Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
would be suspended if Haitian leaders did not make more serious
efforts to reach a political solution. Meanwhile, substantial
amounts of aid from other foreign donors were withheld for
the same reason.
Important as it may be for any Haitian leader to renew the
flow of external aid, it is far more important for Haiti to be
committed to the concept that economic development must be
based on trade and investment and institutional reforms. Such
measures involve factors that include job creation and the
improvement of social services for the disadvantaged, rather
than a growing dependence on international assistance. R.
Quentin Grafton of the University of Ottawa and Dane Rowlands
of Carlton University make the point that Haiti's political
instability is "symptomatic of its institutional arrangements
where the powers of the state are viewed as a means to personal
enrichment." Haiti's institutional structure is such that it has
encouraged economic exploitation and intimidation, as well as
political repression and stark inequities between the privileged
and disadvantaged segments of the population. To reverse
these tendencies, a leadership is needed that acknowledges
that appropriate institutional reform is essential for Haiti's
development. The country's social, economic, and political
structure needs to be modified so as to assure the poor their
fair share of resources and social services and to ensure the
participation of the less advantaged communities in shaping
their institutional environment.
The role of leadership need not be the government's exclusive
domain. A good example of private initiative was a threeday
economic conference held in April 1998 in Jacmel. A
group of Haitian mayors and some forty Haitian-Americans,
including ten businessmen from New York, met to discuss ways
of energizing Haiti's development process. They chose to hold
their encounter at some distance from the capital to show that
private efforts can be mounted without state sponsorship.
Bringing together elected officials of small provincial towns,
who had been accustomed to obeying directives of the central
government, with a group of potential investors and business
leaders also made the point that thousands of Haitian emigrants
living abroad could be tapped for financial assistance to
development projects in rural communities. Haitians living in
the United States alone reportedly send home an estimated
US$3 million a day.
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