. Senate President Kelly Bastiert, and third from left, partially hidden. Senator Vori Latorture. "On this, the anniversary of Haiti's independence and the beginning of the New Year, we wish to express again to Haitians in both Haiti and the Diaspora the friendship of Canada, as well as our continuing commitment to contributing to the sustainable development of Haiti." cannon said.
Lopez-Levy,Arturo (Author) and Lopez,Lilla R. (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2011
Published:
Washington, DC: New American Foundation
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
19 p., Explores the historic reform process currently underway in Cuba. It looks first at the political context in which the VI Cuban Communist Party Congress took place, including the Cuban government's decision to release a significant number of political prisoners as part of a new dialogue with the Cuban Catholic Church. It then analyzes Cuba's nascent processes of economic reform and political liberalization. To conclude, it discusses the challenges and opportunities these processes pose for U.S policy toward Cuba.
Examines changing relations of accumulation taking shape in the garment export industry in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Draws upon a framework called "the coloniality of power" to consider the reworking of the social and spatial boundaries between hyper-exploited wage work and the people and places cast out from its relations.
Focuses on education in developing countries in the context of globalization and with specific reference to the Caribbean. Explores the possibility of the creation of a third space where the local and the global can co-mingle and new understandings can emerge.
Discusses donations made by the US to developing countries. Often companies in the US donate leftover or unwanted merchandise to developing countries, and regularly these are products that the poor in those countries need or can use. Shipping leftover inventory as a donation also hurts the local economies in remote and poorer areas.
Considers the potential contribution of traditional construction techniques and materials to rebuilding in Port-au-Prince and other areas in Haiti that were devastated by the 2010 earthquake. Based on different examples of housing that collapsed or was damaged by the earthquake, it shows how traditional construction systems often demonstrated better resilience to earthquakes than buildings constructed with modern materials.
Campaigning in 2007, Barack Obama promised to end restrictions on remittances and family travel to Cuba, resume "people-to-people" contracts, and engage Cuba on issues of mutual interest. As President, Obama has declared his desire to forge a new "equal partnership" with Latin America. Two months later, the 39th General Assembly of the Organization of American States voted to repeal the 1962 resolution that suspended Cuba fro its ranks.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
16 p., The record of countries coming out of war or chaos is dismal: roughly half of them fall back into crisis. Among the other half, most end up highly aid dependent. The author of this Special Report was invited to develop her proposal for reconstruction zones as a way to jump-start the economies of conflict- and disaster-affected countries in a dynamic and inclusive way, by improving aid effectiveness and accountability. References.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
294 p, From New World to Pan-Atlantic: opening the history of America -- Francisco de Miranda, Toussaint Louverture, and the Pan-Atlantic sphere of liberation -- Pan-Atlantic exports and imports: translation, freedom, and the circulation of cultural capital -- Positioning South America from HMS Beagle: the navigator, the discoverer, and the ocean of free trade -- Pan-Atlantic migrations: capital, culture, revolution.; Time: 1700 - 1899
To many in the West, the League of Nations was to establish political peace between nations. To the Cuban sugar-producing elite of the 1920s and 1930s, however, the League was an important socioeconomic institution used to augment many of Cuba's first modern state institutions. This article explores how and why Cuban delegates were the principals behind the 1937 International Sugar Agreement.
This paper focuses primarily on the challenges of nurse migration, although it makes reference to the crisis in education as it argues that the two are inter-connected. Also, while it acknowledges the problem as a regional one and speaks to this, its focus is on Jamaica, especially in assessing the feasibility of a 'training for export model.' It draws primarily on secondary literature, supported by interviews.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
26 p., Argues that if the electoral process is to be as transparent, non-violent and widely participated in as it needs to be, the Haitian government must meet a higher standard than ever before, and the UN, regional organizations and donors like the U.S., Canada, the EU and Brazil must urgently press for this and expand support.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
24 p., In December 2006, the 109th Congress passed the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act of 2006 (HOPE I), which included special trade rules that give preferential access to US imports of Haitian apparel. With disappointing results, the 110th Congress responded by amending HOPE I with the Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act of 2008 (HOPE II). After the devastating 2010 earthquake, the US Congress addressed the apparel industry's needs by amending the HOPE Act with the Haiti Economic Lift Program (HELP) Act of 2010, which improves US market access for Haitian apparel exports.
Katz,Ethan (Author) and Boscov-Ellen,Daniel (Author)
Format:
Pamphlet
Publication Date:
2010-04-14
Published:
Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
12 p., Over the last few months there has been a surfeit of talk in the international community over what should be done for Haiti. However, in almost all of these discussions Haiti's historical context is completely excised -- It is almost as if the country had only come into being as a result of January's earthquake. This collective amnesia is damning since the devastating nature of these natural disasters cannot be understood apart from over two centuries of Haiti's colonial and postcolonial subjugation, foreign occupation, economic exploitation, and the degrading conditions faced by most of its population.
Margesson,Rhoda (Author) and Taft-Morales,Maureen (Author)
Format:
Pamphlet
Publication Date:
2010-02-02
Published:
Congressional Research Reports for the People
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
56 p., The largest earthquake ever recorded in Haiti devastated parts of the country, including the capital, on January 12, 2010; and an estimated 3 million people, approximately one third of the overall population, have been affected by the earth quake, leaving an estimated 112,000 deaths and 194,000 injured. President Barack Obama assembled heads of US agencies to establish a coordinated response to the disaster; and Congressional concerns include budget priorities and oversight, burden-sharing, immigration, tax incentives for charitable donations, trade preferences for Haiti, and helping constituents find missing persons, speed pending adoptions, and contribute to relief efforts.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
3 p., The earthquake tragedy in Haiti offers lessons in how the world should prepare well in advance for such non-traditional security threats. Small states should focus on good governance while the international community should exercise rehabilitative soft power.
The head of the IMF has called for a major multilateral aid plan to rebuild Haiti where the fight is still on to save lives after a devastating earthquake. The IMF has promised initial $100 million as emergency funding and urges donors to grant additional debt relief.
Part of a special journal issue focusing on the role of the U.S. Foreign Service in Haiti., The work USAID and the State Department have done in Haiti after the January 12 earthquake shows why these organizations should take the lead in disaster relief.
Fortin,Henri (Author), Barros,Ana Cristina Hirata (Author), and Cutler,Kit (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2010
Published:
Washington, DC: World Bank
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
164 p., Transparent and reliable corporate financial reporting underpins much of the Latin America and Caribbean development agenda, from private-sector-led growth to enhanced financial stability, facilitating access to finance for small and medium enterprises, and furthering economic integration.For nearly 10 years, the World Bank has prepared diagnostic Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSCs) on Accounting and Auditing (A and A) at the country level. In Latin America and the Caribbean, ROSC A and A reports have been completed for 17 countries. This book takes a step back and seeks to distill lessons from a regional perspective.
Argues that the bedrock of U.S. policy is an ideology of benevolent domination. Created at the time of the Spanish-American War, President Theodore Roosevelt captured this ideology perfectly in 1907 when he explained, "I am seeking the very minimum of interference necessary to make them good," and it is seen today in the 2004 report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. Adapted from the source document.
Hall,Kenneth O. (Author), Chuck-A-Sang,Myrtle (Author), and Hunte,Kenrick (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2010
Published:
Kingston; Miami: Ian Randle Publishers
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
503 p, pt. 1. Globalisation and CARICOM external policy options -- pt. 2. South-South cooperation -- pt. 3. External trade negotiations: concerns and convergence -- pt. 4. Caribbean imperatives and concluding reflections.
A range of economic dimensions is examined, including trade in goods and services (notably tourism), direct foreign investment, international migration, and development assistance. Following a brief review of the evolving relationship from 1959 to 1990, the nature of the economic relationship between Canada and Cuba is analyzed in more detail for the 1990 to 2009 era.
Analyzes Cuba's medical role in Haiti since Hurricane Georges in 1998, with particular emphasis on the Cuban government's response to the 2010 earthquake. Examines two central themes. First, it assesses the enormous impact on public health that Cuba has made since 1998, and second, it provides a comparative analysis of Cuba's medical role since the earthquake.
Assesses if the economies of Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana can form part of a Caribbean monetary union. Correlations between the demand and supply indicate that monetary union may lead to greater stabilization problems for these economies.
Luzincourt,Ketty (Author) and Gulbrandson,Jennifer (Author)
Format:
pamphlet
Publication Date:
Aug 2010
Published:
United States Institute of Peace
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
20 p., Explains that in Haiti, education both promotes and ameliorates conflict. Describes the education sector before the 2010 earthquake, then presents recommendations on how Haiti and the international community can increase access to and the quality of Haitian schools and modernize the organization and function of the national education sector. References.
On 12 January 2010, Haiti experienced a 7.0-magnitude earthquake centered 10 miles west-southwest of Port-au-Prince. United Nations estimates indicate that more than 222,000 people were killed, 300,000 injured, and 2.3 million displaced by the earthquake and its 59 aftershocks. At dawn on 13 January, under the direction of United States Southern Command, elements of the Department of Defense arrived to support the Government of Haiti and the US Embassy. The command established Headquarters Joint Task Force-Haiti, with the mission of carrying out humanitarian assistance and disaster-relief operations in support of the United States Agency for International Development, the principal federal agency for the US effort.
Hundreds of thousands are likely to have died, millions are in need, their homes having been lost. Many wait for medical care. Safe water is in short supply and the rainy season starts in May. Could it have been different in Haiti? Would good planning have eased the pain of the shocks?
At [Henry Christophe]'s death, Haiti was taken over by General Boyer and civil war ceased. It was Boyer who obtained Haiti's official independence from France for 150 million francs. Unfortunately, Haiti's employment is less than 30 percent and its illiteracy rate is above 50 percent. Though its official language is French, Haiti's most widely spoken language is kreyol. Ninety percent of Haitians are Catholic although 99 percent worship their native religion of voodoo. Despite its tropical resort geography, living conditions in Haiti are comparative to those of many Third World nations. The Haitian economy is almost entirely dependent upon U.S. companies who horde the country's resources and only pay slave wages.
Yes, we owe Haiti. Unfortunately, we have shown little appreciation. My generation has witnessed Haiti in a multi-decades long downward spiral. There have been the dirty Papa Doc regime; the dirty Baby Doc regime; the dirty Aristide regime and dirty everyone else who supposedly had the trust of the people. The United States has sent troops there on various occasions but it was not to strengthened or liberate the people. Preference should be given to Haitian owned businesses in this rebuilding. Partnerships with Haitian and African Americans should be allowed. The money generated from these contracts should stay in Haiti and be taxed by the Haitian government. All, I mean ALL jobs, should be offered first to Haitians with the first right of refusal. It is noble for the world to come to the aid of Haiti but there must be a strategy that will empower the people of Haiti during and afterwards. For the first time in history, we have a chance to make Haiti independent, self sustaining and free.
"They don't want any more 'niggers' in this country," stated Cora McAlpin, a 57-year-old Carpenter, Miss. resident who takes particular issue with U.S. policy on Haitian migrants. "Did you see the people putting the little girl over the side of the boat and little sister knew to swim when she hit the water swim darling, swim to shore and you'll be free. I cried when I saw that, but I soon realized they are going to send the child back to that hell hole." "That didn't materialize because they didn't want us to do it," [Kenneth Stokes] said. Calling Haitian refugee holding facilities in Miami "jails," Stokes explained that conditions in "those camps rival anything you'd find at Parchman.
The case of Haiti's devastating earthquake and the reactions it has elicited sharply illustrate an array of seemingly dichotomous ways of understanding obligations of "international assistance and cooperation," which are taken up by authors in this issue.
