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USAID offering $170 million to groups rebuilding Haiti
(South Florida Sun-Sentinel (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jul. 12--MIAMI -- A federal agency came to South Florida on Friday with a $170 million budget to find local groups to help them rebuild Haiti.
South Florida, home to the country's largest Haitian population, was the first of several stops the U.S. Agency for International Development plans to make. USAID sent $45 million in food aid to Haiti after riots broke out in April.
Friday's meeting, held at the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center, is the agency's first attempt since then to work with Haitians in the United States to create more self-sustaining economic development in Haiti.
"Emergency food is not what we want to talk about," said Jose Cardenas, acting administrator of USAID's Latin American and Caribbean bureau, at the forum. "We're promoting long-term growth so we don't have to lurch from crisis to crisis."
Several of the proposals USAID made were tied to private money sent to the nation, which last year totaled about $1.8 billion. South Florida sends more than 45 percent of that cash.
At Friday's meeting, many of the engineers, lawyers and activists who attended blamed the country's political instability for the failure of desperately needed social and economic programs.
The country has been without a prime minister since April, when Haiti's Senate fired Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis for his handling of the nation's economy. While there is greater access to food, soaring prices and wages of $2 a day make it hard for the average family to afford necessary staples.
But some who came to the meeting from as far as Lakeland said the ideas were not new, and further research needs to be done to learn why millions in government funding have gone to programs that have languished.
"Why are we embarking on yet another project without assessing the failure?" asked Leonie Hermantin, deputy director of The Lambi Fund of Haiti, a grass-roots organization based in Washington, D.C.
Cardenas said changes in government both in the United States and in Haiti have contributed to some of the delays. But he added that Haitians in the United States and the agency have to continue to push forward.
Many agreed with him.
"We as Haitians we need to do the work. People don't owe us anything," said Nadine Patrice, executive director of Operation Green Leaves, a South Florida group that works to improve Haiti's environment. "When the U.S. brings help to us, it's icing on the cake."
Georgia East can be reached at or 954-356-4629.
To see more of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com/.
Copyright (c) 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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