Who Owns U.S. Aid to Haiti?
“Who Owns U.S. Aid to Haiti?” traces the decades-long failure of U.S. foreign aid to Haiti to alleviate poverty and achieve sustained and equitable development and economic growth. Specifically, the chapter examines the context of policies put in place in 2009 by the Obama administration. Those policies, aiming to improve the effectiveness of U.S. aid, and fine-tuned after the 2010 earthquake, placed an emphasis on responding to and aligning with local priorities and supporting local leadership. In contrast to such goals, the U.S. continued to bypass the governments of René Préval and Michel Martelly in favour of supporting U.S.-based NGOs and For-Profit Contractors (FPCs) in spite of policy pronouncements in support of Haitian priorities and leadership.