A few months after the earthquake, both Clintons were stars at a big Donors’ Conference Towards a New Future for Haiti, held at the UN, at which $2.5 billion was pledged—intended, in Bill Clinton’s words, to “build back better.” Some $1.15 billion was supposed to come from the United States.
Hillary, as Secretary of State, included a warning in her remarks at the conference. “If the effort to rebuild is slow or inefficient,” she said, “if it is marked by conflict, lack of coordination, or lack of transparency, then the challenges that have plagued Haiti for years could erupt with regional and global consequences.”
Hillary Clinton’s warning turned out to be an accurate forecast of how the Haiti reconstruction efforts have failed dismally and been plagued by corruption and mismanagement. Here is just one example: The US Agency for International Development said it would build 15,000 new houses. Excellent detective work by, among others, Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows how USAID completely bungled the job. After nearly six years, only 900 houses have actually been built, and many of them were so shoddily constructed that USAID had to spend more to fix them.
Visitors to Port-au-Prince today will see almost no evidence of the billions that were supposed to be spent on “building back better.” Most of the rubble is gone, but the national hospital is still decrepit, and even main streets have potholes and piles of garbage. There is also failure of the less visible sort, as my friend of 20 years, Milfort Bruno, explained to me recently. His house was damaged severely in the earthquake. “Martelly’s government said it was going to send around experts to tell us if it was safe to rebuild in the same place,” he said. “No one ever came. Martelly promised he would also send engineers, to show us how to construct our houses safely. We never saw them.”