Supporters of Haitian presidential candidate Rene Preval shout 'UN Go Home' and 'Preval, Five years' in front of a UN armored vehicle during a demonstration in the volatile Cite-Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince. (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)

By Christopher Mason
GV Correspondent

OTTAWA - The Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince is a short, one hour flight from Miami. But in development circles Haiti is a world away from Florida, and the rest of the Americas.

Long known as the least developed country in the Americas and one of the most corrupt, Haiti has struggled to gain the momentum that seemed possible following the controversial 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which prompted the United States and others to reinstate aid programs.

Canada, too, has taken a renewed interest in Haiti. The island nation is the second-largest recipient of Canadian aid, after Afghanistan, and only the U.S. gives more foreign aid to Haiti.

That status all but guarantees that a nation smaller than Vancouver Island will be crucial in determining the success of Canada's revamped Latin America-centric foreign policy.

Many eyes have been on Haiti in recent years, not least of which the United Nations, which leads a large peacekeeping force, known as MINUSTAH, in Haiti.

On Sept. 3 U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released a report on Haiti, saying progress there remains fragile and recommending the UN Security Council extend the mandate of the MINUSTAH mission until October of next year.

"There is substantial reason to believe that Haiti is moving away from a past of conflict, towards a brighter future of peaceful development," Ban said. "However, the progress that has been made remains extremely fragile, and is susceptible to setbacks or reversals."

Also on Sept. 3, a delegation led by the Organization of American States' (OAS) Assistant Secretary-General Albert Ramdin began a mission to Haiti, which will explore how inter-American groups can work with Haitian authorities to support improvements in the country.

The OAS will also be exploring Haiti through the upcoming Inter-American Forum onGovernance, which will be co-hosted by the OAS, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and the Canadian International Council (CIC).

The online forum will feature a series of panel discussions, reports and Q&As to run in a series of four segments spread out between Sept. 29 and Nov. 12. Last week Governance Village (GV) explored the theme of the first segment in a piece titled "Latin America: Democracy at a Crossroads". This week, GV examines the focus of the forum's second week: Haiti.

Over the course of three days between Oct. 13-15, the forum will focus on three themes: the challenge of providing security in Haiti, economic development and socio-political stability.

The topic of providing security in Haiti came into focus earlier this year in a report by Michel Forst, a French lawyer appointed by the UN to serve as an independent human rights investigator in Haiti.

His findings cited many concerns about the Haitian justice system that, if unchecked, could leave Haiti vulnerable to "failed state" status.

"People don't trust the administration of justice because they say justice in Haiti is not as hard as it should be," Forst said.

Economic development has also come to the forefront of Haiti's attempted rebuilding. The post-2004 surge in aid has largely allowed Haiti's government budget to balloon from US$300 million in 2004-05 to $2 billion in 2008-09.

But with the increased development assistance have come challenges, in terms of the capacity, administration and effectiveness of health, education and justice reforms, while also ensuring that the aid does not overshadow domestic growth.

Canada will walk a challenging path as it works to increase effectiveness in Haiti while also developing its role and impact throughout the broader Latin American region.

Earlier this decade Canada committed to spend more than $500 million on reconstruction and development in Haiti between 2006-11, and earlier this year foreign minister Lawrence Cannon visited Haiti to review Canada's aid program there and to meet Haiti's political leaders.

The president of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Margaret Biggs, stated earlier this year that even within Canada's foreign policy Haiti will remain front and centre.

"We started a while back and if you look back over our engagement there, what we learned is you have to be big enough, think big enough, move fast enough and be coherent and consistent enough to really make a difference," she said. "We still have a ways to go on that."

The history of foreign assistance in Haiti prompted the Washington-based National Academy of Public Administration to publish a piece by Terry F. Buss and Adam Gardner titled "Why Foreign Aid to Haiti Failed (and How to Do It Better Next Time".

The authors ask "why, after consuming billions in foreign aid over three decades, and hundreds of millions specifically for governance and democratization programs, not to mention billions for other programs, Haiti remains politically dysfunctional and impoverished."

Much of the failed progress stems from fifty-plus years of political instability. That has resulted in little progress, and also disrupted aid efforts, which have been cut and reinstated numerous times over the years by donors responding to the political crises.

The end result? Economic, social and health indicators that point to systemic poverty. Some three-fourths of the population lives on less than $2 per day, half the population has no access to potable water, one-third have no sanitary facilities, a tenth of the population has electricity, fully 95 percent of employment is in the underground economy about four percent of the population owns some two-thirds of the country's wealth, while NGOs and other groups deliver some four-fifths of public services, according to Buss and Gardner.