Putting the pieces together: Haiti’s path to a working state
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Blanca Antonini , 5 September 2012
The earthquake of 2010 brutally exposed the vulnerabilities of Haiti’s people, as well as confronting an already weakly governed country with massive humanitarian and logistical dilemmas. While progress has been made towards reconstruction, the underlying fragility of the country remains. Even as certain donors reconsider their aid to the country, Haiti continues to suffer from economic dependence, environmental risk, an institutional vacuum, a heavily fragmented political landscape, and a continuing cycle of poverty and violence.
However, this report emphasises that not all is lost in the country, which is suffering neither the after-effects of an all-out war nor the levels of criminal violence witnessed elsewhere in Central America and the Caribbean. Recent glimmers of political compromise and some progress in reforming the police force indicate that improvements are possible. Looking forward to the coming decade, the report signals the key areas in which progress is both essential and feasible, but warns that much will depend on the way in which the international community and the United Nations mission in the country interact with the Haitian state and the country’s principal social forces.
This report is part of a series that analyses the future of the state in eight cases. The series is coordinated and co-published by NOREF and the Dutch Institute of International Relations Clingendael. It is coordinated by Clingendael senior researcher Ivan Briscoe.