“Haiti is sick.”
The mayor of Ile a Vache— an island off Haiti’s southern coast—broke into English from his Haitian Creole and delivered this blunt truth to the 17 graduate students from George Mason University and Georgetown University. This was no surprise to the students: Ensconced in the study of Haiti since the previous month, they had arrived to the oft-forgotten, hurricane-ravaged island by boat that same day, having been in the Haitian countryside for several days.
While only a two-hour flight from Miami, Haiti’s technology and infrastructure remain centuries behind much of the world. But what has been ailing Haiti? And has the outside world caused more harm than good in its efforts to help? The country has received a staggering amount of international development aid—more than $10 billion over the past 10 years. So why is Haiti “sick”?
Organized earlier this year through the Schar School of Policy and Government’s External Programs department and implemented through the Mason Office of Global Affairs, students were immersed in an experiential course of study to analyze and understand the legacy of outside interventions and how today’s international development policy continues to affect Haiti.
Schar School course facilitators, including those from the Master’s in International Security program, provided students with access to actors and officials throughout the various sectors—from military, government, diplomatic, non-government organizations, and international organizations in the capital Port-au-Prince, the small coastal towns of Port Salut and Les Cayes, and on the island of Ile-a-Vache.
From the National Public Health Laboratory to small, local clinics, students were able to see how the international community works with host-country partners to combat global pandemics on the front lines. From the Haitian National Police Academy to the streets of Port-au-Prince, students saw the difficulty in building a national police force to establish rule of law and daily order.
At a USAID-hosted and -funded project, students could reflect on the U.S. system for its shortcomings and development assistance. And visiting community grain, castor oil, and electricity co-ops showed some of the weaknesses in linking outside efforts to sustainable local government stewardship.
Because of the turbulence within the country, from unstable politics or natural disasters, and its proximity to the United States, international aid and intervention have been a near constant over the past 100 years. The U.S. occupied Haiti from 1915-1934, intervened after the 1994 military coup, and had a strong military presence after the devastating 2010 earthquake. Since 2001, the U.S. and international presence has been reflected through the “Blue Helmets” sent in a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions, a presence now winding to a close.
Departing Ile-a-Vache to return to Port-au-Prince in their open-air wooden boat, and continuing onto winding roads through town and countryside, students saw little obvious evidence of the billions of dollars spent on post-disaster recovery.
But they also saw the vibrancy of people thriving in their everyday lives, no matter how different in appearance from lives in the U.S. Students left Haiti with a greater understanding of intervention and development, and a recognition of the complexity of building external policies for the developing world—but also with many signs of hope that Haitians themselves would overcome the illnesses of which the mayor had alluded.