Not long after reconstruction efforts for the 2010 Haiti earthquake kicked into high gear, there were some signs that while Western implementers would take the lead in the interim, over time, foreign aid donors were eager to increasingly channel the billions in recovery money through Haitian organizations. The goal of this transition was to make the recovery effort more sustainable over the longer term.
“While using more in-country partners may mean sacrificing some immediate development impact, the long-term impact and sustainability of development outcomes will be strengthened,” Elizabeth Hogan, the then-director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Haiti task team and now the agency’s acting assistant administrator for Latin America and Caribbean, explained to Devex in 2012.
Five years into the reconstruction and $13.5 billion in assistance later, Devex analysis of contract awards and grants by four of Haiti’s largest donors finds that for the most part, local partners aren’t even close to assuming the levers of control over the recovery money — albeit with the exception of one major donor. It’s worth noting that the data we analyzed generally exclude government-to-government transfers.