Non-government organizations (NGOs) have been, at best, a mixed blessing for Haiti, according to a professor who has dedicated two decades of his life and career to understanding the troubled Caribbean island nation.
Mark Schuller is an affiliate at the Faculté d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti and a professor of anthropology and nonprofit and NGO studies at Northern Illinois University.
“NGOs – non-government organizations – were envisioned as back-up for the government of Haiti,” Schuller told Globe Banner. “So the role they play has become parallel states, unelected private patchwork of institutions, some of which do things that are like development, like building roads, building schools, hospitals, clinics and the like.”
NGOs such as Viva Rio, the AVSI Foundation, Concern Worldwide and other such groups formed alliances with local partners, but Schuller said this has been a costly error. While they have provided immediate assistance, they cannot maintain it, since they are not set up for the long term. Another factor is NGOs draining the public sector of qualified personnel.
“People are being paid much more than they would be in the public sector,” Schuller said. He said a World Bank researcher called it a “public sector brain drain.
“So you look at development as human capacity, the ability to plan for the future and have institutions that are stable, and NGOs have played a role paradoxically in undermining that,” Schuller said. “Haiti has been called ‘The Republic of NGOs.’ And so the condition with which you don’t have state capacity or resources to do any kind of meaningful regulation actually created the conditions by which the institutional void was filled with people that you could call gangs. So I want that said first, that these are not individual actors that want this outcome, that this is a predictable consequence of bleeding the public sector.”
In response to the recent spike in gang violence and kidnappings in Haiti, aid organizations are being forced to reconsider their shipment routes, staff safety measures and security costs, the New Humanitarian. However, the situation has also raised questions about the ethics and safety implications of relying on leaders of armed gangs who claim they can provide assistance.
In Haiti, political leaders have historically utilized gangs to maintain their hold on power, NPR reported. Current Prime Minister Dr. Ariel Henry appears to be struggling to curb the escalating violence. In fact, he narrowly avoided an assassination attempt in January of this year.
In several regions, the police force is outnumbered by gang members who have resorted to kidnapping or killing officers and even raiding police stations for weapons, the New Humanitarian reported. The situation has led to a significant rise in violent crimes, leaving the government grappling for solutions to restore security and safety for its citizens.
Haiti has been without a president since the assassination of its last leader, Jovenel Moïse, in 2021. Serving as the de facto ruler is Henry, a neurosurgeon and former government minister, NPR said.
Schuller has spent a great deal of time in Haiti during the last two decades. His observations are based on a study of history, a knowledge of the country and people and by listening and learning from Haitians themselves. That should be a key component, in his view.
“I was in Haiti during the coup in 2004 when there was a similar situation. There are many differences, but the similar situation is that they had what they call red zones where NGO workers are not allowed to go, and there’s a curfew where they have to leave, they have to be back home by a certain time,” Schuller said. “And so what that does is prevent NGOs, U.N. and other development funders like USAID from actually having meaningful relationships, a dialog with the population.
"So when you have a situation like you have now where people are being kidnapped, you have very strict personal travel for any of those employees," Schuller added. "And what that means is that you don’t have meaningful dialog between the recipient population, the beneficiaries and the NGOs themselves. However, most NGOs do have field offices outside of Port-au-Prince. And this is an opportunity to decentralize Haiti once and for all. It did not happen after the 2010 earthquake.”
He said the current wave of kidnappings and insecurity in Port-au-Prince may build up regional centers, which would be a positive change.
“Time will tell,” Schuller said.
He said the solution to Haiti’s long and painful history lies in a triple nexus of humanitarian aid and development linked to peace-building efforts.
“And so there are agencies there doing this triple nexus for their peace-building. And there are some collectives doing truth and reconciliation,” Schuller said. “The U.N. brought in specialists from Northern Ireland to help mediate conversation. There’s a couple collectives that are attempting to do long-term disarmament.
"However, that’s done in the context of an overproduction of arms from the United States and completely open borders," Schuller continued. "And so what can an NGO do in that situation? Just provide what they call humanitarian corridors where you have these giant flags at the head of these convoys that say, ‘Please don’t attack us. We’re getting food to where it’s needed.’”
Schuller said NGOs and other aid organizations need to rethink their basic reasons for being in Haiti.
“Whenever you select a local manager, if your NGO is headquartered in the United States, your decision-makers are English speakers,” he said. “You need to have someone that can speak both English and every language, in this case Haitian Creole, so they do build relationships, they select middle managers, they select intermediaries.”
It also requires a change of mindset, Schuller noted.
“I would say first think of people as people and not needs and not mouths to feed. Recognize the local capacity that, if you have an earthquake-impacted area, you have teachers, you have nurses, you have bricklayers, you have architects that you can think of them as resources and not just needs to be fulfilled,” he said. “Secondly, NGOs should be having processes by which they understand the local community, that NGO aid can reinforce local governance structures, that can reinforce solidarity and reinforce community initiatives, or it can support patronage or support jealousy and support a vision that can support bifurcation or splitting the community into two.”
Schuller said choosing what locals to work with is crucial.
“You know, typically in NGO aid, ‘I have to work with somebody here, the person who speaks English, so I'm going to work with you,’” he said. “And you have no idea how they’re how they’re looked at, what relationships they have, what debts they have to other people in the community. So you basically anointed a leader just because of that linguistic capacity that they have. And those tend to be layered on top of international missionary circuits where they're more likely to be part of one sect and the other.
“And so this is actually how gangs got to be empowered after the 2010 earthquake,” Schuller added. “People that were representing themselves as local leaders and they are local leaders, many of which were given all kinds of resources from NGO. They tended to be armed individuals because that's sometimes how things get done. And so NGOs have in many cases created the very gang leadership there that they’re trying to minimize its impact.”
NGOs do forge partnerships when they arrive after a humanitarian disaster.
“After the 2010 earthquake, (former President) Bill Clinton, a U.N. special envoy for Haiti, said that they recognize that there is a role for the government, that there is a role for coordination, and that NGOs should be working with and not around the elected officials,” Schuller said. “And so future disasters like the 2016 Hurricane Matthew, you saw NGOs working with local governments without transforming the power structures that just sort of displaced the scale from national to local, but retain the same problems of working with government.”
These NGOs are multi-mandate organizations that go where the need is as well as where money is available.
“NGOs are basically experts in project management. So NGOs know agricultural production and husbandry, environmental resource management, watershed management, training, planting clinics, work at orphanages, schools — NGOs do basically all of that,” Schuller said. “And some NGOs that are small NGOs that just have a more topical and regional focus. You have in Haiti in particular, you have hometown associations where people in the Haitian diaspora, so people that are from Haiti and then in the United States or Canada or elsewhere, they set up hometown associations to basically contribute to their hometowns, where they came from in Haiti.
“And so they have Haitian professionals return, and their annual patron saint festival is usually a time for folks to come together. This is at least before this last wave of insecurity,” he continued. “But you have Haitian professionals that are the ones doing the work.”
Schuller is working with a colleague to provide a guidebook for humanitarian groups coming into Haiti. He offered a list of ideas for NGOs.
“Be very transparent about what you have in terms of resources, who your donors are, what constraints you have, what priorities that your donors have and what you're there to do, and then, have a large community meeting where you ask people, ‘Who exactly do people trust to get this done? What exactly are your needs?’” Schuller said.
They need to work with the local hospital director, school directors, Catholic parish, the Voodoo community and Protestant leaders, he said.
“You know, it takes a little more time to start out but local capacity, local initiative, local leadership will guarantee sustainability,” he said.
Schuller’s research on NGOs, globalization, disasters and gender in Haiti has been published in 50 peer-reviewed articles or book chapters, as well as in public media.
Schuller is the author or co-editor of eight books, including “Humanity’s Last Stand: Confronting Global Catastrophe,” and co-director/co-producer of the documentary “Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy” (2009), according to his bio. Supported by the National Science Foundation Senior and CAREER Grant, Bellagio Center and other organizations, Schuller is also the co-editor of Berghahn Books’ “Catastrophes in Context: a Series in Engaged Social Science on Disasters” and University of Alabama Press’ “NGOgraphies: a Series of Ethnographic Reflections of NGOs.”
Schuller was named a 2022 Northern Illinois University Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor, NIU’s top recognition for outstanding research or artistry, his bio reported.