“The Paradox of Development and the NGO System in Haiti”

Religious organizations working in Haiti have contributed substantially to a backward economic and political structure and mess in Haiti. Yet they are the major relief programs in Haiti in alleviating pain and suffering, and in providing medical, educational, and food assistance to the Haitian poor and the orphans.

The Haitian government has no intervention programs to assist the Haitian poor, to rehabilitate street children and rèstavèk (domestic children workers) children in the country, and to educate the country’s enormous illiterate population. The Haitian government provides no uplift or welfare programs and temporary reliefs or aids to the unemployed, the retiree, the disabled, etc.

Yes, the Haitian government has preconditioned the creation of the “NGO nation,” heavily supported by selfish and charlatan foreign religious-political organizations in the country. Charity, grants, or foreign aids without an adequate economic structure and a sustainable development program at the national level is a waste of human resources.