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Lesson from Haiti

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By No Author
Search and rescue operations for the victims of Haiti’s devastating earthquake that hit the country on Jan 12 was called-off after rescue teams from Haiti and dozens of countries around the world battled impossible odds in terms of mountains of rubbles, impassable roads, lack of electricity, water, and non-existing government infrastructure to pull bodies out of ruined homes, churches, schools, shops and restaurants, including many who managed to stay alive in the ruins for more than 10 days. Death toll after nearly two weeks of the occurrence of earthquake—measured 7.0 on the Richter Scale, decidedly a major one—is still climbing but, as of Jan 24, some 200,000 bodies have been counted and many buried in mass graves.



No one knows how high the death toll will rise over the coming weeks and months when debris are removed and rebuilding efforts get fully underway but rescue officials maintain that 200,000-300,000 people may have been buried alive, of which full accounting will take time because many feared dead may have fled to the countryside to escape devastation of the capital city, Port-du-Prince, which, before the earthquake struck, housed some 2 million people. If, indeed, the death toll goes up as high as half a million, that would be 5 percent of the total population, probably the largest loss of lives in any country that earlier had faced such a calamity.



In terms of damage to the country’s physical infrastructure, the earthquake leveled or made inhabitable as much as 90 percent of the buildings in the capital city and adjoining areas, where about one third of the country’s 10 million people once lived. The catastrophe also ravaged the country’s social fabric—ruined churches, schools, and hospitals—where people took shelter and got critical assistance during times of emergencies.



Similarities



Situated on two ends of the world, Haiti and Nepal are quite dissimilar in many respects but there are also surprising similarities. First, both are distinguished by their extreme poverty, characterized by the lowest per capita incomes in their respective regions—Haiti in Western Hemisphere and Nepal in Asia-Pacific. Second, both have been victims of dictatorships. Duvalier dynasty had run Haiti as a fiefdom since 1957 and Nepal’s monarchy assumed absolute power in 1960. Both countries suffered from dynastic regimes in predictable ways—countries run by cronies and courtiers with absolute disregard for the interests of the people they governed. Third, the end of dictatorships in both countries was followed by the emergence of chaotic politics—democratic or otherwise—which made no difference for most people in terms of living standards and civil liberties, and the quality of life actually diminished with the increase of violence and the worsening of law and order. And last but not the least, both countries share similar bleak future, which has meant a mass exodus of their people in search of better opportunities outside of the country.



The much more frightening prospect, compared to Haiti’s situation, is that of the level and quality of support Nepal could receive if it faces a calamity comparable to Haiti’s.

Economic mismanagement and political disarray has also meant a severely weakened governance system that, among other things, was incapable of or, more likely, disinterested in the setting of standards and enforcement of building codes which, along with the overall poverty of the population, led to the construction of buildings in a most haphazard manner, with least amount of attention paid to the stability of structures in the event of cyclones and floods, much less to withstand the calamities of major earthquakes of the type that just happened in Haiti.



Haiti may rebuild



Over the last week in the aftermath of devastation suffered from the earthquake, international aid has poured for providing immediate relief to the population—to help dig out those trapped under the debris and those rendered homeless, who needed immediate airdrop of medical supplies, food packets, and water. The country’s damaged airports and seaports could not accommodate all the help coming in from overseas and, reportedly, more than half of the shipments had to be delayed because of port congestion. Still, significant amount of relief supplies had come in to avoid starvation and spread of disease and most of 2 million people in the capital city made homeless by earthquake are being moved to safer camps with facilities. Living conditions in camps would continue to improve with the receipt of more targeted and plentiful aid supplies.



Attention will soon be focused on long-term recovery and reconstruction, which means that most major roads, bridges, buildings, seaports and airports would need to be completely rebuilt or, at least, rehabilitated. No firm estimate of the cost can be made at this time but many of the experts familiar with the Haiti situation put the cost at more than a billion dollar per year over the next several years. Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs estimates Haiti’s funding needs at $5 to $10 billion over the next several years, adding: “One can imagine (the need for) annual disbursements of $2 billion to $3 billion over the next five years.” Haiti has received much less than these amounts in recent years and only $300 million in core development funding most recently. Sachs warns that “Haiti will suffer quick death of hunger and disease…unless we respond to extreme distress of our neighbors.”



Other calls for providing relief to Haiti population has come in from humanitarian agencies and think-tanks who would back up the aid package with a substantial relaxation of entry visas for Haiti citizens wanting to migrate. Currently, Haiti receives $1.5 billion annually in workers’ remittances, which is about a quarter of its GDP and a much larger amount than foreign aid funding. Some scholars writing in influencing US dailies have advocated offering Haitians “golden door visas” to migrate to the Unites States, whether temporary or permanent, arguing that this would have a larger and more lasting impact on the lives of the poor from the remittance Haiti would receive.



Nepal’s continuing vulnerability



There is no intention here to imply that Haiti-like calamity is just about to happen in Nepal but this cannot be more improbable than the recent predictions of the melting of Himalayan glaciers by the year 2035, despite the revelation last week that prediction was based on faulty research. But assuming Nepal being hit by a Haiti-type earthquake, what kind of damage do we envisage, and the strength of subsequent relief and reconstruction efforts? Per capita damage to building and infrastructure would certainly exceed that of Haiti in view of the more congested city centers, old-age structures, and, just like Haiti, nonexistence or non-enforcement of building codes.



Add to these weaknesses the mud- and wood-structures that predominate the countryside, unstable terrains of many of hill-towns, and fragility of the country’s hydro facilities located in deep mountain valleys, and you can see virtually a leveled country in the aftermath of a major earthquake. All told, it looks that the country would face a total collapse of human-built facilities and disappearance of a way of life built over hundreds of years.



However, the much more frightening prospect, compared to Haiti’s situation, is that of the level and quality of support Nepal could receive if it faces a calamity comparable to Haiti’s. As it looks, in view of the international attention and sizeable amount of material and cash aid Haiti has received and been promised, Nepal would be in a much inferior position to expect more than a fraction of it. We can point out a few reasons. First, Nepal does not have a sea access, which Haiti has, and this makes the delivery of relief supplies both insufficient and costly. Second, we do not have an economic superpower next door, both willing and able to help. Immediately after the earthquake, US warships and merchant vessels arrived at Haiti ports within days with supplies of men and materials to help with the relief operations and provide security in normally a lawless country.



Third, US and many other countries are likely to ease restrictions for a much larger number of Haiti citizens to migrate to those countries, including many to the United States, which would help ease overcrowding in Haiti at the same time that the flow of remittance money gets increased. And the fourth reason: Christian charities around the world are rushing to help Haiti with the manpower and cash, in large part because Haiti is a Christian nation.



Looking at the prospect of long-term assistance for rehabilitation and reconstruction that may take at least a decade, Nepal would need a much larger amount of aid than what is being talked about for Haiti. Basing on the relative population size of two countries and taking Sachs’ estimate noted above of the required amount of aid needed for Haiti’s reconstruction, this can easily come to at least $5 billion a year for Nepal, compared to less than a billion dollars the country currently receives in foreign aid.



The lesson Nepal can learn from Haiti’s experience is that, being a small and poor country with very constraining geographic location, it needs to create strong linkages with countries around the world and, most importantly, with its neighbors, particularly India. Even in good times, the country needs considerable amount of outside assistance to stay afloat and carry out rudiments of development programs. The need for such assistance can increase many fold during national emergencies and especially when it meets disasters of the kind Haiti has encountered.



It is then sad to see Maoists moving in the opposite direction of international support by taking row with India to assert sovereignty and claiming evils of capitalism to distance themselves from Western democracies, In a globalized world, when countries are coming together for expanded trade, investment and aid contacts, Maoists’ ideas of imposing a communist rule in Nepal—democratically or otherwise—is truly isolationist and calamitous for the people who may have to live there cut-off from the rest of the world, in good times as well as bad.



sshah1983@hotmail.com



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