Haiti Needs to Be Built, Not Rebuilt
In the Wall Street Journal, an opinion piece by UNC Professor Peter A. Coclanis about the difference between the Marshall Plan recovery of 20th century Europe and the current situation in Haiti. Excerpt:
The situation in Haiti today is vastly different than that of postwar Europe and Japan. Haiti is an economically exhausted place, as it was on the eve of the Jan. 12 earthquake. Its economic problems are not akin to those facing Europe or Japan in 1948, and what is required to put Haiti on sound economic footing is much different.
Instead, what policy makers need to focus on is creating the conditions—economic, social, educational, public health, political, and perhaps most importantly, cultural—necessary to put Haiti onto the first foothold of the development ladder.
