Haiti was spared a direct hit by Sandy, but the damage, death, and displacement caused by the storm is much, much worse than anywhere else on the planet right now.
The wealthiest city in the most powerful country on the planet is poised to get hit by an epic storm. Things will be bad, but the city of New York and the federal government of the United States has the capacity and wherewithall to manage this crisis. But what happens when a storm or natural disaster of equally destructive magnitude hits a place that does not have that same ability to deal with a natural disaster?
Here in the USA, Isaac has mostly been met with chortles (from Democrats) about how the storm may disrupt the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida next week. But this is a storm to be taken very seriously. It has all the markings of a an impending humanitarian catastrophe.
Haitians are now allowed to come to the U.S. as part of the largest American temporary foreign worker program. How this policy development will help Haiti and the reconstruction.
The world commemorates the second anniversary of the devastating January 2010 earthquake today. There are a number of retrospectives, reports, and renewed media focus on Haiti this week. I thought it would be useful to give these stories some context by offering some facts and figures about the recovery.
I caught up with Robb Skinner of the UN Foundation during a visit to Port au Prince. Robb is a former US foreign service officer in the Caribbean. He has traveled to Haiti five times since the January 2012 earthquake. When we spoke, Robb had just returned from a trip with UN officials to one of the cities largest camp for people displaced by the earthquake. Have a listen.
You may recall news several months ago about a cell phone video allegedly depicting Uruguayan peacekeepers in Haiti sexually abusing a teenage Haitian boy. Why the case against these peacekeepers is faltering.
