Research for Haiti

Organizing: Farmworker Freedom March, 2010

The highly successful Coalition of Immokalee Workers has generated a travelling exhibit entitled the Florida Modern Slavery Museum that will be a part of its Farmworker Freedom March that starts this weekend and runs through April 15th (so far). In case you wondering what this has to do with Haiti: for decades, several of the migrant farmworker streams in the United States have had included significant Haitian populations. The continuation of plantation-like work culture in Florida and other parts of the South in the US goes to show that old fashioned organizing, with some new tricks to increase public understand, is as important now than ever.

Evaluation Resources: Free Introduction and Guidance on Impact Evaluations

The Network of Networks on Impact Evaluation (NONIE) has a very readable and fairly brief introductory text, Guidance on Impact Evaluation, available for free on its web site. (Note: Keep in mind that impact evaluation is not the only kind of evaluation, so this is not a review of the broader field of evaluation.)

From the introduction:

The purpose of NONIE is to promote more and better impact evaluations among its members. Issues relating to evaluations in general are more effectively dealt with in the parent networks, and are thus not the primary focus of NONIE. NONIE will focus on sharing of methods and learning-by-doing to promote the practice of IE (impact evaluation). The current Guidance document was developed for supporting those purposes.

The Guidance is structured around nine key issues in impact evaluation:

1. Identify the (type and scope of the) intervention
2. Agree on what is valued
3. Carefully articulate the theories linking interventions to outcomes
4. Address the attribution problem
5. Use a mixed methods approach: The logic of the comparative advantages of methods
6. Build on existing knowledge relevant to the impact of interventions
7. Determine if an impact evaluation is feasible and worth the cost
8. Start collecting data early
9. Front-end planning is important

Lessons on Relief Delivery: Using High Schools and their Students

The Haitian Project’s blog has a story on their web site what I think has several good lessons on how to provide relief in a dignified manner (emphasis mine; ellipses representing cut text):

I also want to point out that we—staff, students and volunteers—carried these bags [of relief supplies] to the houses in the neighborhood and handed them directly to families… There were no lines, shoving or question as to who received the food support. It was given to people with whom we live and work daily, in an orderly and dignified manner. I mention this because we had denounced a disorderly ad hoc distribution done on our street two days before. Those involved in the earlier distribution took notice of the order and dignity of ours. In fact, the leader of the other distribution came in person to state that he now understood our concern and criticism of what had transpired on Wednesday. Sometimes it is not just what you do, but how you do it.

It is important to note that this food is more economic assistance than simple hunger relief - as we have stated previously, there is no real food shortage. The supply is in place at all levels, from wholesale to local markets, for those who have the funds to purchase it. This is why THP/LCS continues to look for ways to employ members of the community in the relief effort. We will be reporting on our house-building project next week. This program produces not only housing, but also jobs, making a double impact. We appreciate the relief funds that have been donated for housing and look forward to reporting on that effort.

While providing relief is not the core mission of the organization, I think a lot of decentralized work like this could help Haiti if these groups received some training and management support to make sure they do the most good they can. There are some tent cities not far from the school campus of The Haitian Project; it would be interesting if, with—again—some training and support, they could use their connections in the neighborhood and some of their older (and very bright) students to make life significantly better there.

[I once worked for The Haitian Project at their schools site in Santos, an area outside of P-a-P.]

NGOs in Haiti: The Other Brain Drain?

Do NGOs and INGOs pull quality staff away from working for government? This was a point that Paul Famer made in his testimony to the U.S. Senate (see earlier post for text).

However, if INGOs rely on non-Haitian employees, how are these international staff members perceived by local professionals? Note these observations by Amaka Megwalu, a graduate student from Harvard, one this issue in Africa:

For others, particularly some non-expatriate staff, the aid industry itself is perceived as unjust.  These staff members point to significant discrepancies in salaries between expatriate and national staff even when it seems that both do similar work.  They point to a practice of systematically treating expat and national staff differently.  They note the custom of having most management positions filled by expat staff.  And they note the sometimes relatively lavish conditions in which expat staff live.

[Note similar views in a review by the Stimson Center and the Peace Divend Trust of UN peacekeeping work in many conflict zones, mentioned in an earlier post.]

People often talk about the Haitian government's weaknesses, and the need for additional staff. However, if the government cannot compete as an employer with the INGOs that are flooding into the country (and have yet to reach full strength), where will Haiti find people to run the government? One possibility is that the government and some donor nations establish a professional school for training of officials or people who can work in government. In Washington, DC the US Department of Agriculture has a night "graduate school" that serves this purpose to some degree: while the school does not offer any real degrees, entry-level and mid-level government officials can take classes to build specific skills (the school does offer some certificates, and is open to the public; some friends have taken low-cost language courses there).

Education: Ideas for Colleges and Universities

Lots of schools have run short-term projects in Haiti, but these need to come to a halt for now; “disaster tourism” is grotesque (at least these trips should halt for the vast majority of undergraduate students, I can see some benefit to Haiti for some graduate and professional degree programs to have students go to Haiti as part of their education.)

Instead, schools should pull together and consider the following ideas. Granted, these ideas require more sophistication than the efforts many schools have put forth in the past, but there are more than a few schools in the US that could pull some of this off (in some places perhaps with the financial and organizational contributions of large dioceses, or in conjunction with major donors). Schools with fewer resources could then piggy-back on other schools' efforts (although I do not know if schools, in the US at least, are well known for running multi-institution programs).

1. Pair with some other universities in the US, Canada, France, etc. to help reopen and rebuild universities in Haiti. This would be a major commitment, of course, and require some staff in the US to keep things organized. But if the schools find a donor to support this as their way of helping Haiti, it could be very effective. The actual mission of the schools in Haiti should be based on the needs of Haiti (e.g., a two-year agriculture school or training center for rural health educators may not be as sexy as a building your own major hospital but it may be as important and address deeper problems).
   
2. Partnering with several other universities, again, a program should be set up to allow Haitian and Haitian-American graduate students to spend one or two year long fellowships in Haiti. Such efforts could be more flexible than the Peace Corps and more similar to the international fellowships run by the Congressional Hunger Center. Add to that some concurrent training in policy analysis, management, and professional writing, and this has the potential to develop future leaders for Haiti or US-Haiti relations.
   
3. Less grand but potentially very useful would be the establishment of a center that follows and tracks the evaluation of projects in Haiti. There is the possibility that this could be of great value around the world: a lot of innovative projects will be starting in Haiti and the need for South-South exchanges as well as rigorous evaluations of the programs could be very important and even make a lasting positive mark on the entire field of international assistance.