Comments on: Why is Haiti so much poorer than the Dominican Republic?

By: Atabey

Atabey — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:29:30 +0000

I remember as a young undergraduate spending some time looking at the Haitian-Dominican situation and wondering wheather or not Haiti’s problems could not be better solved or at least ameliorate by the former colonial master France allowing a policy of immigration to say French Guyana or any other foreign dependency or department. Simply put, at close to 10-12 million people, Haiti’s demographic pressures on the land and resources are unsustainable, and some other measures need to be placed on the table.

By: Elizabeth Eames

Elizabeth Eames — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:06:47 +0000

Hi, Lee, I am sure that you have some good points but I find them inaccessible as a layperson. Now, I read Stieglitz, and Sachs, and Easterly and Kevin Philips for fun so I am a pretty savy lay person. I am sure that you have some very good points to share. I just can-t get to them. I could not download the PDF or see the graphs.

Also, I would dispute the rates that are given for Haiti´’s population growth. It is well observed here in the DR that most Haitian women have 5 and 6 children. There are a great number of Haitian women who come across the border to give birth as well. Of course the child mortality rate is high. Anyway, I think that almost all stats on Haiti are pretty much works of fiction… except of course how much money is lent or donate by external agencies.

But even in that amount… there is very little measure of how much of that money ever actually reaches the ground… Sure there is a heading for “project costs in the field” but what portion gets to … say… the FARMERS in the form of SEEDS and tools and such?

Do we have a tracking system for that?

By: Lee

Lee — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:20:34 +0000

It’s ironic that the IMF, who has been feeding Haiti PRSPs (www.imf.org/external/NP/prsp/prsp.asp) for 20-30 years, are now trying to figure out “what went wrong”.

It would behoove them to begin the paper by looking at the IMF’s own predatory lending first. They could call that reflection “Chapter 1″.

I have a basic analysis of the relationships between Aid and external/internal shocks, over the past 20 years. It’s far from perfect, more of a work in progress.

http://leeinhaiti.com/2009/08/development-aid-and-inequality-relationships-in-haiti-1987-2007/

By: Elizabeth Eames

Elizabeth Eames — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:04:36 +0000

Yes, thanks for explaining the terms. Now that I understand the terms a bit I can, in fact, make a case for a bit of disagreement… in that … Our Friends at The Bank… as they are known are perhaps just looking at the “money and trade” side of things…without really looking deeper into the causes inside of Haiti.

Here is perhaps a bit of a deeper analysis by Bob Corbett who has maintained the Haiti English speaking list serve for over 20 years.

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/leftover/whypoor.htm

By: ONeil

ONeil — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:06:50 +0000

Zach, That’s true. The paper was written more as an investigation of what might have caused the differential growth rates rather than as a guide towards what should be done.