Abstract
Haitian officials, in line with most country leaders around the world, announced a series of health, hygiene and safety precautions following the COVID-19 global pandemic early in 2020. The tiny nation (10,714 square miles) situated on the island of Hispaniola, still recovering from the devastating 2010 earthquake, which claimed the lives of close to two hundred thousand people, seemed prepared to take on the challenges of COVID-19. Businesses and schools immediately closed, face masks and hand sanitizers were distributed by the thousands. But the effects of emergency injunctions that were not geared towards capacity-building, but rather prevention of rapid infectious disease transmission, could prove debilitating for the impoverished nation over the long-term. Primary and secondary school enrollment rates in Haiti are at an all-time low, and projections for the Haitian economy are dismal (-3.5% GDP growth 2020f) (World Bank 2020: 27). As a retrospective study, this paper conducts a critical quantitative and qualitative analysis of humanitarian aid, gender-based violence, and urbanism in Haiti, revealing that gender-responsive planning has a greater role to play in state-led disaster management plans and procedures for achieving long-term equity and sustainable economic growth.
Highlights
In early spring 2020 Le Nouvelliste reported that emergency units at l’Hôpital de l’Université d’État d’Haïti (HUEH) (State University of Haiti Hospital) were overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic
With no quarantine units at HUEH and only 37 of 124 ICU beds nationwide meeting international ICU standards for a country of more than 10 million people [1], critical care units could not meet testing and treatment requirements of COVID-19 patients. How was it possible that nearly a decade after receiving more than 300 million USD from intergovernmental agencies for capacity-building projects, the Haitian healthcare system was operating with only 37 ICU beds? Following the January 12, 2010 earthquake, the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) was established to manage the implementation of aid programs in Haiti
During the tenure of the IHRC, limited attention was given to soft infrastructure—the political and social systems in Haiti, weakened by decades of political instability and violence—and the important role that Haitian women have played in Haiti’s critical care and rebuilding processes
Summary
In early spring 2020 Le Nouvelliste reported that emergency units at l’Hôpital de l’Université d’État d’Haïti (HUEH) (State University of Haiti Hospital) were overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This work offers a framework for understanding the multiple impacts of urban informality and gender-based violence (GBV); and theoretical approaches for managing weak state failure and aid effectiveness through gender-responsive planning. In the months following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, international private security officers, urban gangs like the Chimères, and exFADH (Forces Armées d’Haïti—FAd’H) paramilitary units took to patrolling Haiti’s tent cities and surrounding neighbourhoods (Table 1) —sometimes in concert with, or compensating for the Haitian National Police (HNP), already strained from limited funding and tensions from political violence [20]. Funds directed towards other immediate crises (like food, medicine, and sanitation), the IHRC ended its mandate as a missed opportunity to develop new institutions or programs in education and health care that could have benefitted Haitian men, women, and children past the 2010 earthquake. These perpetrators are politically well-connected or hold military rank
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