Suchergebnisse

Given the less-than-desired results in sustained poverty alleviation and economic growth in Haiti despite the past allocation of significant foreign aid dollars, the Obama administration launched a review of the United States government's approach toward development assistance in there well before the January 2010 devastating earthquake. Findings and recommendations, fine-tuned after the catastrophic disaster, thrust Haiti into the forefront of a wider U.S. overhaul of foreign aid policy and practice that incorporates not only core principles for aid effectiveness set forth in the Paris Declaration of 2005, but also findings and recommendations included in the 2006 peer review undertaken by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. As the administration endeavours to enact strategies for greater aid effectiveness in a country challenged not only by a devastating natural disaster, but also by the scars of poverty and conflict, Haiti offers important insights into issues critical for achieving and sustaining more effective development and peacebuilding policies and practices worldwide.

Port-au-Prince suffered most of the damage from a January 2010 earthquake. Even so, domestic and international aid efforts need to encompass the neglected rest of the country.

Since the period of independence, an indigenous craft sector took shape in Haitian villages, towns and cities, with artisans drawing upon their African traditions to produce utilitarian items for daily use. In the 1920s, Haiti's artisans responded to a growing tourism industry throughout the Caribbean by expanding their production to include decorative items for sale to visitors in their country and elsewhere in the region. They developed a strong market niche, primarily for wooden and woven articles, that soon expanded to North America and Europe. Today, craft revitalization efforts are bound to fail unless they bet on the artisans' traditions which are the driving force of popular culture. (Grassroots Dev/DÜI)