Thought for the Day

[bcholmes]

In 1980 aid [to Haiti] was about $131 million [US Dollars]. In 1983 the UN Development Program (UNDP) estimated that foreign assistance to Haiti was at least $167 million, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) place it closer to $200 million. From 1990 to 2003, though, Haiti received more than $4 billion in foreign assistance from bilateral and multilateral sources. (In addition to that, remittances from Haitian expatriates amount to $1 billion annually.) From 2005 to 2006 foreign aid rose by another $1.3 billion or so. But how much good did the aid dollars do? For example, some of the money paid for U.S. Coast Guard interdiction of Haitian refugees, refugee support, drug trafficking curtailment, and military expenditures. These are costly, and they are not considered by many to be aid, though they have been included in the aid totals. In many cases, it remained unclear where aid was spent.

— Haiti in the Balance