If You Think Government Can Do Good Things, Clap for USAID

USAID has always had a crisis capacity but never something that resembled an international FEMA (pre- or post-Brownie) so its co-ordination of Haitian earthquake relief aid both within government and internationally is somewhat of a departure. When you see the 16,000 American troops in Haiti by this weekend, think USAID, not the Pentagon. It's USAID's job to make that happen--of course, with alot of help. The hospital ship USNS Comfort has arrived with 550 medical personnel and should be up and operating(literally) tomorrow. Clean water has been restored to at least one hospital and the U.S. military has established open park tent towns to hold 25,000 a piece. Since yesterday the World Food Program now reports they have distributed 1 million food rations to 200,000 people with the hopes of getting to 2 million shortly. Their efficiacy is growing by leaps and bounds everyday. The banks are supposed to be open on Saturday. This is a country that lives on remittances from relatives living abroad. Thousands of tons of medical supplies and food stuffs have been shipped already and ,yes, the new airports are helping to end some of the bottlenecks. In the dubious distinction awards--but a good thing--rescue teams have set records for pulling people out of the rubble alive.

Washington-based non-profits who have been involved in Haiti before believe USAID has embraced this mandate with energy and with gusto. Or as JFK used to say, with "vigor". The problems we see,according to those observers, are because the United Nations Mission lost their chief of party, a man of great ability and much of their staff. The UN is trying to both re-establish its mission at the same time it's trying to handle the humanitarian relief and this has caused some of the problems about prioritzing issues. They also comment that the complaints that the U.S. didn't immediately airdrop water and food immediately was because the population in Port-au-Prince is so dense and they were already camping out in the open places where drops would occur that they were delayed until there was more on-the-ground intelligence. In the next few days, as the progress of the World Food Programme shows, the various components of the relief effort should look relatively smooth, considering this was the largest earthquake in Haiti in 200 years.

Will their be lessons to be learned? Of course. But so far, we should learn about USAID's success in marshalling the various players both within government and the non-profit world to respond as quickly and efficiently as they did. Thank you all.