haiti past, present and the future?

Information Paper Prepared For The RICS Presidents Disaster Management Commission February 2013

HAITI – PAST, PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE? W. Keane – Disaster Management Commissioner- (Director: Clarkebond (UK) Ltd)

clarkebond © 2013 Clarkebond (UK) Limited Engineering and Management Consultants

HAITI

PAST, PRESENT

AND

THE FUTURE?




The author undertook a visit to Haiti in March 2010, as part of an initial evaluation report on behalf of Build Aid titled ‘A Disaster Many Years In The Making’, 29.03.2010. This Information Report is a review of what we observed within the built environment during our visit, subsequent 3rd party reports/findings, where things have progressed to, the external/internal drivers and the stakeholder’s aspirations for the future of Haiti and how they might be realised in light of the huge challenges facing all actors operating in the field.




1.0 INTRODUCTION

2.0 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL CLASSES

3.0 URBANISATION

4.0 TECTONIC HAZARDS

5.0 VULNERABILITY / RESILIENCE / CAPACITY

6.0 DECENTRALISATION

7.0 MACRO-ECONOMIC OVERVIEW

8.0 VERNACULAR BUILDINGS

9.0 MASONRY INFILL PANEL AND CONCRETE FRAME HYBRID CONSTRUCTION

10.0 MARCH 2010 FIELD OBSERVATIONS

11.0 HOUSING

12.0 DISASTER RISK FINANCING / MITIGATION

13.0 DISTRIBUTION AND ALLOCATION OF AID FINANCING

14.0 DISCUSSION

APPENDIX A MARCH 2010 FIELD PHOTOGRAPHS APPENDIX B WORLD RISK REGISTER




1.0 INTRODUCTION

The earthquake of January 12, 2010, in Haiti, is estimated (by the Haitian government) to have killed approximately 230,000 people, 300,000+ were injured, and approximately 1.5 million were left homeless, but these numbers may never be fully verified. If true it would make it one of the top three earthquakes causing the largest loss of life since 1556 when 830,000 people are reported to have been killed in Shaanix, China. Figure1.1, gives a indication of the severity of ground shaking and the land mass and population affected.

Post Earthquake Over 208,164 houses were badly damaged and 105,000 were destroyed by the earthquake

(313,164 in total), including 30,000 commercial buildings either collapsed or were severely damaged. This equates to 20% and 27% of the houses in Port-au-Prince respectively.

4,000 schools were damaged or destroyed, which equates to 65% of schools and 95% of university buildings, or 80% of schools in Port-au-Prince and 60% of schools in the South and West Departments were destroyed or damaged.

Over 50 hospitals and health care centres collapsed or were unusable. 2.3 million homeless By end of 2012, 358,000 are still living in over 500 displacement camps, 52% women, and it

is estimated 80% of those displaced thus far have nowhere to return to because they were renters before the earthquake.

After the quake there were 19 million cubic meters of rubble and debris in Port au Prince – enough to fill a line of shipping containers stretching end to end from London to Beirut.

25% of civil servants in Port au Prince died 60% of Government and administrative buildings, Over 600,000 people left their home area in

Port-au-Prince and mostly stayed with host families At its peak, one and a half million people were living in camps including over 100,000 at

critical risk from storms and flooding Forced evictions:

78,175 individuals are currently under threat of eviction – 21 % of the total number of IDPs currently living in camps.

Living conditions in camps: 72,038 internally-displaced people in 264 of the 541 camps did not have on-site access to water and toilets (in June 2012) 50% of camps remaining did not have on site access to water and toilets, affecting more than one internally displaced person out of six, for a total of 66,546 persons. (June 2012)

Most of the damage and losses have been suffered by the private sector, US$5.722 billion, with US$2.3 billion of this relating specifically to the housing sector.

The public sector damage and losses amounted to US$2.081 billion or 30% of the total. By 2012 only 13,198 homes have been repaired and 4, 843 permanent homes built. There is not enough housing available to absorb the need. According to data from the

International Organization for Migration, current shortages will leave more than 300,000 without housing.

When evicted from camps, these families have no option but to inhabit substandard housing units. As soon as one year after the earthquake, despite the dangers, families had returned to 64% of houses marked for demolition and 85% of houses needing significant repair

Pre Earthquake 67% of the urban population lived in slums which were the areas most affected by the

earthquake. The most unequal country in the Americas

56% of households live with less than US$1 a day and 77% with less than US$2 The 10% of richest households in Haiti earned 68% of the total revenue of all households.




Figure 1.1: Earthquake epicentre and extent of ground shaking and population affected

The Haiti earthquake is a watershed event, with a death toll from collapsing buildings ten times higher than in most prior earthquakes. As a natural disaster that occurred in an urban setting, the Haitian earthquake presented unique challenges and dramatically exacerbated existing problems in Port-au-Prince.

The earthquake was a tragedy on many levels and any autopsy needs to take cognisance of all contributing material factors rather than focus on a select few, as this will risk identifying panaceas that are simply not implementable and risk being aspirational rather than pragmatic. The reality is Haitian society needs to get back to functioning normally as soon as possible to avoid inflicting more unnecessary hardship on its population, (over and above that which existed prior to the earthquake). One of the biggest challenges within the built-environment is reconciling long-term sustainable capacity building with the more immediate short term temporary solutions and how one may negatively impact on the other in light of the primary external drivers, some of which are:

the next disaster that may result from the known natural hazards,

a government that does not have the necessary capacity to manage/deliver,

the chronic lack of funding to targeted areas,

In light of the extent of earthquake damage, Haiti’s (now know) inherent vulnerabilities within the built environment, (including existing ‘undamaged’ infrastructure),

the large number of aid organisations / NGO’s operating in Haiti and how they coordinate with Haiti’s road map to recovery and what that recovery actually means.

the imbalance in the Haitian economy with the majority of the activity focused in and around Port-au-Prince,

the unplanned urbanisation of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas,




effective engagement with stakeholders including grass root organisations

the risk of political unrest and opportunism to advance the needs of one or other party or individual,

the social unrest that can come about if progress on the ground is not apparent, i.e., preserving social cohesion.

The fear is, in an effort to meet immediate needs inappropriate policies and incentives are pursued that simply fund the re-implementation of vulnerable construction models instead of fostering the introduction of alternate systems with the requirement that they build genuine local capacity that meets Haiti’s cultural and economic needs right across the built-environment spectrum.

Failure by the international community not to properly engage with grass-root organisations will result in criticism similar to those voiced by Forum on the Crisis of Housing in Haiti, (a group of camp residents and advocates), who are demanding comprehensive housing policy in the long term and decent, secure housing in the short term - “…..An added problem is the inherent lack of accountability in giving power to outside companies and institutions with no history in Haiti, no understanding of the country, and no commitment to Haitians. Designing a product for people without any consultation with them is unethical, especially when the product involves dangerously subpar safety standards, inaccessible pricing, and cultural ignorance. And foreign groups have gone about their work with blinders to the energetic Haitian movement that does exist, that is struggling to promote its recommendations on topics ranging from eminent domain (compulsory purchase) to housing structures to evictions.”

Since the earthquake Haiti was hit by tropical storm Isaac and hurricane Sandy, in 2012 aggravating the chronic vulnerability of people already living in precarious situations.

Haiti reported the highest death toll in the Caribbean from hurricane Sandy (October 2012), as swollen rivers and landslides claimed at least 52 lives, not just because of poor infrastructure but because decades of deforestation for fuel have left few natural barriers to the raging waters, thus magnifying the damage and number of casualties, even though it was only skimmed by Sandy. It had left an estimated 21,000 people homeless, which also destroyed at least 70% of crops of corn, beans and bananas in the South of the country, according to the country's Civil Protection office. According to media reports, tropical storm Isaac, (August 2012), killed eight people in Haiti and more than 14,000 people had left their homes, while another 13,500 had sought refuge in temporary shelters. Again, flooding and mudslides causing extensive damage to bridges, roads and temporary shelters, such as tents and tarpaulins. The storm left many of the occupants in the shelters in a desperate situation. With the flooding greatly increase the threat of cholera. Thousands of Haitians made homeless by the earthquake were affected by tropical storm Isaac, as torrential rain and winds destroy the tent camps they live in.

Furthermore since the start of the cholera outbreak in October 2010, around 632,000 cumulative cholera cases have been reported and more than 7,600 people have died as a result.

Clearly Haitians are living under fear of constant threat from even the smallest natural hazard turning into a disaster; with no respite to allow them recover from the devastating effects of the 2010 earthquake. This would challenge even the most resilient of communities. With society’s vulnerability being a function of susceptibility, lack of coping capacities and lack of adaptive capacities, this clearly leaves Haiti very high from the risk of future hazards turning into future disasters. To try and reduce Haiti’s vulnerability from future natural hazards, aid agencies and other support groups are working relentlessly in bolstering Disaster Risk Reduction.

For example the International Federation of the Red Cross, (IFRC), is undertaking detailed topographic and cadastral survey of some neighbourhoods and the mapping is being used for:




Identifying and mapping risks Securing formal land certificate for all plots of land Identifying and designing infrastructure projects i.e. drainage, ravine stabilisation, roads,

street lighting. Negotiating with landowners with multiple entities claim ownership over disputed land

A total of circa 110,000 T-Shelters have been built since the earthquakes by all humanitarian agencies, however critics fault the charity’s approach. They say, for example, the Red Cross, whose focus is on disaster preparedness and immediate emergency response, lacks experience in rebuilding and has not worked closely enough with local organizations and government officials to focus on long-term permanent housing needs, a charge the non-profit denies. Land tenure is proving a huge obstacle to the charities in the development of large scale permanent housing projects and house repair projects. One of the challenges identified by the IFRC is working with municipalities and government agencies. To date, they advise, these authorities have proven not to have the capacity or expertise to manage and coordinate works under their jurisdiction. They advise the lack of capacity will not only be the major challenge to overcome but also one of the most important.

There is no quick-fix: effective governance, empowerment, resilience, capacity building, education, improved sanitation, infrastructure, security etc are all essential ingredients in building safer communities but this will take generations, but in the meantime life goes on. To begin empowering the Haitian’s they need to be fully engaged in discussions in how best to provide a safe and sustainable platform from which to move forward and intrinsic in this effort is the built environment. This platform will not be perfect but it will have a long term focus and purpose to build safer communities. The earthquake did not discriminate in the selection of its victims and ironically the demographics of those killed from collapsing buildings were mainly the upper and middle classes rather than the urban poor or peasants. The least well off suffered most of their fatalities as a secondary consequence of the earthquake, as a result of being displaced, suffering stress, trauma, disease and subsequent natural hazards. Haiti offers an extreme example of the regional trend of urbanisation in some developing countries as the population of the capital city of Port-au-Prince expansion from 750,000 in 1985 to 3 million in early 2010, constituting approximately one-third of all Haitians. This dramatic and unplanned population growth in Port-au-Prince meant that many of the city’s residents lived in precautious condition and lacked basic services. It is not only the poorer sections of the population that are affected by insecure tenure; since property and land information systems are almost non-existing very few people have secure access to land and housing. Figure 1.2: Gap between relief and recovery.

Three years after the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in January 2010, hundreds of thousands of people are still living under tents and tarpaulins and the country and its people continue to be very vulnerable, international agency Oxfam warned. At its peak after the earthquake around 1.5 million people were living in some 1,500 displacement camps around Port-au-Prince. Three years on over one million

Haitians are still in need of humanitarian aid according to the United Nations. This includes the




358,000 people still in camps, 500,000 people who are food insecure and around 73,500 children under 5 years of age facing malnutrition. Haiti is also likely to face a second consecutive below average harvest due to early season dryness and flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy in November 2012, which affected 1.5 million people.

As one Port-au-Prince resident put it “Haiti is an outdoor museum of failed projects.” Even three years after the disaster many people have noted the gap between the expected results of relief and reconstruction efforts and the reality on the ground, refer Figure 1.2. Despite the tremendous outpouring of resources and good will on the part of countries throughout the world, as well as international institutions, little seems to have been achieved towards Haiti’s long term sustainable development.

In January of this year, the International Co-operation Minister in Canada, Julian Fantino, announced during an interview in Motreal, his disappointment at what he considered the lack of progress in Haiti during his November 2012 visit. "Canada will stop funding new aid projects in Haiti until Ottawa finds a better way for Haiti to help itself", said Julian Fantino

According to the Canadian official, Canada has been one of the biggest donors to Haiti, delivering $1 billion in development cash to the island nation since 2006. He promised to continue to fund programs in Haiti that are in progress, but no new ones.

However, Haiti's prime minister, Lamonthe, wants Ottawa to give his government more say in how Canadian aid is spent in his country as it struggles to rebuild after the devastating earthquake.

Julian Fantino said he was disappointed by the lack of progress and wanted to find a better way to help Haiti's reconstruction.

In a recent interview, Lamothe agreed with Fantino, saying he had also hoped to see more improvements on the ground.

Lamothe is now urging Ottawa to allow his government to assume a bigger role — alongside Canada — in the decisions involved in rebuilding Haiti, particularly on infrastructure projects.

"For any future co-operation, when it's decided to resume, we will ask the Canadian government to focus on the priorities of the Haitian government," he said after recently meeting with Canada's ambassador to Haiti in the capital of Port-au-Prince.

Basically, the development assistance, because of the perceived weakness of Haitian institutions, was routed directly to NGO’s and Canadian firms. A UN analysis showed that almost all the money donated following the earthquake has gone to NGO’s and private contractors continuing the process of delegitimizing the Haitian state.

Prior to the earthquake Haiti was not well placed to respond effectively to such a disaster and many of the Haitian state’s well-recognised limitations prior to the earthquake not only impacted the capacity of the Haitian government to respond to the earthquake, but also negatively affected the recovery and reconstruction process. Prior to the 2010 earthquake it is believed there were at least 10,000 NGO’s operational in Haiti, (second in the world only to Afghanistan). This was a direct result of tensions escalating between the then president, Aristide, and segments of the domestic and international community, donors shifted aid from the Haitian government towards NGO’s, due to corruption and mismanagement of aid. This however, exaggerated one of the signature factors in the society’s underdevelopment, the absence of a functioning state. NGO’s functioned independently of local control, essentially operating as parallel bureaucracies, rather than in support of the agencies of the Haitian government and with little coordination among them.




Immediately following the earthquake the Haitian government and the international partners came up with a development framework entitled the Action Plan for National Recovery and Development of Haiti (Action Plan, 2010), purported to be different from previous development strategies.

The concept of rebuilding utilised in the framework refers to the necessity of addressing all the country’s areas of vulnerability, so that “the vagaries of nature or natural disasters never again inflict such suffering or cause so much damage and loss” (Action Plan 2010). Rebuilding means building back better and not returning Haiti to the pre-earthquake situation.

When the earthquake struck in 2010 the Preval government was entering its final year in power and was dealing with serious condemnation by the opposition. The earthquake made certain that Haiti’s tradition of flawed elections would continue. The entire infrastructure for delivering fair elections lay in tatters beneath collapsed buildings and hundreds of thousands of registered voters were strewn across Port-au-Prince and the Haitian countryside. The new president, Martelly, took office in May 2011 and it took until May 2012 for the Haitian Parlement to approve President Martelly’s final choice for prime minister, Laurent Lamonthe. This whole process negatively impacted on the renewal of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission’s (IHRC) mandate. The IHRC was a body formed after the earthquake by former US President Bill Clinton and Preval’s Prime Minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, to manage the reconstruction effort and provide the necessary legitimacy that many international donors needed to feel secure in releasing aid to the Haiti reconstruction and recovery effort. It was due to expire in less than a year after Martelly’s election.

They pushed through the creation of that commission (IHRC) in such a way that allows them to bypass the Haitian Parliament and all other Haitian institutions that provide checks and balances to the allocation of aid and funds for a period of 18 months. Essentially, the IHRC sat above the Haitian state and had carte blanche to proceed however they want. While the international community and President Preval were moving ahead with Haiti's Interim HIRC, the Emergency and Reconstruction Law that created that structure had challenged in Haitian courts for potential violation of the constitution. According to the law, the HIRC replaced the constitutional government of Haiti for 18 months, eliminated parliament and its right to control the country's finances, gave political rights to foreigners, suppressed civil rights, and put aside the state institutions that controlled spending and corruption. Haiti's General Accounting Office (Cour Superieure des Comptes) and the Inspector General of the Ministry of Finance that ensures that money is properly disbursed and allocated had been put aside. The law also eliminated the state office that manages state RFPs. Almost a year later, the 12 Haitian members of the IHRC expressed frustration and outrage with the awarding of contracts and projects to foreign actors. The projects they contended did not meet the needs of the country and were not strategic. Further, the process has excluded Haitian companies, government institutions and the Diaspora missing a critical opportunity to build capacity and economic opportunity in the Haitian community, instead they were marginalized. President Preval had largely used the IHRC as a political tool believing that awarding no-bid contracts would buy him support for his electoral coup and attempts to maintain power. The counter argument is that this approach was necessary due to the limited capacity of the Haitian government, concerns about corruption and weak national institutions resulting in NGO’s and private contractors playing a much more prominent role in Haiti. The immense volatility in Haitian politics and US reluctance to give aid directly to the Haitian government resulted in NGO’s and contractors becoming the main thoroughfare for foreign assistance. Some researchers describe how NGO’s have become key players in nation building and governance, with some having greater influence over local




policies than the local population. Furthermore, because circa 25%of civil servants lost their lives as a result of the earthquake it left a very weak government.

Clearly the previous Preval administration seemed completely unprepared to provide the leadership needed for an effective response to the devastation; essentially the emergency phase of the response seemed to be extending into perpetuity.

The Rebuilding Plan is composed of three phases: an emergency period, an implementation period (18 months) and a ten-year period.

The emergency period includes the improvement of accommodation for the homeless; the return of pupils to school, students to university and vocational training centres; the preparation of the next hurricane season; the pursuit of efforts to restore a sense of normality to economic life, especially by creating large numbers of jobs through high-intensity work The implementation period involves establishing a framework of incentives and supervision for private investment on which Haiti’s economic growth will be founded. Private investment in the economy as well as in the social sector will form the backbone of the country’s reconstruction. This period will end with the end of the emergency period and the preparation for projects to generate genuine renewal. The ten-year period is when the reconstruction and recovery of Haiti will become a reality, in order to put the country back on the road to redevelopment, followed by another ten years to make it a real emerging country. Whilst the new President Martelly came out in support of the Action Plan, 2010, although it was drawn up nearly a year before his presidency, there were numerous criticisms regarding how it came to be. Many felt there had been little real consultation with important Haitian stakeholders. The only persons that actively participated alongside major international donors were influential members of the domestic and international business communities, which were quick to form a private sector economic forum and road map for their inclusion in the reconstruction process. There was a groundswell of opinion that believed the Action Plan being implemented by the Martelly’s government lacked broad-based legitimacy.

Three years on from the Haiti earthquake the housing situation in the country is nothing short of catastrophic with hundreds of thousands of people still living in fragile shelters, Amnesty International said as it urged the authorities and the international community to make housing a priority. It is estimated that more than 350,000 people currently live in 496 camps across the country. According to testimonies gathered by Amnesty International in Haiti, living conditions in the makeshift camps are worsening – with severe lack of access to water, sanitation and waste disposal – all of which have contributed to the spread of infectious diseases such as cholera. Women and girls are vulnerable to sexual assault and rape. “As if being exposed to insecurity, diseases and hurricanes were not enough, many people living in makeshifts camps are also living under the constant fear of being forcibly evicted,” said Javier Zúñiga, Special Advisor at Amnesty International. Since the earthquake, tens of thousands of people have been forced from the camps. The International Organization for Migrations reported that nearly 80,000 more people living primarily in camps set up on private land are currently at risk of eviction – 21% of the total camp population. Clearly the Rebuilding Plan is not currently working and the more disadvantaged sectors of society




still appear to be very much stuck in the quagmire of the emergency phase of the rebuilding plan. However, the complete absence of government oversight for construction and the very unique societal constraints of Haiti provide immense challenges and preclude this customary approach of simply refining or expanding the pre-existing body of knowledge.




2.0 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL CLASSES

When proposing solutions to the Haitian question it is important for built-environment practitioners to have some understanding of the journey Haiti has been on over the centuries, as this has had a defining influence on Haitian society, its social structure, socio-economic divides and ingrained cultural attitudes, all very relevant material factors when considering solutions.

Haiti has a uniquely tragic history. Natural disasters, poverty, racial discord, and political instability have plagued the small country throughout its history. Over the years Haiti has had a number of European invaders, first the Spanish and then the French. Before the arrival of Europeans, the Arawak and Carib Indians inhabited the island of Hispaniola. This indigenous population first came into contact with Europeans when Christopher Columbus landed in the country in 1492. The encounters proved disastrous for the inhabitants. Disease and brutal labour practices nearly annihilated the Indian population within 50 years of Columbus’s arrival and by the first decade of the seventeenth century the native American population was extent.

The social structure implanted in colonial Saint-Domingue was determined primarily by French colonial policy, slave labour, and the highly stratified plantation system. Society was structured around the rapid production of wealth for the planters and the French investors. The rapid deforestation of Haiti began during the colonial period and was intensified when coffee was introduces in 1730. Upland forests were cleared and fifty years later, a quarter of the colony’s land was under coffee. The system of plantation monoculture and clean-cultivation between rows of coffee, indigo, tobacco and sugarcane exhausted soil nutrients and lead to rapid erosion (Paskett and Philoctete, 1999). Following the revolution of 1804, the government was forecd to export timber throughout the 19th century to pay off a 80 million franc indemnity to France. No longer under colonial rule, land remained unequally distributed nevertheless, and peasants were granted access only to the marginal slopes between 200m and 600m, above the fertile plains and below the zones of coffee production. These hillside soils were particularly susceptible to erosion when cleared for farming. By the 1780s, nearly 40% of all the sugar imported by Britain and France and 60% of the world’s coffee came from the small colony. For a brief time, Saint-Domingue annually produced more exportable wealth than all of continental North America. In 1804 Haiti achieved its freedom from France and became the first independent country of Afro-descendants in the Western Hemisphere and the second independent nation in the Americas after the United States. The United States refused to recognize the country. The US continued to refuse recognition to Haiti for 60 more years, because the US continued to enslave millions of its own citizens and feared recognizing Haiti would encourage slave revolution in the US. After the 1804 revolution, Haiti was the subject of a crippling economic embargo by France and the US. US sanctions lasted until 1863. France ultimately used its military power to force Haiti to pay reparations for the slaves who were freed. The reparations were 150 million francs. (France sold the entire Louisiana territory to the US for 80 million francs!). Haiti was forced to borrow money from banks in France and the US to pay reparations to France. A major loan from the US to pay off the French was finally paid off in 1947. The current value of the money Haiti was forced to pay to French and US banks was over US$20 Billion. It was also occupied by the United States military between 1915 and 1934. This occupation had several effects on Haiti. An early period of unrest culminated in a 1918 rebellion but US Marines helped put down the revolt at the estimated cost of 2,000 Haitian lives. Order was imposed largely by white foreigners with deep-seated racial prejudices, insensitive to the country’s racial history. American attitudes aggravated the racial polarization between mulattos and blacks. The whites from North America did not distinguish among Haitians, regardless of their skin tone, level of education, or




sophistication. This intolerance caused indignation, resentment, and eventually a racial pride that was reflected in the work of a new generation of Haitian historians, ethnologists, writers, artists, and others, many of whom later became active in politics and government. Whilst in occupation the US also invested extensively within the built environment.

The second American occupation of 1994-1995, which had the primary goal of re-establishing Jean Bertrand Aristide as president, earned much higher marks in terms of cultural sensitivity but accomplished comparatively little in way of investment.

Haiti is now one of the most impoverished and densely populated countries in the world.

In the colonial period, the French imposed a three-tiered social structure in Saint-Domingue. A small European elite (grands blancs) controlled the top of the social pyramid, and the African slaves (noirs), most of whom had been transported from Africa, and their descendants occupied the lower rung of society. An intermediary class of free men and women of colour (affranchis) emerged as a result of sexual unions between slaves and slave owners and also ex-slaves who purchased their freedom or were given their freedom by former slave owners. Also between the white elite and the slaves were the poor whites (petits blancs), who considered themselves socially superior to the mulattoes, even if they sometimes found themselves economically inferior to them.

The Haitian Revolution changed the country's social structure. The colonial ruling class, and most of the white population, was eliminated, and the plantation system was largely destroyed. The earliest black and mulatto leaders attempted to restore a plantation system that relied on an essentially free labour force, through strict military control, but the system collapsed during the tenure of Alexandre Pétion (1806–18). The Haitian Revolution broke up plantations and distributed land among the former slaves. Through this process, the new Haitian upper class lost control over agricultural land and labor, which had been the economic basis of colonial control. To maintain their superior economic and social position, the new Haitian upper class turned away from agricultural pursuits in favour of more urban-based activities, particularly government.

The nineteenth-century Haitian ruling class consisted of two groups: the urban elite and the military leadership. The urban elite were primarily a closed group of educated, comparatively wealthy, and French-speaking mulattoes. Birth determined an individual's social position, and shared values and intermarriage reinforced class solidarity. The military, however, was a means of advancement for disadvantaged black Haitians. In a shifting, and often uneasy, alliance with the military, the urban elite ruled the country and kept the peasantry isolated from national affairs. The urban elite promoted French norms and models as a means of separating themselves from the peasantry. The elite disdained manual labour, industry, and commerce in favour of the more genteel professions, such as law and medicine.

By some estimates, prior to the 2010 earthquake Haiti’s upper class constitutes 4% of the total population and controls 67% of national income in contrast to the poor majority – 70% of the population with control of 20% of the nation’s resources. The upper class included not only the traditional elite, which had not controlled the government for more than thirty years, but also individuals who had become wealthy and powerful through their connections with the governments of François Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier.

The middle class also known as the bourgeois, was essentially nonexistent during the nineteenth century. It became somewhat more sharply defined around the time of the United States occupation (1915-34). Occupational policies fostered the growth of intermediary classes, including the creation of a professional military and expansion of government, urban growth, and an increased centralisation of economic and political power in Port-au-Prince. The mulatto elite was elevated to a more prominent




socio-economic and political place dominating government in the 1930’s and the early 1940’s, however, and thwarted the political aspirations of the black middleclass.

The creation of a professional military and the expansion of government services fostered the development of Haiti's middle class. In the late 1980s, the middle class probably made up less than 5%-7% of the total population, but it was growing, and it was becoming more politically powerful and wanted to emulate the upper class.

President Dumarsais Estimé (1946–50) came to power with the aim of strengthening the middle class. The Duvalier government also claimed the allegiance of the black middle class, at least through the 1970s. During the Duvalier period, many in the middle class owed their economic security to the government. A number of individuals from this class, however, benefited from institutionalized corruption. Some members of the middle class had acquired political power by the 1980s, but most continued to be culturally ambivalent and insecure.

Middle-class Haitians sought upward mobility for themselves and their children, and they perceived education and urban residence as two essential keys to achieving higher status.

The Haitian middle class has in practice disappeared from the island, through migration but also fifty years lack of policy to decrease the income gap. Today, Haiti consists of a poor population and a tiny rich minority. The problem with the disappearing middle class is both the loss of citizens that consume more than the poor and thus revitalise the economy, and the loss of well-educated people, which is probably more serious for Haiti’s future.

Haiti's peasantry constituted approximately 75% of the total population. Unlike peasants in much of Latin America, most of Haiti's peasants had owned land since the early nineteenth century. Land was the most valuable rural commodity, and peasant families went to great lengths to retain it and to increase their holdings. Peasants in general had control over their landholdings, but many lacked clear title to their plots. Peasants maintained a strong, positive identity as Haitians and as cultivators of the land, but they exhibited a weak sense of class consciousness. Rivalries among peasants were more common than unified resentment toward the upper class.

For the most part, the peasantry continued to be excluded from national affairs, but by the 1980s, this isolation had decreased significantly. Still, economic hardship in rural areas caused many cultivators to migrate to the cities in search of a higher standard of living, thereby increasing the size of the urban lower class. A lack of capital and land tenure continues to constrain suitable resource management. Average per capita income in 2001 was US$480, more than seven times less than the average for Latin America and the Caribbean (World Bank), yet mean income for the majority of the (mostly rural) population is estimated at less than US$100 per year (Smith, 2001). Land parcels are subdivided with inheritance and after generations of such division, the intensely cropped, meagre-size parcels can scarcely produce enough to feed a family. The agricultural survey conducted in 1971 found that 59% of all agricultural parcels were less than a hectare and that 88% of farm families owned less than three hectares (White and Jickling, 1995). Current estimates claim that most peasants own less than a quarter hectare (Smith 2001).

The urban lower class, which made up about 15% of the total population in the early 1980s, and is concentrated in Port-au-Prince and the sprawling slums of major coastal towns. Increased migration from rural areas contributed greatly to the growth of this class. Industrial growth was insufficient, however, to absorb the labour surplus produced by the burgeoning urbanization; unemployment and underemployment were severe in urban areas.

An estimated two-thirds of Port-au-Prince is concentrated in slum districts, some dating back to colonial times and others dispersed more recently into ravines and lowland flood planes. The poorest strata of the urban lower class lived under Haiti's worst sanitary and health conditions and the most at




risk sites from flooding, landslides etc. As early as 1976, field research found the average density of Port-au-Prince slums to be 890 inhabitants per hectare with a quarter of this exceeding 1,200 persons per hectare. In contrast high income neighbourhoods of the city averaged 100 persons per hectare.

Urban slums are composed largely of displaced peasants, primarily young people. Many residents maintain contact with home communities in rural Haiti. One outstanding characteristic of this group was its commitment to education. Despite economic hardships, urban lower-class parents made a real effort to keep their children in school throughout the primary curriculum. Through education and political participation, some members of the lower class achieved mobility into the middle class.

The urban lower class operates primarily within the informal sector. The poorest families consumed as few as seven liters of water per person, per day, for cooking, drinking, and cleaning, and they spent about one-fifth of their income to obtain it. For many of these families, income and living conditions worsened in the 1980s. Access to water and electricity is controlled privately rather than by official utilities.

Fig. 2.1: Water provision in metrapolitan Port-au-Prince. The difference between 1985 and 2005 on type of service provider is striking. In 1985 the state was the main provider. In 2005 private providers are almost as important. Source: CAMEP (undated) Prior to the earthquake circa 40% of Port-au-Prince residents had access to potable water. In the 1990’s many unoccupied lands of the city were taken over for housing; however, studies of Cite Soleil suggest that most residents are renters not squatters. 67% of the housing is rented or built on rented sites. However, rents are paid to

a class of speculative landlords who acquire land by taking over unoccupied state land or other lands left vacant because of exile, political looting, or theft. The official electricity provider is Electricite d’Haiti, which is a semi state autonomous agency under the Ministery of Public Works. It is estimated that of all the electricity produced prior to the 2010 earthquake, less than half reached the clients, 5% was lost through technical faults and 55% was lost through theft. In most cities in Haiti, pirate connections, often set up by illegal electricity companies were by far the most common means of accessing electricity. Poor people often paid more to the illegal electricity companies than they would have paid Electricite d’Haiti for the same service. Prior to the earthquake it was estimated that the majority of the population had access to electricity, around 80%-90% (including generators). By early 2012 it was estimated that nearly 90% still had no access to national grid electricity. A US$45 million-plus electricity project was launched in 2012 aims to introduce electricity to thousands of people otherwise illuminate their homes by candlelight. The programme, 'Give Me Light, Give Me Life', seeks to build credit for rural Haitians as they take out loans to purchase small solar kits for charging their cellphones or computers. It also aims to line streets with light posts in the countryside and repair power lines in poor neighbourhoods in the capital. The 40-year-old state-run Electricity of Haiti can only power 200,000 homes and only 30% of the population of 10 million had access to a power supply prior to the earthquake. Even then, most parts of Haiti only have electricity for a few hours a day, forcing many businesses and some homes to rely on generators and expensive fuel imports.




Fig. 2.2: Informal settlements in Port-au-Prince in percentage according to location. Source: CLED/ILD (1998) More than half of the informal settlements in Port-au-Prince are located in ravines and gullies and are susceptible to inundation. Flooding is also the main threat for those who have chosen to reside on wetland areas close to the sea. About 40% of the informal inhabitants are housed on the hillsides, where they face the risk of landslides.

For most informal settlements in Port-au-Prince, the absence of a grid plan makes it difficult to provide services such as water, electricity, sanitation and rubbish collection to individual households. A majority of the inhabitants in the slums do not have access to roads between their plots. In addition, the steep hills makes it difficult to construct proper roads and many of the dirt roads have to be constantly repaired after every heavy rain. A government study from 1997 shows that 67% of the population lived in informal areas that only covers 22% of the inhabited areas of the city.




3.0 URBANISATION Haiti is one of the most densely populated countries in Latin America, with 362 inhabitants per square kilometre (World Bank, 2012). Calculated per square kilometre of arable land, to get an idea of the population pressure, the inhabitants are at least 925 (Universite de Quisqueya, 2000), which is similar to Bangladesh and gives an insight to Haiti’s fast urbanisation. The urbanisation rate in Haiti has been substantial since the 1950s and is projected to continue to increase. Haiti has not yet reached the same levels of urbanisation as the rest of the Caribbean. With only 47% of its population living in urban areas in 2010, Haiti is far below its nearest neighbours: Dominican Republic with 66%, Puerto Rico 98%, Jamaica 52% and Cuba 75%. With Haiti’s weak agricultural and other rural production, the urban population is sure to increase, unless measures are taken to reverse this trend through decentralisation and regional growth. In 1950, at the time of Haiti’s first official census, Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, which at that time essentialy consisted of the city itself and the nearby suburb of Petionville, counted 144,000 inhabitants in a nation of just over 3 million. Seven of every eight Haitians lived in rural areas at that time, the vast majority engaged in subsistence agriculture. Haiti in 1950 was still a quientessential pre-industrial society. By the time of the nation’s third census, in 1982, the metropolitan region counted 720, 000 inhabitants in a nation of 5 million – over 32 years, the share of national population in the capital city rose from under 5% to over 14%. In the early 1980’s, the Port-au-Prince region was home to two-thirds of Haiti’s manufacturing establishments and over 90% of all manufacturing employees.

Fig. 3.1: Population increase in Port-au-Prince. In 1789 there were only 9,400 people living in Port-au-Prince. 200 years later the city had more than 1.5 million inhabitants. In 2009 the estimated polulation is more than 2.7 million.

Although the country continued to be overwhelmingly rural, urbanization was accelerating as the impact of soil erosion and land fragmentation on agricultural productivity forced increasing numbers of peasants to migrate to Port-au-Prince and even overseas. The nation has few

resources to exploit and only 28% of its land area is considered arable. Mismanagement of forestry resources and of coffee plantations can be blamed in those sectors, attributed to a combination of fate, poor decision-making and political instability. Haiti's peasants had traditionally relied on the extended family and cooperative labour as a means for taking care of each other, but by the late 1980s, this aspect of the culture had disintegrated. Deteriorating economic conditions were forcing the poor to find new ways to eke out a living from the land, or to survive in urban slums. The nation’s political woes have often carried negative economic percussions. The 1991 military coup, for example, lead to a trade embargo associated with simultaneous economic contraction and inflation. Less than 20% of the people control the wealth, even fewer precariously maintain middle class status and there is an ever-increasing and unrepresented population of urban poor.




Around 30% of Haiti’s population live in metropolitan Port-au-Prince, where 90% of the country’s total investments and formal jobs are found. This heavy concentration of the economy in one city is not good for the national economy, but explains some of Port-au-Prince’s attraction power. If the current rate of urbanisation continued more than four million people will live in the metropolitan area within the next ten years. This pressure on infrastructure, land, housing and services, which is already untenable pre 2010 January earth quake, with 2.7 million inhabitants, will be even more unsound in the near future unless mitigating measures e.g. in the form of urban planning are undertaken, (UN-Habitat 2009). On average 75,000 migrants have every year moved into metropolitan Port-au-Prince during the last 20 years. The natural growth of the capital is currently around 40,000 persons per year, bringing the total annual increase in population to 115,000 (World Bank, 2006).

More than half of today’s population in metropolitan Port-au-Prince originally live elsewhere, and in the informal areas more than 70% of the inhabitants have moved in from the countryside (GHRAP 2008). Of the new migrants, one third moves to already built areas, which means that the density is increasing, and two thirds moves to new informal and often per-urban settlements (Republic of Haiti, 2003).

Population estimates from 2009 suggest that the capital region was home to about 28% of the nation’s population. Over the six decades between the nation’s first census and the devestating earthquake of 2010, Port-au-Prince region grew at an average annual rate of 4.8%, more than twice the growth rate of the population as a whole. This era witnessed the emergence of suburban slums that would become household names in the aftermath of the quake. Cite Soleil, established in the 1950’s, Carrefour, a former coastal tourist destination and artist colony that triples in population between 1982 and 2009, and Delmas, which was not even enumerated in the 1982 census but was home to 359,000 people by 2009.

Fig.3.3: Unauthorised settlements

(bidonviulle) on the hillsides of Port-

au-Prince Metropolitan Port-au-Prince is shaped like an amphitheatre. The low plane facing the coast is surrounded on three sides by densely populated mountains. Port-au-Prince has a population of about 1.2 million inhabitants and more than 2.5 to 3 million live in its metropolitan area, including the rapid growing slums on the hillsides

above the city which accounts for approximately 86% of the population of Port-au-Prince. These

unauthorised settlements are known locally by their French name bidonviulle which are mostly tightly-packed, poorly-built, concrete buildings. Although Port-au-Prince is densely populated the city's layout is divided as:

commercial districts are near the water, while residential areas are in the hills next to the commercial areas.

Port-au-Prince population has dispersed into a countryside where subsistence agriculture is by and large the only economic activity – the sustainability of which is severely threatened by a combination of poor prior practice and vulnerability to further natural hazards.




The city of Port au Prince was officially incorporated in 1749 and in 1770 it replaced Cap-Français as the capital of the French colony of Saint-Domingue. Port-au-Prince was chosen as the site of the capital of the French colony of St.Domingue in 1738, a few decades before Haiti earned its independence in 1804. For more than a century, the city served as one of several transshipment points and administrative centres in an economically underdeveloped country. During the period between 1804 and 1915 coffee as well as mahagony wood and other forest products, were sent to one of several regional port towns for export. Although sugar cane has traditionally been an important crop in Haiti, no sugar whatsoever was exported during this period.

Centralisation occurred after 1915, and both political power and economic activity were increasingly concentrated in Port-au-Prince. The occupation of Haiti by the US Marines had several positive aspects. It greatly improved Haiti's infrastructure. Roads were improved and expanded, from 5km worth of highway in 1915 had nearly 200km by the end of their occupation. Almost all roads, however, led to Port-au-Prince, resulting in a gradual concentration of economic activity in the capital. Irrigation canals dating back to the colonial era were renovated, and investment in urban water supply and hospitals improved health. Bridges went up throughout the country; a telephone system began to function; several towns gained access to clean water; and a construction boom (in some cases employing forced labour) helped restore wharves, lighthouses, schools, and hospitals. Public health improved, partially because of United States-directed campaigns against malaria and yaws (a crippling disease caused by a spirochete). Most strikingly, these investments were accomplished largely without the use of foreign-source revenue. The occupiers diverted the flow of domestic revenue from the pockets of the bureaucrats to infrastructure. Sound fiscal management kept Haiti current on its foreign-debt payments at a time when default among Latin American nations was common. By that time, United States banks were Haiti's main creditors, an important incentive for Haiti to make timely payments. Much of this infrastructure crumbled after the end of occupation, however, for want of maintenance. By 1971, three-quarters of the American-built road infrastructure was no longer passable in all weathers conditions.

The first American occupation also had its flaws. The occupying force was entirely white and insensitive to the country’s racial history. Many roads were built with unpaid labour, as the US enforced a law on the Haitian books since the 1860’s which required all citizens to contribute to road building with either taxes or physical work. Investment in educational institutions were also not well-aligned with the needs of a largely illiterate, Creole-speaking population.

The earthquake of 2010 wrought destruction on a city that owed its existence, above everything else, to the actions of a government. Port-au-Prince as Haiti’s manufacturing centre can be attributable not to any natural advantage but more to the fact that in the early 1980’s Port-au-Prince was the only real choice for modern manufacturing plant as it possessed the nation’s only runway longer than 1600M, the only modern dock facilities and the most reliable electricity generation. However, Haiti’s manufacturing sector overall is astonishingly small with the apparel industry accounting for nearly 90% of the value of exports to the USA, is concentrated in Port-au-Prince.

The region’s infrastructure, which made Port-au-Prince the only feasible location for most export-orientated activity was decimated as a result of the earthquake. Indeed the destruction of critical infrastructure undeniably worsened the human toll of the earthquake, as facilities to offload cargo containers were rendered unusable, and the single runway in Port-au-Prince airport was quickly overwhelmed; thus highlighting the vulnerabilities with having a too centralized economic hub sited within an active earthquake region.




4.0 TECTONIC HAZARDS

Unfortunately Haiti is no stranger to the devastating consequences of natural hazards and considerations regarding the rehabilitation of the Haitian built environment must take cognizance of such hazards and how they may impact on its population in the future.

The 12 January 2010 earthquake was particularly destructive because of its shallow depth and its occurrence near a densely populated urban area, ill prepared for such an event, where many buildings with poor construction existed. Most buildings were either destroyed or heavily damaged, including the presidential palace.

The Caribbean is a region of considerable tectonic complexity. On a global tectonic scale, the Caribbean plate is surrounded on three sides by the much larger North and South American plates, refer to Figure 4.1, both of which are moving approximately westward with respect to the Caribbean plate at an estimated rate of about 20 to 30 millimeters per year. Haiti is located near the northern boundary of the Caribbean plate. There is a moderate level of inter-plate seismicity and inter-plate and intra-plate seismic and volcanic activity.

On a sub-regional tectonic scale, Haiti is situated on the eastern end of a smaller plate that separates the Caribbean and the North American plates known as the Gonave micro-plate. This micro-plate and hence Haiti is bounded to the north by the Oriente and Septentrional fracture zones and to the south by the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone which are both transform faults (very similar to the San Andreas Fault in the USA).

The region is characterized by three main types of plate boundaries: convergent, divergent and transform. The tectonic activity results in frequent earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and mass edifice failures of volcanic island flanks. Most of the destructive events occur near or along the geotectonically active plate boundaries and are associated with complex mechanisms characteristic of each source.

Fig:4.1: Map showing tectonic setting of the Caribbean region (and Hispaniola inset). The large arrows show motion relative to a fixed Caribbean plate. The smaller half arrows show relative motion across major strike-slip faults. The inset shows enlargement of Hispaniola fault zones.

Frequent earthquakes in the Caribbean region have been responsible for great damage and loss of lives in the past, refer to Figure 4.2. Haiti is particularly vulnerable to earthquake destruction because of high population density and poor housing construction on steep slopes. There is a long record of past destructive earthquakes. The historic records indicates that most of the large destructive earthquakes in Haiti were related to the E-W trending Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system (EPGFZ), although destructive earthquakes have also occurred on the Septentrional Fault Zone (SFZ). Large, destructive earthquakes occurred in Haiti in 1701, 1751, 1770, 1842, 1860 and 1887.




1554 - The first recorded earthquake occurred in 1554 when Haiti was still the Spanish colony of Española.

1701 - The earthquake of 9 November 1701 was one of the most destructive. It is believed to have occurred between Ile de la Gonave and Haiti's southern peninsula. It caused severe damage and subsidence in and around Léogâne. Reportedly, part of the coastal road from Léogâne to Petit Goâve sank into the sea. Port-au-Prince had not yet been established.

Fig:4.2: Location and dates of previous Haitian earthquakes.

1751 - A major earthquake on 18 October 1751, with an estimated magnitude of up to 8, destroyed the recently founded Port-au-Prince and caused severe damage in the adjacent region of southern Haiti. This was a shallow earthquake.

1751 - Two more severe earthquakes on 21 and 22 November 1751 destroyed the newly established town of Port-au-Prince. The extensive ground cracking and liquefaction on the Cul-de-Sac plain resulted in the collapse of many buildings.

1770 - Another major earthquake occurred at 7:15 pm on 3 June 1770 followed shortly afterwards by a second shock. The shocks had a total duration of about four minutes and caused extensive destruction from Croix de Bouquets in the east through the plain of the Cul-de-Sac, to Port-au-Prince, as well as along the north coast of the Tiburon Peninsula as far as Miragoâne to the west. The village of Croix des Bouquets, sank below sea level. The quake levelled all the buildings between Lake Miragoâne and Petit-Goâve, to the west of Port-au-Prince. Reportedly it caused landslides in the mountains, which dammed rivers. This was a shallow earthquake. Strong ground motions were felt as far as in Cap-Haïtien, about 160 km away. There were reports that even chimneys in Jamaica collapsed.

As in 1751, there was extensive ground cracking and liquefaction in the wide Cul-de-Sac plain - a rift valley which extends eastwards into the Dominican Republic. Ground liquefaction at Port-au-Prince destroyed all its buildings, even those that had survived the 1751 earthquake. .

The death toll of the earthquake was surprisingly low. The reason may have been a reported rumbling sound that preceded the earthquake which served as a warning for people to evacuate structures that subsequently collapsed. Only 200 people died in Port-au-Prince from the collapse of buildings, including 79 of 80 people in the hospital. Fifty more people died in Léogâne. However, following the earthquake, 15,000 more people died from famine and diseases.




Also, the earthquake generated a tsunami in the Gulf of Gonâve that inundated the coastline inland by as much as 7.2 km in the Cul-de-Sac depression. The death toll from the tsunami is not known.

1783 - A strong earthquake in 1783 caused partial collapse of the principal church in Santigo.

1842 - A disastrous earthquake on May 7, 1842, struck near Cap Haitien, a town of approximately ten thousand on the north coast of Haiti, killing half of its population. According to newspaper accounts, there were two distinct shocks - the second lasting longer. A tsunami with an approximate run-up of 4 or 5 meters, struck the nearby city of Port de Paix. The death toll from the tsunami is not known.

1946 - In 1946, the Dominican Republic had an 8.1 magnitude earthquake with impact which partially extended into Haiti. The earthquake generated a tsunami. 20,000 people were rendered homeless.

Fig.4.3: 12 Jan. 2010 ruptured fault & possible future rupture The 12 January 2010 earthquake occurred along a lateral offset of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault Zone (EPGFZ) which has been locked for the last 250 years and had accumulated great stress. The last major, destructive earthquake on this fault line had occurred in 1770. This seismic gap has resulted in scant regard being paid to the risks posed by earthquakes on the built environment and this risk has not diminished. Presently, it is not known whether all the stress along this segment of the fault zone has been released by the 12 January 2010 earthquake. Although the accumulated elastic energy along the Leogaine segment is spent, stresses have increased East of the rupture, towards Port-au-Prince, refer to Figure 4.3. Moreover, it is believed by seismologists that little, if any, accumulated strain was released on the EPG fault in the 2010 earthquake. So the EPG fault

remains a significant seismic hazard, both in the vicinity of Leogane and in Port-au-Prince, which will experience stronger ground shaking when the Eastern segment ruptures, according to seismologists. It is therefore imperative that the recovery is carefully thought out and the latent seismic hazards addressed in both Port-au-Prince and the surrounding districts least, we have another huge loss of life. Fig 4.4: Septentrional fault on the North coast & the Enriquillo fault on the South of Haiti.

The Septentrional transform fault, which hugs the North coast of Haiti running approximately E/W and inland through the Dominican Republic, is also known to pose a risk, refer to Figure 4.4. It is suspected that the observed westward propagation of earthquakes on the Septentrional Fault (1842, 1887) and the EPG Fault (1751, 1770) and along the North-Hispaniola megathrust (1787, 1943, 1946, 1953, 2003) were all associated with the earlier events in each sequence that increased the

stress load on these faults to the West. So, the recent thrust movements have increased the shear stresses on the Septentrional Fault, which, given the slip deficit of 8mm/year over the past 900 years,




is capable of producing a Mw 7.5 to 7.7 event in a populated area of vital economic importance for the Dominican Republic. There is also the added risk of a tsunami. Since the Enriquillo fault line essentially extends East/West across land, the probability of a major tsunami triggered by an earthquake along this fault is low. However, submarine slides or lateral flows can generate local tsunamis, as was observed in Jacmel and Grand Goave regions during the earthquake of January 12, 2010. However, the Septentrional fault poses a significant tsunami hazard. It extends along the southern margin of Cuba, where it has a major reverse component and thus a greater capacity to trigger tsunamis. An earthquake on this fault line would pose a considerable hazard to the Port-au-Prince area in particular, but to the costal areas of Grande Anse, Nippes and the Artibonite delta as well.




5.0 VULNERABILITY / RESILIENCE / CAPACITY

Whether an earthquake or a tsunami, a hurricane or a flood, the risk that a natural event will develop into a disaster, depends only partially on the strength of the event itself. The final outcome depends on the vulnerability of the community and this in turn is a function of that community’s susceptibility (likelihood of suffering harm) coping capacities and adaptive capacities. This is intrinsically linked to the living conditions of the people in the affected regions and the opportunities to quickly to respond and help. Those who are prepared and who know what to do during an extreme natural event have higher survival chances than those who don’t. The World Risk Index, WRI, indicates the probability that a country or region will be affected by a disaster, refer to Appendix B.

The circumstances surrounding each earthquake are unique and to draw comparison may prove difficult. As to why the death toll in Haiti was so profoundly higher than an earthquake with a much higher energy output a few weeks later in Chile and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the 4th largest recorded in the world, highlights the difference between 1st and 3rd world countries and their greater vulnerabilities, refer to Table 5.1. In places such as Haiti, where 72% of the population live on less than $2 a day, and in cities like Port-au-Prince, where many are housed in poor and densely-packed shantytowns and badly-constructed buildings, the devastation is always expected to be greater. Such countries have less money to put into buildings and there is less governance ensuring building codes are followed. Corruption can also be an issue and so, even when there are government structures to ensure building codes are followed, there are bribes that enable people to take short cuts. The resulting scale of destruction - of infrastructure, of government and other official organisations - also made it much more difficult to respond once the earthquake hit and had an impact on the number of people rescued from the rubble. In Haiti circa 230,000 people lost their lives in a magnitude 7 earthquake, while in Chile fewer than 500 people lost their lived in a magnitude 8.8 earthquake and although the magnitude 9 earthquake in Japan claimed circa 19,800 lives, around 94% of the deaths are estimated to be tsunami related, 600 are assumed to have died from earthquake related stress and chronic diseased, 230 directly related to earthquake-collapsed and around 250 estimated to be related to other causes such as fires, landslides etc, Haiti (Rank 32 in the WRI): had over 37% of its population – or a total of 3.7 million victims – affected by the January 2010 earthquake. Over 208,164 houses were badly damaged and 105,000 were destroyed by the earthquake (313,164 in total), including 30,000 commercial buildings either collapsed or were severely damaged. This equates to 20% and 27% of the houses in the greater metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, respectively. Lack of educational opportunities also presents an ongoing challenge for generating sustainable employment, and 65% of schools and 95% of the universities collapsed. However, the Haiti earthquake was especially destructive in view of the already impoverished economy. The cost of the earthquake surpassed Haiti,s GDP; the estimated US$ 8.0 billion damages equalled nearly 123.5% of the countries’ GDP.




Table 5.1:

COMPARISON OF THE HAITI, CHILE AND JAPAN EARTHQUAKE PARAMATER HAITI-(2010) CHILE-(2010) JAPAN

EARTHQUAKE & TSUNAMI-(2011)

Magnitude (Mw) 7 8.8 9.0 Hyper Depth (km) 13, onshore 35, offshore 24, offshore

Max. Intensity X IX IX Total Building Damage (PADB) 177,000 +-

313,000 (PDNA) 1500000(MIA) 332,395

1038854 / 127,185 destroyed

Fatalities 230,000 562 19,846 – 28,000 Injuries 310,000+ 12,000 6000

Homeless ±1850000 ±800000 450,000 Total Affected 3,700,000 2,671,556 590,000

(including 210,000 due to radiation)

Total Economic Loss $7.5 – $8.5 billion US $25 - $30 billion US $210-$309 billion US? As a % of Nominal

GDP (PPP)

70.8 11.7 7.13(direct)

As a % of Nominal GDP

120.6 15.27 5.34(direct)

Total Insured Loses $30 - $150 million US $7566 - $12000 million US

$35billion

Total Population 2010 10.09 million 17.17 million 127 million Urban Population 50% 89% --------

Poverty (% below $2 / day)

72.1 2.4

Area of land affected by strong trimmers

(km2)

13,000

300,000

140,000 561 (affected by

tsunami)

Japan (Rank 35 in the WRI): The earthquake turned out to cause relatively minor impacts in the built-environment, rather more in the central mountains. However, the tsunami caused an unimaginable toll in terms of people killed or missing and infrastructure and property damaged. Over 1 million buildings had been damaged in total from the earthquake, tsunami and associated aftershocks. The best estimate of damage to buildings from Danielle et al. (2011) coming from the three events is the earthquake (46%), tsunami (44%) and nuclear disaster (10%), refer to Tables 5.2 and 5.3. Table 5.2:

BUILDINGS AND INFRASTRUCTURE DAMAGE JAPAN Buildings Destroyed Partially Destroyed Partially Damaged

Costal Municipalities 110,834 129,709 229,943 Non-Costal

Municipalities 6946 48530 382,537

TOTAL 117,780 178,239 612,480 In Japan around 35% of the buildings in the area were built pre-1980, around 55% from 1981-2000 and 10% post 2001. In terms of seismic code, this means that around 65% has been built under major Japanese seismic codes (1981, 1987 etc) and that the other 35% has been influenced in the past by seismic codes and earthquakes pre-war (1926, 1938). Most of the buildings were wooden in the affected areas, with some concrete and steel buildings making up the mix.




Table 5.3:

BUILDINGS AND INFRASTRUCTURE DAMAGE JAPAN Buildings Destroyed Partially Destroyed Partially Damaged Tsunami 99551 - 104967 77825 - 103986 45989 - 72885

Earthquake 12813 - 18027 74253 - 100414 539595 - 566493 129,225 destroyed, 254,000 half collapsed 690,000 buildings partially damaged

Chile (Rank 25 in the WRI): The earthquake on the 27 February 2010, was the fifth strongest earthquake worldwide for over 100 years. More than 3 million people live within a radius of 200 km around the epicentre of the earthquake, caused 2.7 million victime, which repreents 15.7% of the countrys population. The earthquake ranked highest in terms of economic damage caused by a natural diaster in 2010, with a total of US $30.0 billion of reported damages (24.2% of the global reported damages). Despite its strength, however, it only claimed 562 lives. The mortality rate was therefore 400 times lower than that of Haiti although the land area affected in Chile was 23 times greater than for Haiti and 89% of the Chilean urban population affected compared to 50% for Haiti. Governance played a crucial role. In particular, two causative aspects are considered for the relatively good coping response: first, the efficiency of the public sector and second, successful anti-corruption policy of the Government. Government institutions have been establishing better building regulations and continuously improving them, particularly through enforcement, after the devastating magnitude 9.5 earthquake in 1960, helped protect the Chilean people even though the tremor was 500 times stronger than the magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Haiti. The stable building structures of the newer buildings can be considered an important reason for the low number of victims. In addition, innovative disaster risk management technologies were introduced and regular training help in educational establishments better prepared people. For Haiti no lesson had been learned from the past. For the previous 200 years no earthquake had affected Port-au-Prince, although the capital had been completely destroyed in 1751 and 1757. In September 2008 geologists predicted the disaster was to come. In September 2008 minor quakes alerted them. Compared globally, Japan shows a high degree of exposure to natural hazards and climate change, as does Haiti. While circa 19,800 people died in the Japan earthquake, 230,000 died in the Haiti earthquake, which was 100 times weaker. This large difference in the number of victims and in catastrophic results from natural events reveals the different vulnerability of the countries. The mortality rate from the Japan earthquake was 275 times lower than for Haiti and 11 times lower for all deaths resulting from both the earthquake and tsunami although, the land area affected in Japan was 10.7 times greater than for Haiti. The earthquake in Haiti which struck closer to the surface than in Chile, was no match for the homes and buildings in Port-au-Prince. In earthquake zones, three factors affect the degree of risk:

a. Changes to a communities natural environment. b. The quality of the built environment. c. Whether the communities awareness and knowledge is widespread enough for them to

modify their behaviour in response to these factors.

The key to surviving high magnitude quakes is to live and work in seismically safe buildings, while being aware of how nature around us can also change – advised Margareta Wahlstrom the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction.




Cities and local governments need to get ready, reduce risks and become resilient to disasters. The UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) has now commenced campaigning together with its partners for this to happen. In May 2010, Port-au-Prince was one of the cities that signed up to the “Making Cities Resilient” world disaster reduction campaign. Capacity Building Through Capacity Building Haiti’s built environment resilience can be improved. The definition for capacity building, established at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED): "Specifically, capacity building encompasses the country’s human, scientific, technological, organizational, institutional and resource capabilities. A fundamental goal of capacity building is to enhance the ability to evaluate and address the crucial questions related to policy choices and modes of implementation among development options, based on an understanding of environment potentials and limits and of needs perceived by the people of the country concerned". Capacity Building includes: Human resource development, the process of equipping individuals with the understanding, skills

and access to information, knowledge and training that enables them to perform effectively. Organizational development, the elaboration of management structures, processes and

procedures, not only within organizations but also the management of relationships between the different organizations and sectors (public, private and community).

Institutional and legal framework development, making legal and regulatory changes to enable organizations, institutions and agencies at all levels and in all sectors to enhance their capacities

Resilience is defined by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, (UNISDR), as: “The capacity of a system, community or society potentially exposed to hazards to adapt, by resisting or changing in order to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure. This determined by the degree to which social system is capable of organising itself to increase capacity for learning from past disasters for better future protection and to improve risk reduction measures.” Disaster risk reduction can reduce the damage caused by natural hazards like earthquakes, through a ethic prevention. The UNISDR has advised that there is no such thing as a natural disaster, only natural hazards. Meeting basic needs (food, water, shelter, health) is a prerequisite to building resilient communities. Communities who are unable to meet their basic needs, whose day-to-day focus is survival, do not have the capacity to build resilience. This is particularly important in deciding when to commence Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction, (CBDRR) programmes in a post-disaster situation. Building assets (physical, natural, financial, social, political and human) are seen as ‘buffers’ to withstand shocks and stresses. A distinction is made between those assets within the control of the community, and access to external assistance and resources (for example remittance from family overseas or post-disaster assistance from government or NGO’s). No community is ever free of risks or absolutely resilient against all hazards. Building resilience is therefore an ongoing process, rather than an outcome.




The International Federation of the Red Cross, (IFRC), in their June 2012 report: Understanding community resilience and program factors that strengthen them, identified six characteristics of a safe and resilient community. A safer and resilient community has the following atrributes:

1. knowledgeable and healthy – has the ability to assess, manage and monitor 2. organised – has the capacity to identify problems, establish priorities and act 3. connected – has relationships with external actors (family friends, faith groups government),

who provide a wider support environment, and supply goods and services when needed. 4. infrastructure and services – has strong housing, transport, power, water, and sanitation

systems. It has the ability to maintain, repair and renovate them. 5. economic opportunities – has a diverse range of employment opportunities, income and

financial services. It is flexible, resourceful and has the capacity to accept uncertainty and respond (proactively) to change.

6. Able to manage its natural assets – recognizes their value and has the ability to protect, enhance and maintain them.

IFRC advises the characteristics identified can be used by National Societies for a large number of purposes including monitoring and evaluation. They may be used as part of the community selection process (e.g., to identify communities that are particularly vulnerable in certain areas) or to define programme objectives (e.g., to map out what is realistic for the project to achieve).

Fig.5.1: Six characteristics of a resilient community, (IFRC, 2012). The diagram shown in Figure 5.1 shows the six characteristics of resilient communities highlighting the fundamental importance of knowledge and health as the foundations of resilience at an individual level. Resilient communities are made up of resilient individuals who are well organised, have access to infrastructure and services, economic opportunities and can manage their natural assets. A resilient community may be self-sufficient, either partially or entirely, but the resilience of a community will be greatly increased by strong connections with external actors, who provide a wider, supportive environment, and supply goods and services when needed.

“Asset based approaches in development focus on how [people] use their resource base to develop strategies for acquiring, mobilising, expanding and preserving their assts …. Asset-based approaches addresses inequality in resource and endowments and access to opportunity, providing a concrete way to measure empowerment and ultimately sustainable reduction in poverty….Ownership and effective mobilisation of assets help establish personal and family security and encourage risk taking and diversification of productive and social activities”, Caroline Monser: Reducing Global Poverty: The Case for Asset Accumulation.




Fig.5.2: In 2007, Carnegie UK Trust’s Commission for Rural Development published a Charter for Rural Communities that adopted a ‘flower’ metaphor to propose twelve characteristics for the ‘rural community of the future’, (Carnegie UK Trust, 2011). As the Commission’s Chair made clear, a key innovation coming from the work was to take a systems view of rural development – stressing how the most successful rural communities are those which take a ‘joined up’ view of developing all manner of community assets. It is argued that this insight has much in common with innovations that have emerged in other areas of policy making in recent years. For example, in 1999 the UK Department for Internatinal Development (DfiD) set out a ‘livelihoods’ framework through a series of guidance sheets (refef to www.livelihoods.org/info) suggests that a ‘livelihood is sustainable when a person or household can face or recover from shock or

stress and at the same time maintain or improve their resources and capabilities without deteriorating their natural resource base’. The idea was that community well-being involves five core resources (or ‘capitals’) – human, social, natural, physical and financial. As capital approaches have evolved, they have attempted to tackle this reality. For example, some CoP members are experimenting with a ‘seven capitals’ assets approach originally developed by Cornelia Flora and colleagues at the North Central Regional Centre for Rural Development, Iowa State University. Based on their analysis of entrepreneurial communities, they determined that the communities that were successful in supporting healthy sustainable community and economic development, (CED), pair attention to seven types of capital: natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial and built. This approach focus on the interaction among these seven capitals and how they build upon one another

Fig.5.3: ‘Seven Capitals’ asset approach-(Exploring community resilience- Carnegie UK Trust, 2011). Some practitioners infer from Flora et al.’s seven capitals model that community resilience relates directly to building circles of virtuous activity between these seven capitals. This is an example of how this theory can help to simplify the everyday ‘mess’ of community action in ways that help to sharpen resolve and steer nerves in order to keep going through what can be seen like daunting challenges. It is hoped that as more and more practitioners report on their experiments using ‘seven capitals’ approaches, they will be better able to gauge how effective this approach support resilient outcomes, ( Carnegie UK Trust,

2011).




Once a community has been provided with their basic needs of food, shelter, health and security their vulnerabilities can begin to be address through knowledge and the necessary resource to implement this knowledge. The current imbalances within Haitian society means that some sections of the community are much more at risk from the effects of natural hazards than others and their needs and limitations need to be recognised in capacity building.




6.0 DECENTRALISATION

To decentralise or not? Indeed, with the multitude of market failures complicating the process, it is difficult to even contemplate what an optimal reconstruction would look like in Haitain society. At the heart of the uncertainty lies a difficult question: in the face of endemic disaster risk, is a society best off concentrating or dispersing its population? Had the Haitian population been spread more widely throughout its territory, the proportion affected by the earthquake would have undoubtedly been lower. Concentration of the affected population, however, introduces the possibility of exploiting economies of scale in relief and recovery efforts, (J.Vigdor, 2010).

With this as the backdrop the question of where and how to build back better becomes an extremely challenging question to address in light of Haiti’s current extremely precarious geo-political, geo-environmental and socio-economic vulnerabilities. At the moment Haiti is liken to a patient in intensive care who is recovering from a major trauma. The primary focus of attention is on keeping the patient alive with the aid of life support machines. These machines can only be turned off once the patient has reached a stable state able to function on its own, but still in a convelescent state, needing support and care. Haiti will be in this convelescent state for some time (maybe decades) and will suffer set-backs when it encounters future trauma from natural hazard events. Equally, while in this convelescent state attention needs to be given on how best to create a long-term rehabilitation programme with the aim of creating a sustainable, safe and resilient environment for the conutry’s population. In an ideal world this can ever only be achieved with recognition of the need for a synchronised two phased parallel approach. The first phase being transitional and enabling and the second phase being the sustainable longterm solution. To concentrate on one in total exclusion to the other will not achieve the desired outcome. However, the reality is that at best a half-way house approach may be achieved.

The damage caused by the 2010 earthquake, devastating Port-au-Prince, coupled with the recent hurricanes and tropical storms, damaging rural areas and agricultural productivity, has resulted in significant setbacks for the country. The immediate demands are security, shelter, potable water, food, improved sanitation, health care, helping businesses to re-establish, getting children back to school to allow parents work and improving resilience. The longterm issues will need to focus on such matters as how best to deal with the underlying geo-envorinmental vulnerabilities of Port-au-Prince in light of its established historic commercial importance to Haiti. Whilst relocating Port-au-Prince to a more geo-environmentally ‘safer area’ has its appeal, this will have a huge cost associated with it with regard the need to provide a complete new network of infrastructure because currently all roads lead to Port-au-Prince. Its proximity to the larger and more developed international airport and its international deep sea container port are equally crucial aspects to its current commercial importance and the associated hive of businesses that such facilities attract

The decentralisation of the population from Port-au-Prince has been voiced on many occaisones in the past and indeed by the government’s own study of the need for development outside Port-au-Prince. However, in the intervening years the population of Port-au-Prince continued to grow significantly. Given the devestation to the capital region’s infrastructure, it might well be less expensive in the long-run to develop the region around an alternate port. The practacalities in the implementation of such a strategic decision would need careful consideration and in particular the transitional interm ‘holding period’ on such matters as business continuity and residental housing for those hundreds of thousands of people currently living in temporary accommodation or poorly repaired quake damaged buildings.

The earthquake contributed to a substantial migration to most of the regional areas, refer to Figures 6.1 and 6.2. The population of Cap Haitien, ofically 250,000, is now estimated at least double that, while some estimates place it closer to 750,000. Ouanaminthe, situated in-land from the coast in the NE of Haiti on the border with the Dominican Republic, has an official population of 58,000, is now




estimated to have at least 100,000 inhabitants. This rapid influx cannot help but overwhelm existing public services, housing, while far outstripping the ability of the local economy to provide jobs for the newcomers. Though a shift in population potentially contains the makings of an economic and social crisis, it also presents an opportunity, since an expanded labour pool, combined with a relative abundance of land suitable for industrial use, could be the basis for industrialisation of the region on a fairly large scale, (J.Vigdor, 2010). Fig. 6.1: GoH estimates of migration following thr 2010 earthquake.

Figure 6.1: shows GoH estimates on the number of people who left Port-au-Pronce with the total estimated number being circa 235,000, and their geographical destinations.

Estimates calculated by the Karolinska Instituts / Columbia University of New York in the three months immediately following the earthquake based on data from the location of all Digicel mobile phone use estimates that 570,000

mobile phone users left Port-au-Prince, and their distribution is shown in Figure 6.2 The research estimated that since February 2010 the iincreasing population trend in the departments outside Port-ao-Prince was reversed. On the 11 March 2010 the population in the departments outside Poer-au-Prince still remained 3% to 12% above pre-earthquake levels.

Fig. 6.2: Estimated number of persons who on 31/01/2010 had Relocated from Port-au-Proince metropolitian area. After the initial large outflow, the population in Port-au-Prince is estimated to have been 15% smaller on 11 March 2010 than before the earthquake. They also estimate that the majority of people (65%) who moved into the Port-au-Prince metropolitian area during 1st February 2010 to 11th March 2010 lived in the Port-au-Prince area before the earthquake. Furthermore the phone movements suggested

that out of 570,000 people who had left Port-au-Prince on January 31, 2010, about 230,000 persons had by March 11, 2010 returned while 330,000 were still outside the area.




This migration probably gives a good indication of the original family/extended family homes of the Port-au-Prince residents who temporarily vacated the city after the earthquake and a good indication of the potential to relocate these residents to other regions as part of decentralisation plans for the economy.

Cape-Haitiean on the North coast of Haiti, over 140km from Port-au-Prince, is an obvious alternate or supplimentary economic location as it has a small international airport and deep harbour facilities. However, as discussed, it is also vulnerable to earthquakes and sustained significant destruction as evidenced from the 1848 earthquake.

Cap-Haïtien International Airport is the second largest airport in Haiti. This airport connects Haitians to

airports like Miami International Airport, Cibao International Airport Dominican Republic and others in

the Caribbean. The Haitian government signed a deal with Venezuela, in 2010, for the airport to be renovated. As of September 2010, a 2,600m concrete runway commenced construction by Haitian firms and personnel working under the supervision of a Cuban-Venezuelan firm. In 2012 approval was granted to extend the runway by an additional 400m thus making it similar to Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince.

The Port international du Cap-Haïtien is the seaport in Cap-Haïtien. It is operated by the government port authority Autorite Portuaire Nationale APN and there are plans to upgrade this into a deep sea container port facility, to service the new Caracol industrial park.

However, due to Cap-Haïtien's distance from Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, combined with the dire condition of Haiti’s transportation infrastructure, the city has often become an incubator for revolutionary or anti-Government figures and movements. For instance, on February 2004, the city was taken over by militants who opposed the rule of the Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

They eventually created enough political pressure to force him out of office and the country. Hence

geo‐political stability will be hugely influential when considering such matters as the future role of

Port‐au‐Prince and the location of governmental power and / or its dilution to the regions.

Notwithstanding Cap-Haïtien's vulnerability to future earthquakes, to have two seperate geographic economic centres is strategically better than one for obvious reasons.

Haitie’s critical national infrastructure was totally paralysed in the immediate aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. In Port-au-Prince the airport communication tower was damaged and the port facilities sustained significant damage. Haiti was in effect isolated from the outside world during those prescious ‘golden hours’ after the earthquake. This was furter compounded by the fact that UN respondents based in Port-au-Prince and Government officials also lost their lives from being crushed within collapsing buildings. Initially, apart from light aircraft landing on ‘dirt’ runways, the only means of accessing Port-au-Prince was by road via the Dominican Republic, with the last leg of the journey through Haiti being extremely hazardous.

Generally to decentralise the population into locations which do not have such critical facilities as ports and airports would be to increase the average citizen’s distance from these facilities. In a wealthier country, this disadvantage would be offset by the creation of redundant infrastructure: building more airfields and port facalities outside the capital. Given the scarsety of available funds and more pressing priorities, these sorts of investment are unlikely to take place any time soon, particularly as very few people in Haiti actually owne a car, refer to Figure 6.3, (J.Vigdor, 2010).




Fig. 6.3: A city of walkers. Transport used by category in Port-au-Prince, 1984, A chart for today would probably show even more emphasis on walking as the major means of transport. Statistics from Henriquez, Lionel (2000) and grapg from UN HABITAT – Strategic Citywide Spatal Planning 2009.

85% of the country’s traffic is concentrated in Port-au-Prince (The Economist Intelligence Unit 2006). Any decentralisation proposals for Haiti will have to give detailed consideration to a national rail transport

system to ship good around the country and avoid regional growth only being limited to the location of deep sea container ports and the total concentration of industry/commerce around thes ports as was the case with Port-au-Prince.

One important consideration with regard the future viability of Port-au-Prince is the potential impact from a tsunami. Whilst it is difficult to draw comparisons between geographically remote disasters, approximately 2.6% of the deaths arising from the March 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami resulted as a direct consequence of collapsing buildings and the remaining 97.4%, (19,300), died from inundation of the low-lying coastal areas from the resulting tsunami and this in a country which has the most advanced real-time early warning systems and extensive tsunami sea defences and best prepared for such an event in the world. Had a significant tsunami resulted from the 2010 Haiti earthquake the additional fatalities and casualties would have been unmanageable due to its amphitheatre type topography i.e. low-lying plane bounded by the sea on the West and steep hills on the remaining three sides, effectively corralling the escaping population. Significant improvements in low-lying costal sea defences and infrastructure would be necessary to protect such densely populated areas. From a seismic perspective, the safest portion of the country lies near the geographic centre, North of Port-au-Prince along the Golfe de la Gonave. The small city of St Marc has been identified as perhaps the most promising location in this zone, (Jacob Vigdor: What Should The World Do About Port-au-Prince, An Economic Assessment). It has a rail connection to Port-au-Prince, though all rail transport in Haiti had ceased operating by about the 1970s. St Marc now serves as a minor port, although the harbours of Port-au-Prince, Cap Haitien, and Mirangoane are naturally deeper and thus more amenable to modern shipping, but each lies in a more seismically active zone. The topography of the area is shallow hills rising to a flat and sparsely populated plane of the Artibonite river. Potentially ideal for the creation of an entire new city. However The Artibonite valley is considered as the rice basket of Haiti, with a total of 28,000 hectares of rice fields. Clearly a detailed environmental impact assessment, (EIA) would be required with regards any development in this region despite its potential appeal. Vigdor argues that even if building an entirely new city were cheaper than rehabilitating a devastated one, however, the question remains whether the concentration of population in one city is in any sense optimal. Urban economists have devoted much attention to the question of optimal city size. Larger cities are desirable to the extent that they permit the realization of economies of scale in labour-intensive industries, and create other benefits associated with greater specialization in production and consumption, or agglomeration economies rooted in the spillovers, labour market




pooling, or other mechanisms. On the other hand, Vigdor points out, larger cities incorporate diseconomies of scale associated with congestion, pollution and other maladies. The ‘optimal’ city size equates the marginal costs and benefits of population expansion. Catastrophis but localised risk, such as that associated with hurricanes and earthquakes, introduces another set of arguments into the dispersal issue. Dispersing the population could be seen as a simple risk divesification policy: the best way to avoid a human disaster on the scale of what was seen in Port-au-Prince would be to not have cities as large as Port-au-Prince. The aggregate risk faced by the population might not change much, or could even increase. The correlation in risk across persons would decline, however.

From another perspective, though, the correlated risk introduced by population concentration could bring countervailing benefits, to the extent that there are economies of scale in disaster recovery. For all its flaws, Port-au-Prince benefited from its close proximity to deep water and the nations longest airstrip. However, the inherent downside risks i.e., poorly constructed housing and critical infrastructure and lack of government capacity along with the crippling of the only international deep sea port and airport, negated any such positive economies of scale.

Even if a concrete plan for population dispersal were adopted, it may prove difficult to coordinate the actions of individual households and firms to settle in alternative locations. Government could take certain actions to encourage resettlement: improving the infrastructure in regional towns, perhaps even moving some government functions – or the entire operation – away from Port-au-Prince. The prospects for relocation are improved by the fact that many residents of the capital are the children or grand-children of Haitians born elsewhere, and the fact that many residents relocated anyway, because of the general disarray in Port-au-Prince following the earthquake. Absent a concerted effort to change citizen’s expectations regardign the future locus of economic activity in Haiti, however, the force of inertia will likely be strong.




7.0 MACRO-ECONOMIC OVERVIEW To ensure a sustainable improvement to the lives of Haitians the economic climate of the country also has to improve, otherwise they simply become totally reliant on a constant stream of foreign aid to maintain the current unacceptable status quo. For this reason it is important to appreciate exactly where this economic growth may come from, how best to achieve it and the positive and negative impact it may have on Haitain society and how built-environment practitioners can assist and mitigate any potential adverse risks.

Inadequate infrastructure, low investment, shortage of skilled labour, poverty, corruption, and poor access to education for much of the population have hindered the growth of the country’s industries. Low labour costs and duty free exports to the US have, however, led to the development of Haiti’s appearl industry, which contributes nearly one-tenth of the country’s current GDP. In April 2011 Michael Martelly was elected president of Haiti. President Martelly is targeting “agricultural investment, lodging for the 700,000 still living in tent camps, and free education for the children” as key areas of policy focus. The government aims to create one million jobs and achieve an annual growth of 9% over the next five years. The president stated “We need to curb insecurity to allow business people to come and open businesses in our country, in order to create jobs for the people.”

The January 2010 earthquake has only aggravated the economic crisis in Haiti, heightening the need for increased industrial production but at the same time destroying or damaging much of the infrastructure on which that production will depend. Fortunately the Government controlled and

sponsored industrial park, Société Nationale des Parcs Industriels, SONAPI, the principal industrial park in Port-au-Prince, was spared destruction and most of the 50 factories in the park reopened within weeks of the disaster, but they faced substantial challenges with damage to the main sea port and congestion from the humanitarian aid that dominated port activities for the many months following the earthquake. Figure 7.1, illustrates the general divide between the three major contributors to Haiti’s GDP and employment, namely industry, services and agriculture.

Fig:7.1 GDP and Employment by sector 2010 - (Source: CIA Facebook as updated May 27 2010)

The agriculture and agri-business industries collectively constitutes nearly 30% of GDP, and employs nearly 70% of the workforce, mostly dedicated to sudsistence farming, yet food imports are one of the largest components of Haiti’s import bill. However, Haiti also has an agricultural export sector but this only accounts for around 6% of all Haitian exports. Agriculture, together with forestry and fishing, accounts for about one-quarter of Haiti's annual gross domestic product and employs about 66% of the labour force. However, expansion has been difficult because mountains cover much of the




countryside and limit the land available for cultivation. Of the total arable land of 550,000 hectares, 125,000 hectares are suited for irrigation, and of those only 75,000 hectares actually have been improved with irrigation. Haiti's dominant cash crops include coffee, mangoes, and cocoa. Haiti has decreased its production of sugarcane, traditionally an important cash crop, because of declining prices and fierce international competition. Because Haiti's forests have thinned dramatically, timber exports have declined. Roundwood removals annually total about 1,000 kilograms. Haiti also has a small fishing industry. Annual catches in recent years have totalled about 5,000 tons.

In 2001 manufacturing accounted for 7.9% of the GDP and industry as a whole for 20%. Roughly 9% of the labour force works in industrial production. As a portion of the GDP, the manufacturing sector has contracted since the 1980s. The United Nations embargo of 1994 put out of work most of the 80,000 workers in the assembly sector. Additionally, the years of military rule following the presidential coup in 1991 resulted in the closure of most of Haiti's offshore assembly plants in the free zones surrounding Port-au-Prince. When President Aristide returned to Haiti, some improvements did occur in the manufacturing sector. Haiti's cheap labour brought some textile and garment assembly work back to the island in the late 1990s. However, these gains ultimately were undercut by international competition.

Popularly-elected president Jean-Bertrand Arsitide’s 1994 return to power by the US military and delivery of US$2.1 billion in aid following the 1991 coup was contingent on the implementation of a structural adjustment programme mandated by the World Trade Organisation and international lending institutions, requiring regular debt service, maintenance of low wages, privatisation of state enterprise, as well as the lifting of the agricultural subsidies and price support, (Smith, 2001). While coffee and sugarcane traditionally provided the nation’s primary export revenue, the economy is now dominated by clothing and footware assembly plants which provide 80% to 90% of the nations exports. A 2002 trade agreement with the Dominican Republic has lead to the displacemet of many small farms in the newly established free-trade zone along the fertileplain of the Nord-Est region on the Dominican border, (James, 2002) and similarly for the Caracol industrial park near Cape Haitien on the North coast of Haiti, which opened in 2012. The leading industries in Haiti produce beverages, butter, detergent, edible oils, flour, refined sugar, soap, and textiles. Growth in both manufacturing and industry has been slowed by a lack of capital investment. Grants from the United States and other countries have targeted this problem, but without much success. Private home building and construction appear to be one subsector with positive prospects for growth due to the devastation resulting from the 2010 earthquake. Haiti's services sector made up 52% of the country's GDP up to May 2010. It employs 25% of Haiti's labour force. According to World Bank statistics, the services sector is one of the only sectors of Haiti's economy that sustained steady, if modest, growth throughout the 1990s.

Not surprisingly, tourism in Haiti has suffered from the 2010 earthquake and historically from the country's political upheaval. Inadequate infrastructure also has limited visitors to the island. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, tourism was an important industry, drawing an average of 150,000 visitors annually. Following the 1991 coup, tourism has recovered slowly. The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) has joined the Haitian government in efforts to restore the island's image as a tourist destination. In 2001, 141,000 foreigners visited Haiti. Most came from the United States. Further improvements in hotels, restaurants, and other infrastructure still are needed to make tourism a major industry for Haiti.

Haiti has a small mining industry, extracting minerals worth approximately US$13 million annually. Bauxite, copper, calcium carbonate, gold, and marble are the most extensively mined minerals in Haiti.




Thirty years ago Haiti’s apparle industry was a reliable supplier of assembled goods for the US market and employed over 100,000 workers. The intervening years have been difficult for Haiti, marked by a struggle to stabalise governance, to institutionalise respect for political and human rights, to modernise infrastructure and to encourage environmental stewardship rebuild after decades under the poor leadership of the Duvalieres (1957-1986).

The 1980’s / 1990’s Development Plan The development of assembly manufacturing in Haiti was an outgrowth of the island's cheap labour, its proximity to the United States market, the increasing multinational nature of modern firms, and changes in the United States Tariff Code, which in 1962 began to exact duties only on the value-added of products assembled overseas. Assembly operations -- typical examples included the sewing of garments, the stuffing of toys, or the stringing of baseballs, electronics, footwear and leather products -- grew modestly in the depressed economic climate of the 1960s, but they accelerated rapidly in the early 1970s in response to new fiscal incentives enacted by the government. The warming of Haitian-United States relations after 1973 encouraged foreign investment. The number of assembly enterprises swelled from only 13 companies in 1966 to 127 by 1978. When the subsector peaked in 1980, an estimated 200 assembly firms employed nearly 60,000 workers. The largest assembly activity in the late 1980s produced garments. The fastest-growing activity produced electronics; it included subcontracting work for the United States Department of Defence.

Research undertaken by the Disaster Risk Reduction programme at Florida International University (FIU): “Haiti’s Post-earthquake Development Paradigm: Is There Potential For Vulnerability Reduction?” advised that the 1980’s development strategy, promoted in Haiti by major international donor agencies (including the World Bank, WB, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID), basically consisted of bypassing the Haitian state and shifting Haitian production away from local consumption and towards export. The 1980’s development strategy “emphasized the fostering of market-orientated approaches to development as a major initiative […] and the development of non-traditional exports” (USAID/Haiti: Country Development Strategy Statement FY 86, January 1984 p.24). The strategy was based on the premise that Haiti’s economic growth could be brought about by “strengthening the private sector and promoting exports” (USAID/Haiti: Revised Strategy Paper for FY 89/90, November 1989 p.17). The development strategy had two essential components: the development of agro-industry and the promotion of the assembly industry. While the agro-industrial plants were established to process export crops, the assembly industry, located in Port-au-Prince, aimed to perform two main functions: to “provide employment and facilitate the absorption of the displaced rural population into urban Port-au-Prince, and provide foreign exchange earnings, needed to pay for imported foods no longer produced within the country” (De Wind & Kinley p, 59). According to the international donor agencies, the export-led development strategy was to be structured around what was presumed to be Haiti’s comparative advantage, its hard-working and cheap labour force, to make it “the Taiwan of the Caribbean”. The strategy assumes that “US and other foreign markets can absorb Haiti’s production and yield earnings that will sustain Haiti’s economic growth.” While ignoring the rural economy, Haitian governments focused on using duty and tax exemptions to attract investment in assembly plants—the factories to which US and Canadian firms now outsource the final stages of producing such commodities as clothes and electronics. In 1975 Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier—then the country's "president for life"—inaugurated a 122-acre industrial park near the Port-au-Prince airport. By the early 1980s some 80,000 Haitians were employed in the assembly plants, putting together electronics or stitching base-balls. At the time the dream was to turn Haiti into “the Taiwan of the Caribbean.”. The reality, unfortunately, was sweat-shops, rapid migration and slumification and workers earning just enough to keep them in poverty. There were never enough assembly jobs to employ the hundreds of thousands of people who were forced into the cities as




conditions deteriorated in the countryside, and the plants started to close after Baby Doc's overthrow in 1986. The fear is that 40 years later, Haiti has come full circle.

The failure of the assembly plant policy didn’t stop its promoters from recommending more of the same. In the mid 1980’s the then Finance Minister Leslie Delatour openly advocated the depopulation of much of the Haitian countryside and that these people work instead in cities, living in places such as the newly named Cité Soleil. In 2002 President Aristide, then in his second term, signed a law creating a 15-year tax holiday and other benefits for foreign investors. In 2003 his administration initiated the construction of the CODEVI (Compagnie de Développement Industriel SA) Free Trade Zone at Ouanaminthe on the North end of the Haiti-DR border, across the border from the Dominican city of Dajabón. With 6,500 employees, CODEVI is a sort of prototype for the nearby Caracol Industrial Park and it too displaced farmers and paved over fertile fields, in this case to help the Dominican company Grupo M churn out T-shirts for foreign markets.

In the 1970s Haiti was an agricultural country that provided 80-90% of its national food needs.

Agriculture was its strength, although there were problems: a chaotic and unequal distribution of land, over-farming in many areas, and environmental degradation, mostly through deforestation. Any rational development plan for Haiti would have included a major agrarian reform; subsidies and low-interest loans to small farmers; properly maintained roads so that producers could get their crops to market; environmental protection measures and a reforestation program; and healthcare and education for the rural population. Currently the inadequacy of the government to manage Haitie’s national resources is largely due to a lack of infrastructure and investment in a country whose political climate remains as precarious as its environment. Haiti is a country that virtually consumes all of what it produces. Only 2% of its food production was exported in 2007, representing a value of US$10 million. The lack of export-competitiveness reflects low levels of productivity as well as the many other institutional weakness and constraints to doing business.

Despite the failure of the 1980’s export-orientated development strategy, international donor agencies pursued the same development polocies in Haiti during the 1990’s. In the context of President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s return to power, international agencies, mostly the WB and the IMF, reached an agreement with the Aristide government on the continuation of the 1990’s export-orientated development strategy, with international aid contingent on Haiti maintaining low wages, privatisation of state enterprise, as well as the lifting of the agricultural subsidies and price support. Successive Haitian governments and their international advisers systematically neglected the agricultural sector, while US "free trade" enthusiasts pushed to reduce the tariffs that protected local agriculture from foreign competition. In 1994 the US included a drastic reduction of tariffs as part of the neoliberal economic program Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had to sign in exchange for being returned to office three years after a bloody military coup. Rice farmers were the main victims of the agreement; rice tariffs were cut back to 3%, the lowest rate in the Caribbean, opening the way for US rice to flood the Haitian market and ruin many local producers.

This agreement or development paradigm is summarised in a document entitled the State for Social and Economic Reconstruction, (SSER), officially discussed at a meeting held in Paris (in August 22, 1994) between Aristide advisors and international donor agencies. Basically, the 1990’s SSER represents the same 1980’s neoliberal recipe and has, as such, produced the same results. Consistent with the 1980’s export-orientated development strategy, the SSER has discouraged any serious investment in Haiti’s rural economy and has undermined, as a result, the productivity of the agricultural sector. According to OECD data “between 1995 and 2006, only 7% of donor allocations went towards agriculture. In 2007, this dropped to 2%, representing only US $12 million out of US $624 million of donor support”. One of the consequences of this lack of investment in the agricultural sector has been a substantial reduction in the amount of food produced by Haitian farmers and peasants.




Now Haiti imports 55% of its food needs, leaving the population vulnerable to sudden price increases on international markets, and the under-funding of the agricultural and environmental sectors continues. For example, a rise in food prices in Haiti triggered violent demonstrations and political instability in April 2008. Furthermore, the average Haitian diet is 73% of the daily minimum recommended by the World Health Organization. Haiti remains a largely agricultural country, but in the government’s budget for fiscal 2012-13, the Agriculture Ministry gets just 7.55% of the total—$234 million out of $3.12 billion, much less than the Public Works Ministry or the Planning Ministry. The Environment Ministry’s share of the budget is a minuscule $22 million, 0.70%. Whilst there are good reasons for such large allocations to the public works and planning due to the destruction caused by the earthquake, redevelopment of the countryside is equally of paramount importance to assist with decentralisation, the unsustainable urbanisation of Port-au-Prince and reliance on international food imports. It is also the one area of the Haitian economy that can provide the greatest percentage increase in employment above all other sectors. Historically for Haiti, what is called foreign “investment” has always meant the unscrupulous extraction of profits without regards to its consequences on the people or environment and leaving no useful gain in Haiti whatsoever. More malicious, the conditions for US-style (one-percenter) investment, as mandated by the World Trade Organisation and international lending institutions in the early 1990’s, required the Haiti government not to subsidize its own people’s critical public service needs but to leave this to the so-called free market. Hurting the peasant and poor Haitian to the point of collapse so to force these masses to accept any wage. In 2008 the US extended trade preferences to Haiti. The Haitian Hemespheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, or HOPE II, grants Haitian apparel exports duty-free entry into the US. At the same time, Haiti remains a beneficiary under the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act, (CBTPA). By 2009 foreign investors were taking note of the re-bearth of Haiti’s apparel industry. The industry then employed 25,000, but 23 of the companies – all but one in Port-au-Prince – manufactured a wide assortment of clothing items. Forty percent of Haiti’s apparel factories are foreign owned or joint ventures. Haiti’s largest single apparel factory and the only one outside Port-au-Prince, represents an experiment in Haiti. Owned by Group M of the Dominion Republic, the factory is located in a free trade zone on the Dominion border, employing between 3,700 and 4,000 workers. In response to the worsening of Haiti’s economic situation, the US Congress in April 2010 passed the Haiti Economic Lift Programme (HELP) Act, and on 25 May 2010 President Barrack Obama signed it into law. HELP, which extends until 30 September, 2020, offers several improvements over HOPE II and other trade preference regimes for which Haitian manufacturers may be eligible. Licensing and Bureaucracy Haiti is not an easy place to do business, and bureaucratic hassles and delays are among the biggest issues investors must deal with. An industrial park, especially if it is under the Free Zone or Special Economic Zone regime, often is able to institute its own procedures and issue some, if not all approvals, thus reducing bureaucratic interference with zone tenants. This can apply to customs operations, but can also apply to a wide range of labor, immigration, land, licensing and other areas. Haiti’s existing system for industrial park management includes essentially three models:

Government control and sponsorship, as evidenced by the Société Nationale des Parcs Industriels, (SONAPI) model. Under this arrangement, SONAPI owns, develops and governs one industrial complex, the PIM in Port-au-Prince adjacent to the international airport. SONAPI reportedly has other park developments in various parts of the country, but they are, apparently, in early planning or conceptual stages (other than Caracol). Several sources have




suggested shortcomings in the design layout, land management practices and delivery of essential services. The Caracol Park, SONAPI most recent addition and ‘flagship’ model, is run by a private management firm, is projected to create 20,000 permanent jobs from Sae-A's, one of the world's leading garment manufacturers, is the park’s anchor tenant. An estimated total of 65,000 jobs could be created in the Park with the arrival of other tenants and factory buildings. The Caracol Park, funded by USAID and the IDB, represents an important economic priority identified by the Government of Haiti to spur the growth of jobs throughout the country and create economic opportunities beyond the capital Port-au-Prince. Plans for a new container port are also moving forward, to service this park in the North to give it better access to Global markets.

A ‘mixed’ management system in which government agencies exercise their authority through contractual management with private parties.

Private enterprises, which develop and operate their own industrial parks. SHODECOSA in Port-au-Prince is one example of this model and there are several other private parks in development or planning stages.

Haiti’s only Free Trade Zone is in Ouanaminthe. Free zones in Haiti enjoy customs and tax advantages. Within a free zone, enterprises are entitled to:

100% foreign ownership 100% import and export tax exemptions 100%repartration of capital and profits 15 year exemption on corporate taxes, renewable for an additional 15 years Exemption from personal income taxes

The Ouanaminthe free zone is unique in that it allows Haitian workers to be employed in manufacturing facilities that rely on DR for all other, i.e. electricity, telecommunications, roads and access to ports. Historical political instability – often spilling over into violent civil unrest – together with corruption, poor governance, a complicated and uncertain system of land tenure, and a troubling vulnerability to natural disasters, have all contributed to an image of Haiti as a difficult place to do business and a risky place to invest. Garment manufacturers, as well as support and service providers and other light manufacturing enterprises, are unlikely to set up operations in Haiti unless prebuilt factory and warehouse sheds are readily available. One of the most important functions of an industrial park, free zone, or special economic zone is to offer investors unencumbered land on which to set up their factories.

A study undertaken by the International Finance Coporation in 2011 concluded there is strong investment interest in Haiti that could generate 380,000 jobs by 2030. With abundant affordable labour and close proximity to the US. Haiti posesses good potential to capture new investment in the apparel, agri-business, construction/building materials, loglistics, and tourism sectors in the near term, while transitioning over time to other higher-value industries and services. With highly favourable trade access for apparel products under the US Haiti Economic Lift Programme (HELP) Act, both existing and potential new apparel manufacturers in Haiti are well positioned to capture a greater share of US market demand. Based on an analysis demand about 2,000 hectares of serviced land will be needed for apparel, agri-business, construction/building materials, loglistics, warehousing (including cold storage facilities), tourism and residential investment over the next 20 years.

However, the IFC study found that a variety of market, legal, regulatory and institutional constraints continue to impede the realization of this potential that is vital to Haiti’s economic growth. In this




context Integrated Economic Zones (IEZs) can facilitate these investment opportunities by providing a precise, targeted and quickly implementable framework to address these constraints. The IEZ’s can provide serviced land, pre-built facilities, reliable utilities and a streamlined business environment through transparent procedures and a one-stop shop approach. They can also act as platforms to develop clusters and growth poles to energise private sector activity around them. With effective PPP approaches, the private sector could fund IEZs, which can become flexible market-driven platforms to develop site-specific infrastructure needs for industrial, residential and tourism uses across Haiti in line with the GoH’s Reconstruction and Development Goals.

The following is a list of conditions identified as necessary for implementing investor demand

Essential Requirements

Resolution of land-tenure and resettlement issues at IEZ locations, enabling recruitment of IEZ investment and development.

Availability / provision of reliably and competatively priced electricity and water at IEZ sites. Electricity costs for industrial users are well above regional and global benchmarks. According to a 2009 study of the garment industry value chain , it is more than 60% more than in the Dominican Republic and Mexico and three to four times as much as in South Asia and China. Unless curbed by special tariffs, these costs will discourage development in industry’s such as textiles.

Expansion/rehabilitation/construction of roads and other infrastructure, including airports. Availability of sufficient port capacity at the Port-au-Prince, Terminal Varreaux and Cap-

Haitien Maintenance of security and political stability. Ongoing and Long-Term Requirements Passage of an IEZs Law, codofying the unified Regulatory Framework, Account Executive

one-stop model, MOU procedures, and IEZ-level land titling. Implementation of 3X8 workforce shift. Long-term port facilities in the North.

Several constraints were reiterated as being critical bottlenecks that, if remedied through GoH policy intervention and legal/regulatory/institutional reforms, would enhance Haiti’s regional competativeness as a business location.

The absence of a formal land-title/cadastire system and real property registration. Prohibitive costs and limited availability of serviced land, facilities, and utilities. The lack of modern construction code. The lack of adequate investor safeguards to protect private property rights.

Addressing the above-noted constraints is a pre-condition for Haiti to realise its full potential for investment over the long term.

The IFC study has found that even though the garment industry has escaped most of the devestation, the need for industrial land has become even more acute. Virtually all commentaries on Haiti’s post-earthquake economic recovery have underlined the importance of the garment industry as the main immediate source of jobs and income, but without industrial land and factory buildings available, investment will stagnate. The situation calls for accelerated development of industrial parks to meet immediate demand. While this does not diminish the longer-term importance of a deliberate and sustainable approach to development of special economic zones, a simpler near-term solution is required.




In its National Action Plan, the GoH expressed its desire to create centres of economic development outside of Port-au-Prince to spur economic growth and bring jobs to Haiti's underserved regions and hopefully deal with Port-au-Prince unsustainable population problem. The hope is that economic development in these locations will draw those whom the earthquake has displaced away from Port-au-Prince permanently. The programme is called Katye Pam Paze (KPP). The first phase of this programme involves what administrators call Community Cafes, participatory dialogue sessions between the central government, local officials and citizens focused on identifying local needs and developing solutions. These sessions will outline priority areas for asset-based community development research, which will feed into detailed development blueprints for communities. So far, it is believed that at least six Free Trade Zones and industrial parks are being planned. In November 2011 the $257 million Caracol industrial park, formally known as the Parc Industrial du Region Nord (PIRN), was officially inaugurated near Cape Haitien, the country’s second city.

Table 7.1 provides a summary of the High-Potential Sectors with the most investment potential, their key drivers as well as expected job generation and output figures based on in-depth analysis by the IFC of data obtained through meetings with GoH representatives, field interviews with investors and from other third party sources (e.g. CFI, Trade Map, UNCTA / WIR, among others) on business registration, trade flows and foreign-direct investment (FDI) and local investment in Haiti provide a critical snapshot of key business trends and growth opportunities.

Table 7.1 High Potential Target Sectors: Main Drivers and Jobs / Output Estimates by Sector

IEZ Sectors Main Haitian Drivers Year 20: Jobs & Outpot

Estimates by SectorConstruction /

Building Material

Demand from donor-backed housing projects, GoH building reconstruction and road/port developments/expansions.

Direct:12,000 Indirect: 6,000 Total: 18,000

Output:

USD 260.4M

Construction of IEZs and IEZ-related residential housing Demand for housing for Internally Displaced Persons, (IDPs), requiring an estimated 400,000 new permanent housing units over 5 years. Reconstruction needs for rebuilding, repairing/replacing and repositioning facilities, infrastructure and assets established in the Haiti Earthquake PDNA as follows: USD 3.2 billion from housing; USD 600.1

Logistics and Warehousing (including cold

storage):

General expansion of the Haitean economy and key target sectors requiring increased import / export logistics capacity

Direct: 1,300 Indirect: 600 Total: 1,900

Output:

USD 19.2M

Increased investment in roads, ports and airports Over the next years, rising consumer incomes and demand for goods/services, trade.

Residential:

:Housing for IDPs (400,000 units), including construction financing from the US and other international donors

Average annual for IEZ and IEZ-related

Residential Construction:

35,000 jobs

Development to be fueled by direct /indirect IEZ and country-wide job creaton and general economic growth Demand stemming from population growth Proposed mortgage-lending and rental-voucher systems

Tourism

GoH strategy focusing on developing Haiti as a competative value-added location (i.e. lower costs versus many regional rivals) for tourism within the Carabbean.

Total: 900 jobs

Haiti’s offering and promotion of unique cultural and natural assets Implementation/marketing of tourism projects in the North




and South

From the IFC study it is believed that the broader socio-economic impact of the IEZ’s programme will exceed the 380,000 direct, indirect and related construction jobs. Assuming an average household size of 5-7 persons, the implementation of a good-practice IEZ programme has the potential to touch the lives of more than 2 million Haitians. Entry into the formal employment market and access to job-based skills training will also help the Haitian workforce to compete in higher-value industries in the future. However, some believe that the free zone model of development being implemented in the Northern Department will concentrate social vulnerabilities in the region, just as the same model of development has done in Port-au-Prince decades earlier.

Caracol

According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Caracol, arguably the largest foreign investment project undertaken in Haiti since the earthquake, will house manufacturing companies on 600 acres of prime agricultural land once completed. Caracol is funded by USAID, the IDB, and the Haitian government through in-kind contribution of State-owned land and although Caracol will be owned by the Haitian government, it will be managed by a private management company. Plans for the project began a few months after the earthquake. According to Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW), the desire to build an industrial park in the North existed long before the earthquake, though the earthquake might have precipitated the rush to build. Why Caracol was chosen as a site is a mystery to most Haitians, especially people living in the community in which it's located. Some have speculated the selection is based on the abundance of both surface and underground water in the area, which will be needed for water intensive industries. Caracol has been promoted as a successful foreign investment model as well as an example of the type of development project needed in the country. During the construction phase, all of the hiring was done in the surrounding communities rather than at the site. Free transportation was provided to hundreds of workers in order to discourage the establishment of informal markets and slums outside the industrial park.

Initially, most factory workers are likely to be hired locally. If the industrial park succeeds in generating tens of thousands of jobs, it might attract more people to the region. In order to address an anticipated demand for housing, the U.S. government and the IDB are committed to building 2,000, adequate and affordable new homes in surrounding communities, in convenient commuting distance of the Park. The units, which will be hurricane and quake-resistant, will have running water, electricity and flush toilets.

Direct access to global markets: The projects contains significant investments in modernized port facilities in the North that meet the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) and offer short transit times of 3-4 days to the U.S. with frequent vessels.

However, a New York Times report on Caracol highlight’s the closed-door deals and disregard of ‘best practices’ that made this project possible. According to the report, Caracol represents USAID largest "development" project in Haiti since the earthquake. Touted as a decentralization model, the project does not include a master urban plan for the hundreds of thousands of people who will flood the area or measures to assist surrounding communities that must deal with the influx of job-seekers. Local residents are worried shantytowns will soon become permanent fixtures in the area.

Shortly after the New York Times published its report, the Haitian government issued a Fact Check describing how it engaged the local community about the project and measures in place to mitigate labour rights abuses, adverse environmental impact, and rapid urbanization and migration. To ensure that the industrial park will have a manageable social impact on surrounding communities, the




American Institute of Architects (AIA) is drafting a regional master plan for the long-term development of the region. Their recommendations will cover priority investments to address the region’s basic infrastructure and housing needs. Studies that should lead on urban plans for the cities of Ferrier, Fort-Liberté, Terrier Rouge, Caracol, Trou du Nord, Limonade and Quartier-Morin, as well as real estate operations, of development, of elimination of inadequate housing, of beautification and expansion and of construction of social housing in these various communes, in accordance with urban planning and the scheme of territorial coherence which will be validated, were initiated. However, this seems somewhat of a reactive response to legitimate public concerns i.e., master Regional Planning and Environmental Impact Assessment Studies (EIAS), are an intrinsic parts in a pre-planning consultation process for such a development, in such an important agrarian setting and to undertake one retrospectively appears somewhat ‘out-of-sink’ with the whole process of stakeholder engagement. There are also tensions between industrial developments like Caracol and the just as urgent, if not more critical, need to foster agriculture in Haiti, which now imports more than half its food.

With an unemployment rate of nearly 60%, Haiti has a severe and chronic employment problem. Every Haitian administration must contend with how to move millions of uneducated people out of poverty. According to experts, the only sector of the Haitian economy capable of absorbing massive amounts of people directly and indirectly is the agricultural sector. This doesn’t necessarily mean that millions of Haitians will turn to farming, that’s not practicable—there’s simply not enough land. However, the agricultural sector can employ people indirectly through agricultural schools, distribution networks, industries to transform primary products into finished goods (for example, peanut into peanut butter), and industries that can provide farmers with inputs, such as organic compost. While it is believed the Caracol Industrial Park is a key investment for the development of Northern Haiti, it is one of many projects the IDB is financing in that region. Among other operations, the IDB is financing agricultural projects totalling $200 million, with a focus on that part of the country. The IDB has committed to making $200 million in annual grants to Haiti over the next ten years to support development in agriculture, education, transportation, water and sanitation, and electricity throughout the country.

The 370 people who used to farm state-owned land on the Caracol site have received a total $1.2 million in compensation (about $3,500 per household, or five times the Haitian per capita income). All were offered access to a nearby plot with similar characteristics that will be improved with irrigation. Those who prefer to enter a new trade will receive job training. In addition, the elderly and more socially vulnerable, such as single mothers, will receive housing assistance.

Some believe Caracol Industrial Park will not save Haiti and is an unfortunate return to Haiti’s past low-wage assembly jobs, tenant’s tax breaks, outside investors will have more to gain than Haitians, as foreign investment doesn’t ignite Haiti development when all capital is flown overseas, the companies pay no taxes and there’s no living wage. It might just send Haiti further down the path of food dependency, rather than food sovereignty. It is argued that every tract of farmland converted to factory use represents local food not grown and Haiti’s continued dependency on imports to feed its people. In the long-term, only a serious investment in education, health, agriculture and land reform will save Haiti. A compensation plan for farmers, also called Resettlement Action Plan, is being developed. In order to prevent the growth of slums around the site, it is also intended to prohibit any new construction within a specified area around the site for a certain number of years.




It comes as no surprise that there are numerous environmental and social risks associated with industrial parks and these risks are exponentially greater in poor countries due to poor zoning, lack of legislation and/or government control, large unemployment population etc. Development rarely comes without disputes and for many Haitians and foreigners alike, Caracol is also a reminder of the pitfalls to building Haiti back better. For starters, there is concern that while Sae-A has promised to create 20,000 jobs, it has had labor troubles in other developing countries and may not be the world’s most employee-friendly enterprise. Environmental issues loom large as well: experts fear increased industry could harm Haiti’s ecologically important yet fragile Northern coastline, including coral reefs. So do concerns that while developing the North is a good thing in the long run, it doesn’t solve the more immediate post-quake suffering in the South—including the nagging tragedy of hundreds of thousands of homeless Haitians still living in squalid tent camps. Critics also point out that the lure of industrial jobs in the 20th century was a cause of Port-au-Prince’s overcrowding and the proliferation of its notorious slums. They warn Martelly and international donors to avoid the same phenomenon in Northern urban areas like Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city. These steps must also establish that this project will not harm the ecosystem of the Bay of Caracol, a condition sine qua non of its realization. Backers of Caracol stress that it will bring tens of thousands of jobs to an area where subsistence farming has long been the only alternative to migration. Jean Cherenfant, mayor of Cap-Haitien, a seaside city 13 miles (21 kilometers) from Caracol, sees the facility as a boon. There can be an elevated risk of tension between members of the local communities and migrants coming to the region, especially if local residents feel they don’t have the opportunity to benefit from the project, especially in terms of jobs. If there is no revenue being ploughed back into the local community to improve infrastructure and local amenities due to the very favourable tax free incentives offered to encourage foreign companies to set up in Haiti this is a further cause for bad feeling within the community and especially those tenants / land owners who had been moved to accommodate the industrial parks. It is alleged that the site chosen for Caracol Park was some of the most fertile land in the region. International donors alike realize that Haiti has to start developing away from its overpopulated, quake-vulnerable South and tap the potential of Northern cities like Cap Haitien, but as explained these are also cited in a seismically active zones, afflicted by earthquakes and lies along a fault that some consider overdue for a major earthquake. From a seismic perspective, the safest portion of the country lies near the geographical centre, North West of Port-au-Prince along the Golfe de la Gonave. However, the harbor of Port-au-Prince, Cap Haitien in the North and Miragoane, further West along the Canal du Sud coast from Port-au-Prince, are naturally deeper harbors and thus more amenable to modern shipping, but each lies in a more seismically active zone. This is more a risk diversification rather than risk elimination from natural hazards with careful consideration given to zoning, to maximize each regions natural resources, skill set, demographics etc.




Insert 7.1: Slum Developments. Avoidance of Slum Developments Cité Soleil is one of the poorest areas of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The area encompassed by Cité Soleil is approximately 5 sq. kilometres. Its citizens all live in poverty - most in abject poverty. As the biggest slum of Port-au-Prince, Cité Soleil fared relatively well from the 2010 earthquake, as half of the houses are made of cement with a metal roof and half are made completely of scavenged material. An estimated 60% to 70% of houses have no access to a latrine, particularly in the marshy Brooklyn area which includes Cité Carton.

What is arguably now the Western Hemisphere's biggest slum, the area was originally developed to house workers of Haiti's industrial boom, but quickly grew in size as people from across the country flocked there looking for work in response to the construction in the 1980’s of SONAPI’s PIM industrial park nearby. The United States led boycott of Haitian manufactured products after the coup d'etat in 1991 which sent then President Jean Bertrand Aristide into exile. This boycott effectively led to the complete closure of Cité Soleil's manufacturing sector - pushing the entire region into unemployment and, subsequently, extreme poverty. Both Government and the Inter-American Development Bank, (IDB) have expressed a determination to avoid a repeat of this experience. However, in view of the civil unrest, violence and extreme poverty that have characterized Cité Soleil, both have mentioned a need to provide housing for employees of companies in the park, especially in view of the slum that has grown up around the CODEVI Free Zone in Ouanaminthe during the eight years since the zone was launched.

The Free Zone law does not allow residential development in a Free Zone and if such housing was permitted in or adjacent to a free zone for the employees, the question arises with regard to what happens when employees retire, get made redundant, get fired, or die, or the factory closed down, i.e. do they loose their right to a house/home. It also leads to a less flexible work force as to move will result in employees losing their house.

A preferred option, as proposed for Caracol, is to integrate a new industrial park into the social fabric of the region and to ensure that a combination of private and public resources provides and funds affordable transport between the factories and the population centres where the workforce live. Public private partnership will be required in the construction of these residential developments and loans made available to the occupants who choose to purchase them or affordable rents for those who choose to rent with adequate safeguards from speculative private landlords who may try and exploit the situation to their needs as is happening in places like Cite Soleil. Clearly the siting of such communities should be considered within the context of an approved regional land-use plan. Another proposal is to ensure there is a sufficient land buffer surrounding an industrial park to prevent slum encroachment around the industrial parks. The park could also expand into this buffer zone in the future.




8.0 VERNACULAR BUILDINGS

Much has been said and written regarding the most appropriate forms of future construction for the Haitian community. However matching aspirations with reality will be the challenge and the realisation that such aspirations cannot simply be wished into place. A journey will have to be embarked upon by both the Haitians and those involved in the education and advising on best practice with regard building safer communities. We have seen the tragic consequences resulting from the good intentions of aid agencies endeavouring to empower local communities by providing them with the necessary financial support to allow locals build houses, schools and other community buildings using technologies that were not understood and alien to the indigenous population.

Haiti is a country with a strong ethic of sharing and weak financial resources. Haitians place great value on relationships and are a generous people who care for each other in particular ways. In Haiti house-building is a gradual, additive process, like an organism it grows according to the needs of the family. Since most construction is done by building owners in a gradual, additive process, few professionals ever give advice. . Much of the loss of life in the Haiti earthquake was related to the misuse of reinforced concrete. Cement is very expensive and no longer produces in Haiti. Steel used for reinforcing is also very costly to ordinary Haitians. These are powerful incentives to reduce the amount used in a project, or share job supplies, ordinary builders feel wrong to hoard them and not share. The rules that control the safe use of RC are also not obvious and the very low rate of literacy within the adult community has proven a major barrier in this regard and lead to a false sense that rule-of-thumb understanding is good enough. Steel and cement are strong enough only when combined in correct proportions, correctly placed, compacted and cured as determined by technical specialists, and inferior construction looks, until a catastrophe, as if it were strong enough. A material whose strength can either be seen or intuitively understood is a better and safer fit for the Haitian culture. Construction processes should use affordable materials and be understandable to the ordinary person. Simpler, more obvious techniques are needed for smaller projects, not more regulation. Clearly the recent earthquake and deforestation now requires a different approach. It is worth pointing out that Haiti does have a rich architectural heritage influenced by its equally rich mixture of foreign cultures who came to live there by desire or otherwise over the centuries. Such influences nurtured an indigenous skilled labour force competent in the construction of buildings using locally sourced building materials to cater for local climatic and geo-environmental conditions. Unfortunately the rapid urbanisation in Haiti has resulted in the displacement of the traditional vernacular from in all but the most remote rural regions within a single generation. The near total deforestation that has occurred over the last century has been one of the root causes forcing the Haitians to use modern forms of construction i.e. reinforced concrete, in-lieu of this natural resource, which is inherently more dangerous when used in ignorance particularly in seismically active locations.

Fig.8.1: Gingerbread House Part of Haiti’s architectural heritage is the Gingerbread House, the term was adopted in the 1950’s as a result of American tourists visiting Haiti who likened them to the similarly ornate Victorian-era buildings in the USA. Locally they are called by their other French term, pan-de-bois, the correct French term is - colombage (braced timber frame with masonry infill) . This was reportedly a 19th century French stylist import of a medieval architectural form found most often in Normandy. They stand as testament to Haiti’s once indigenous skilled labour force and through their restoration serve as a very strong visual aid in the revival of these skill-sets and serve as a platform to advance the understanding of sound robust building practices and help to better appreciate the demands required and attention to detail necessary when using the now




ubiquitous newer confined masonry type construction for low to medium-rise buildings within tectonically active locations.

In October 2009, the Gingerbread Houses of Haiti were included on the 2010 World Monument Watch, WMF, to raise international awareness about this unique architectural heritage as many of these once elegant, turn-of-the-century structures, detailed with fretted wood and intricate latticework, had fallen into disrepair. Less than three months later, the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010, all but shattered the Haitian people and the places they hold dear. Many of the cultural heritage organisations mobilized quickly to aid the recovery process. The Gingerbread Houses are icons of Haiti’s rich and vibrant past, as well as a vital symbol for rebuilding the country. The WMF was invited on one of the very early international missions to survey damage to the historic built-environment. Around the same time the International Council of Monuments and Sites, established an ICOM Steering Committee for Haiti, comprised of professionals from around the globe with experience in disaster response for cultural heritage.

The WMF agreed to help forge a collaborative project aimed at the conservation of the houses in the Gingerbread neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince. On March 12, 2010, the President of Foundation Connaissance et Liberte, FOKAL, met in New York with WMF to discuss FOKAL’s proposal for the Gingerbread Neighbourhood Rehabilitation Project, which addresses the social, economic and environmental benefits of preserving this unique heritage and empowering its residence in the process. The fruits of this collaboration was the production of a report ‘Preserving Haiti’s Gingerbread Houses – 2010 Earthquake Mission Report’ – a World Monuments Fund / ICOMOS Project in part by Prince Claus Fund and FOKAL. Some of the findings of the Mission Report are discussed below.

With regard the extensive building damage resulting from the 2010 earthquake several engineering surveys have documented the usual suspects – a lack of building codes, no enforcement, poor design and bad construction. Almost all have focused on the reinforced concrete and concrete block construction, which is now the predominant form of construction for new buildings. Very little information on the performance of masonry other than concrete block masonry has been disseminated, yet until the advent of concrete frame and infill construction, this was a predominant form of construction in Haiti for urban and inner suburban buildings.

House Types and Locally Sourced Building Materials Any commentary on the Haitian built environment should include, for completeness, a brief discussion on the history of Haitian house types by way of demonstration of the indigenous Haitian craftsmanship

and how this has suffered over the years owing its chequered political history.

The form of the house was a signal of difference and perhaps a statement of independence. The continuity of house types from a rural to an urban context and from a slave to an elite society indicates that architectural values operate at a very deep level.

Haiti was once a lush tropical island, replete with pines and broadleaf trees such as walnut and mahogany. Much of this building material was exploited and sent to Europe and North America, and by the late nineteenth century the forests were decimated. Wood for building construction is no longer locally available and must be imported.

Clay (brick, mortar, plaster, and stucco): There are readily available deposits of relatively pure clay in and around Port-au-Prince. In the early part of the twentieth century calcareous clay deposits were use in the manufacture of ochre-coloured brick and ferruginous clay deposits were used for red-coloured brick. There were once several brick kilns in the Port-au-Prince area as well. The brick industry is no longer active in Haiti and has been dormant for some time. The bricks that were manufactured were used extensively in construction and can be seen on the Gingerbread houses.




Clay was also used extensively in mortar for masonry construction – principally with rubble stone rather than with brick in the Gingerbread Houses.

Lime (mortars, plaster, and stucco): Lime was a necessary ingredient for the manufacture of sugar and the raw material to make lime mortar is plentiful in Haiti, but the manufacture of quick lime from which lime mortar is made has disappeared in recent years with the introduction of the manufacture of cement. Lime mortars were typically used to lay up the brick in the Gingerbread Houses.

Contemporary masonry construction in Port-au-Prince is almost entirely concrete block laid up with Portland cement mortars, usually as infill as cast-in-place reinforced concrete frame. Lime mortar is no longer used in construction. Contemporary quarrying in Haiti has been limited to limestone (primarily for the manufacture of cement), and also clays, sands, gravels and marble

Stone: The principal constituent of the rubble stone masonry in the Gingerbread Houses is made from calcareous deposits. On hydration these stones become very friable. This supports the hypothesis that the stone when quarried was originally found to be much harder and stronger but that after it was removed from its natural bedding in the hillside and used in the construction, it lost its strength from loss of the overburden weight and subsequent exposure to the atmosphere. This may account for the almost uniform weakness of the stones used in this work in Port-au-Prince, regardless of their exposure or distance from the ground. By comparison, the stones in the rubble work in Leogane and Jacmel are much harder because those locations had access to igneous rocks, not only weak limestone.

Fig.8.2: The Kay House This house was an adaptation of West African earth dwellings to new materials and materials in Haiti. Originally used for slave shacks. Even if infill is brick or stone, it can be made earthquake proof by adding reinforcing and containing it in wire mesh before plastering, but in current conditions these materials are too expensive for most people to use. It developed into a architecture of defiance, coming to symbolise

pride and defiance.

Fig.8.3: The Kay timber framing. The Kay was built of pegged wooden posts and beams, walls were plastered wattle and brick infill. Rural Kay’s resisted quakes well because they were well connected and flexible, but were usually not strong enough to add a second storey. Walls were plastered wattle or brick infill. A Kay can grow easily to become longer. Each house is usually freestanding and serves one couple. To make one’s hut is to become grown up. A young man who is serious about a girl builds a separate house usually on his

fathers land. Haitian houses usually start with 1 or 2 rooms and gradually grow. Because they are often simple, modular layouts, extra rooms are added when neighbours or relatives need a place to stay. The houses evolve naturally, according to the Haitians instinct, not in a deterministic manner. In the villages and countryside rooms are added on the side or the rear, in more crowded cities rooms




are often added on top. Young children, elderly widows, single neighbours, may all eventually share rooms, but a house is not usually shared by several couples.

Fig.8.4: The Ti-Kay

The Ti-kay means small house (ti for petite). Small room dimensions and its steep but narrow gable roof make it an inexpensive type of house to build.

Fig.8.5: The Creole House In colonial Haiti it developed from a predominantly Spanish house style adopted with some African influence to suit the tropical climate of the Caribbean. Creole houses were the homes of manor owners and plantation managers. They start with a single room or a sale and one room, but it usually ends up with a bedroom on each side. It grows by adding rooms onto its sides and rear.

It is built parallel to the road and has a longer porch that stretches the length of the house and may have a hipped roof that is shaped to resist high winds. The Kay and Creole styles may be the best precedence for aid rebuilding of dwellings. The Gingerbread House Haiti has some beautiful and unique commercial and institutional buildings. These include imported European steel buildings and masonry structures like Christophe’s Citadel and Palace. Also, at the end of the 19th century hotels and residence were built in a highly ornamented Haitian style now called Gingerbread Houses.

The character and heritage quality of the Haitian Gingerbread Houses is a product of design and craftsmanship realised through a number of different construction systems and structural materials. There are three primary construction systems utilised in Haitian Gingerbread Houses:

Braced timber frames Colombage (braced timber frame with masonry infill) Loadbearing masonry walls

Typically the construction types were hybrid in nature using a mixture of the above three systems and more recently concrete blockwork and Portland cement mortars for the more recent refurbishments.




Fig.8.6: Colombage Gingerbread House, braced timber frame with masonry infill on the upper floor and loadbearing masonry on the ground floor. The braced timber frame is a European building technique that was exported to the Americas during colonial times. The 100 percent timber framed construction is clad with horizontal lapped-wood siding on the exterior, also known as shiplap siding. The interior walls are also sheathed with wooden boards. On the inside face of the external elevations this board sheathing is almost always installed horizontally. The boarding is attached with cut nails to the timber framing. Interior partitions are sometimes constructed without studs and with the board sheathing installed vertically running from floor to ceiling, with surface mounted cross timbers used to hold this thin wall of boards in place. The masonry infill for the Colombage is composed of either rubble stone laid in clay mortar or brick laid in lime mortar. In

many examples, brick infill was used on the main facades and stone infill was used on the secondary elevations. Where stone is used it is typically finished on the exterior with lime plaster that is sometimes painted. Whether the infill is of brick or stone, the building exterior is expressed by the exposed timbers. Where rubble stone infill was used, it was often reinforced with barbed wire laid haphazardly within the space to be filled and nailed fastened to the wood members on both sides. Horizontal boarding was nailed to the inside of the frames with the earthen mortar and stones placed between the wall framing members. For brick infill panels the internal horizontal boarding was not used. Internal loadbearing and non-loadbearing walls used the same method of board sheathing on one or both sides of framing. Colombage construction was not only used in high rise Gingerbread Houses, but also in many small vernacular buildings and whilst they may have lacked the stylistic details associated with the classic Gingerbread, but are nevertheless important as seismatically safe, and more affordable housing. Loadbearing masonry walls are generally used for external elevations but there are instances where internal load bearing masonry walls are also used. The masonry walls consist of three types:

Bricks laid in lime mortar, Rubble stone laid in clay or lime mortar A combination of both

In some examples brick masonry is used on main facades and rubble stone masonry on the secondary elevations. There are also examples where brick masonry is used to form building corners, windows and door openings and cornices – forming a frame of brick piers horizontal bands and arches – with the infill panels constructed in rubble stone masonry. These infill panels were often crossed at one metre levels with two courses of brick on the inside and outside faces of the wall, thus stabilizing and confining the rubble stonework, refer to Figures 10.21 and 10.23.




Where brick is used it is usually multi-leaf brick, approximately 45 centimeters thick, sometimes with rubble stone infill in the inner leaf, refer to Photos 40 and 43 Appendix A. The fired bricks themselves appeared of consistent quality and good strength. The mortar between them was in most circumstances the original lime sand mortar. For such traditional construction bricks and rubble stone walls both are laid in a lime rich mud mortar. It appears the lime was not generated from hydrated quicklime, but directly from quarried beds of unconsolidated lime. Thus it did not have setting properties when used as an ingredient in masonry mortar. Concrete: The use of reinforced concrete was introduced into Haiti around the turn of the twentieth century. Some monumental buildings of the era used reinforced concrete including the Cathedral de Notre Dame (1912) and the Palais Nationale (1918). Concrete slabs were incorporated into some of the Gingerbread Houses. Concrete blocks and Portland cement mortar have been used in many of the Gingerbread Houses for repairs and extensions, typically providing a negative result for earthquake resistance.

After the middle of the twentieth century, reinforced concrete and concrete block became prevalent for three primary reasons:

a) A ban on wood construction was declared in Port-au-Prince in 1925 in response to a number of devastating fires in the city.

b) After the 1940’s, concrete and concrete block were increasingly seen as the building materials of choice in Haiti because they were considered to be more durable, technologically advanced, and modern, even becoming a status symbol.

c) Concrete and concrete block are resistant to the strong wind and rain of hurricanes.

The rapid spread of RC construction has resulted in the displacement of the traditional vernacular from in all but the most remote rural regions in many parts of the world, within a single generation. This represented a transformation of the building process from an indigenous one to one more dependant on outside contractors, specialists and nationally-based material producers and suppliers of cement and cement blocks. Reinforced concrete has been introduced into a building construction process that continues to exist much as it did in the past. The system of local builders with a rudimentary knowledge of material science was sufficient only as long as they were working with timber and masonry. With concrete moment frames it has proved woefully inadequate.

Due to the high cost of steel, cement and quality aggregate, Haitians employed construction with heavy masonry walls made of hand pressed concrete masonry units (CMU), refer to Figure 8:7(A) & (B), and lightly reinforced, undersized concrete columns, made with inferior raw materials and having inadequate strength and ductility. This combination, along with the lack of beams that would better engage the columns against earthquake loads, created systems that actually performed well under strong wind common to the Caribbean, but were conversely proven to be extremely vulnerable to earthquakes, failing through brittle collapse modes, as witnessed from the author’s site inspection of the damage following the earthquake. It is obvious that no consideration was given to the requirements for earthquake design as this was not perceived to be a risk owing to its long absence from the Haitian psyche.

Concrete construction requires more than just good craftsmanship; it demands a basic understanding of the science of the material itself. However, builders were often inadequately trained to understand the seismic implications of defects in the construction, thus leaving a looming catastrophe hidden beneath the stucco that is troweled over the rock pockets and exposed rebars that are so common in construction done without the necessary equipment to do it properly, such as ready mix concrete and vibrators. Bridging this knowledge gap in places like Haiti which has a 55% literacy rate is not something that can happen soon enough to avoid further tragedies.




Fig.8.7(A): Hand press machine for the

manufacture of concrete masonry hollow blocks

Fig.8.7(B): Concrete masonry hollow blocks laid out to cure / dry in an uncontrolled environment.




9.0 MASONRY INFILL PANEL AND CONCRETE FRAME HYBRID CONSTRUCTION

In principal, earthquakes do not kill people, buildings do. When an earthquake strikes, unsafe buildings in urban sprawl remain the primary killer. In Port-au-Prince most buildings are poorly built, insufficient proportions of cement, dirty salty beach sand, rounded gravels, lack of steel and poor design. In Haiti and elsewhere, if buildings are not made earthquake-resistant, the death toll illustrated in Figure 9.1 is likely to keep on rising as cities grow in population. Cities like Teheran, Istanbul, Kathmandu and Srinagar are notable for their seismic settings and the uneven application of appropriate building codes. The question is not whether, but when an earthquake shakes these cities.

Fig.9.1: Recorded earthquake related deaths over the decades

Approximately 90% of the building stock in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan region is residential housing. Many buildings across all economic classes are one to three storeys and are used for single family dwellings or small businesses, constructed in a homogenous manner with reinforced concrete frame elements infilled with unreinforced masonry. Most families reside alone in one house regardless of income. Most homes are designed and constructed by the owner or a local mason. Because residences are commonly constructed over time as funds are acquired, construction is inconsistent and haphazard. Housing was the single most affected sector as a result of the earthquake. Many families cannot obtain loans for buying land and/or building a house. Instead they build the house slowly using available cash, taking five or ten or fifteen years to finish. This piecemeal way of building is widespread in poor as well as affluent parts of Port-au-Prince and is also encouraged involuntarily by the tax regulation that exempts partially built houses for property tax. Another reason for the incremental construction is that people rely on remittances which are intermittent. In an average family in metropolitan Port-au-Prince, remittance make up just over 30% of household revenue, and the money is often invested in housing (World Bank 2006).




For Haiti the immediate challenge will be how best to address this area of the built environment where the largest proportion of un-engineered buildings are constructed in seismically active zones. It should be recognised that to educate the masses right down to grass-roots-level will be hugely challenging in some of the more vulnerable underdeveloped countries, as they will not have the necessary indigenous administrative infrastructure, or the finances to undertake such a task. It will inevitably be a generational challenge and not one that can be “wished-into-place”. The technology has to be appropriate for the particular indigenous population who has an innate understanding for vernacular buildings. The difficulty thus far has been communities departing from tried and tested vernacular construction due to a shortage of locally sourced materials etc and using instead poorly understood “modern” technology. If such local materials can no longer be sourced or are inappropriate for densely populated urban environments, then these communities need to be educated in “best-practice” using such modern materials. However, this “best-practice” should not be confused with full compliance to current “Developed-World codes”, which can only realistically happen over time as advocacy and internal governance improve. The initial task is to make this particular pool of building-type safer for its inhabitants. The larger buildings / municipal developments that require full engineering design would generally fall outside this pool and such buildings e.g. public buildings, schools, hospitals, offices, critical infrastructure etc should be designed appropriately and this should also include retrofitting of existing buildings. There would inevitably be a positive trickle-down effect where the indigenous population are used to construct such buildings. Too often in developing countries such buildings are constructed using foreign labour and there is no real opportunity for knowledge-gain by the local population. Ideally such projects should have some form of recognised vocational training scheme attached to it. Currently in most developing countries it will only be a small percentage that will have the opportunity to undertake formal built environment education leading to a professional qualification. Furthermore, the infrastructure and governance will not be in place or sufficiently robust to ensure all building are appropriately engineered. Vocational training schemes will however educate the masses in best-practice and this should hopefully begin to affect a positive influence on the private-sector / DIY residential housing. As with most cultures, cultural habits/attitudes are ingrained in the population and these will not be changed over night. In this regard the Seismic Guide for Low-Rise Confined Masonry Building, August 2011 – prepared by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, (EERI), Oakland, California, in collaboration with World Housing Encyclopaedia, (WHE), and the International Association of Earthquake Engineering, (IAEE) - is a design guide which focuses on prescriptive design provisions for low-rise buildings related to the wall layout and density, and prescribed minimum size requirements for structural components of confined masonry buildings (tie-columns, tie-beams, walls), reinforcement size and detailing. Although it focuses on low-rise confined masonry buildings, medium-rise engineered buildings of this type (up to five storeys high) can be designed and built following the recommendations of the document and other relevant international codes and standards. It does not however cover the more complex multi-storey engineered buildings. The other relevant document is ‘The Confined Masonry Workshop Handbook – The Construction and Maintenance of Masonry Buildings in Haiti – 3rd Edition, October 2010’, adapted and translated from part of the original document – ‘Construction and Maintenance of Masonry Houses’. This construction book has been prepared as a collaboration between Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, (AIDG), Architects Without Borders, (AWB), and HaitiRewired to help build back better in Haiti. Much of the loss of life in the earthquake of 2010 was related to the misuse of reinforced concrete. A material whose strength can either be seen or intuitively understood is a better fit for the Haitian culture.




The World Housing Encyclopaedia highlighted the following causes for the unsatisfactory seismic performance for RC frame buildings with masonry infill panels:

a. Poor choice of a building site. b. The inappropriate choice of building architectural forms that offer poor seismic

performance. c. The absence of structural design for expected earthquake behaviour. d. The lack of special seismic detailing of key structural elements. e. Inadequately skilled construction labour. f. Poor quality building materials. g. The absence of construction supervision.

The problem is aggravated further by the use of unreinforced masonry infill walls, usually made of clay bricks or hollow concrete blocks or clay tiles. The effect of the infill is usually not accounted for in the design, however these walls may significantly affect the way in which a building responds to earthquake ground shaking and may even cause the building to collapse as was abundantly evident following the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Over the past 100 years, confined masonry construction has emerged as a building technology that offers an alternative to both unreinforced masonry and RC frame construction. In fact confined masonry construction has features of both these technologies.

The construction practice has evolved through an informal process based on satisfactory performance in past earthquakes. The first reported use of confined masonry construction was in the reconstruction of buildings destroyed by the 1908 Messina, Italy earthquake (magnitude 7.2) which killed over 70,000 people. Subsequently, in the 1940’s the construction technology was introduced in Chilie and Mexico. Over the last 30 years, confined masonry construction has been practiced in the Mediterranean region of Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. It is important to note that confined masonry construction is practiced in countries and regions of extremely high seismic risk.

Confined masonry construction consists of masonry walls (made either of clay brick or concrete block units) and horizontal and vertical RC confining members built on all four sides of a masonry wall panel. Vertical members, called tie-columns or partial columns, resemble columns in a RC frame construction except that they tend to be of far smaller cross-section.

Fig.9.2: Diagrammatic representation of confined masonry construction good practice.

The vertical and horizontal RC members enhance the strength and ductility (deformability) of the masonry walls. Advanced construction skills and inspection at different stages of construction are necessary to ensure quality of reinforced masonry. For example the vertical wall reinforcement must be continuous from the foundations to the roof level and have adequate

tension laps where bars are spliced as the normal length of a reinforcing bar come in lengths between 6M and 12M. Similar comments apply for the horizontal reinforcement in the tie beams.




Fig.9.3: Confined masonry construction in progress showing the hollow block walls constructed in advance of the RC columns. Note also the vertical reinforcement in the masonry walls and bed joint reinforcement extending into the column reinforcement.

In confined masonry construction the masonry walls are constructed first one storey at a time, followed by the cast insitu RC tie-columns and the tie-beans are cast on top of the walls, simultaneously with the

floor/roof slab construction.

The tie-columns are cast against a rough (toothed and/or doweled) surface and thus are integrated into the masonry wall in confined masonry construction. Gravity loads in confined masonry construction are supported mostly by the masonry walls.

Fig.9.4: Infill masonry panel strut action. When subjected to lateral seismic loads, walls in confined masonry buildings act as shear walls to resist these loads and transfer them to the foundations. Earthquake induced lateral forces in multi-storey confined masonry buildings, peak at the ground floor level and may cause significant shear cracking. Under severe earthquake ground shaking, the collapse of a confined masonry building may take place at the first storey level. Note that this mechanism is different from soft-storey collapse mechanism which is found in RC frames with masonry

infill walls. In a confined masonry building the stiffness is initially equal at all floor levels, however the collapse occurs at the first storey level due to high seismic loads, which cause extensive masonry cracking and a resulting decrease in the lateral stiffness. Hence the need for special detailing and design at these locations.

Fig.9.5A – Maximum loads occur at ground floor where a soft floor collapse can occur if not designed for.

Fig.9.5B – Example of soft floor collapse. Ground floor columns failed at the 1st floor beam/column connections.

For the purpose of completeness and clarity it is important to highlight the difference between Infilled Frame and Confined Masonry Systems as this goes some way to explain the seemingly random nature of collapse buildings observed in Port-au-Prince, i.e., particularly seemingly identical buildings in close proximity – one collapsed and one left standing suffering only relatively minor damage.




Traditional infilled frame construction consists of RC frames with masonry infill wall panels. The frame elements – columns, beams and slabs – are poured and finished before the infill masonry panels are constructed. There is an identifiable joint at the concrete/masonry column and slab interface.

Fig.9.6: Load path diagram for a RC frame with infill masonry panels when subjected to lateral loads. Note the design and detailing of the beam/column connection is critical for the RC frame’s stability. The frame is designed as moment resistance designed to carry all vertical and lateral loads and the masonry wall panels are considered to be non-structural if there is an adequate ‘movement ’ joint to allow the concrete frame to deflect and sway unimpeded by the infill masonry panels.

Where such movement joints are not installed and the masonry ‘built-tight’ to the enclosing concrete frame, then there will be diagonal compression ‘strut’ forces developed within the plane of the masonry wall panels and this will induce secondary forces in the beam/column connection that need to be accounted for in the design / detailing, along with vertical continuity of lateral loads down to the foundations. Failure of the wall panel takes the form of out-of-plane buckling. Confined masonry construction resemble infilled frame construction but with a reversed construction sequence, resulting in a significant different structural response. The masonry walls are first constructed and then used as formwork for the surrounding frame elements, including columns, Fig.9.7A: Typical confined masonry infill panel & structural behaviour

beams and slabs. In this instance vertical and lateral loads are carried via the masonry walls as the composite frame is one homogeneous mass with no vertical or horizontal discontinuities as is the case for infilled masonry frames where large frictional forces cannot develop at the concrete/masonry interface. Confined masonry also performs well in out-of-plane loading particularly in comparison with infilled frame construction.

Fig.9.7B: Load path diagram for a RC frame with confined masonry panels when subjected to lateral loads. Vertical load bearing on the walls improves force transfer across the beam-wall and beam-column interfaces. The increased compressive stresses reduces tensile stress and strain across the wall panel and facilitates two-way bending. Arching action is achieved because of the mechanical saw-toothed connection at the column-wall interface.




From the buildings inspected the wall-first, (confined masonry) construction were in some cases a hybrid form of infill frame construction and confined masonry construction. The variations included:

Columns toothed into the enclosing masonry walls but a horizontal joint at the wall/slab interface

Columns not toothed into the enclosing masonry walls but the walls built first and used as a shutter for the columns. This also included a soft joint at the wall/slab interface.

Fig.9.10: Damage to a school under construction The placing of the concrete in confined masonry walls may be challenging due to the smaller dimension of these elements and when the concrete is mixed on site excess water is added to allow the concrete ‘pour’ more easily into the tie beams and columns. This results in segregation of aggregate / sand and greatly reduces the strength of the element when subjected to seismic loading. This occurs due to a lack of technical understanding and not having vibrators to adequately compact the concrete if mixed correctly.

Note the vertical joint between the wall/column interface and lack of confinement over the opening in Figure 9.10 and likewise for Figure 9.11.

Fig. 9.11: Damage to a school under construction Inadequate quality of masonry materials and construction results in crushing of the masonry after diagonal cracking has taken place, thus causing significant post-cracking strength and stiffness degradation. The inadequacies in the concrete blocks results from poor manufacturing i.e. inadequate grading and proportioning of mix ingredients and inadequate curing. It should be remembered that masonry walls built using low-strength hollow concrete blocks are more prone to brittle failures compared to walls built using solid concrete and clay units. When hollow concrete

blocks are used for confined masonry construction it is critical to ensure that the minimum material strength and construction quality are met with. Note in Figure 9.11 adequate continuity of beam and column reinforcement, which is the exception rather than the norm.

Fig.9.12: Buckling and bursting of the concrete due to member being inadequately reinforced and under-strength concrete.

Inadequate confinement at the ends of RC tie-columns can result in premature buckling when increased axial compression stresses develop in localised areas where masonry has been completely disintegrated.




The absence of confining elements around openings results in an insufficient number of confined wall panels which contribute to lateral load resistance. In addition, poor quality of construction will result in inadequate shear strength of the masonry walls. Wall density is equally of importance.

The absence of RC tie-columns at openings results in excessive damage of masonry piers and prevents the development of compressive struts in masonry wall panels – this is the key mechanism for lateral load transfer in confined masonry walls.

Fig.9.13A: Infill brick panel resisting lateral loads by diagonal strut action. For this to develop important all openings are fully framed.

Fig. 9.13B: Containment of the masonry panel by the RC framing. Note the right hand column distortion from the lateral sway loads.

Fig.9.14A: More pronounced response /

deflection at the higher levels

Fig.9.14B: Note the curvature on the end column

over the height of the building from the sway motion of the building.

Absence of ties in the joint regions causes a shear failure of the joint. Discontinuous longitudinal reinforcement at RC tie-beam intersections should be avoided.




Reinforcement cages for tie-beam and tie-columns are often assembled off the building site and it is therefore imperative that additional ‘continuity reinforcement’ is provided in the joint areas after the cages are placed in their final position.

Soft and Weak Stories: The most common type of vertical irregularity occurs in buildings that have an open floor, usually ground. The building has both columns and masonry infill walls in the upper stories but only columns in the open storey. Fig.9.15: 1st floor soft storey collapse

Open storeys have consistently shown poor performance during past earthquakes across the world. In many instances, the upper floors over an open intermediate or ground floor storey moves as a single rigid block; this makes the building behave like an inverted pendulum, with the open storey acting as a pendulum rod and the rest of the building acting as a rigid pendulum mass. As a consequence, large movements occur locally in the soft storey columns alone, thereby inducing large damage in the columns

during an earthquake.

Masonry strength has a significant influence upon the seismic resistance of a confined masonry building and the life safety of its inhabitants. It is therefore extremely important to ensure satisfactory minimum material strength and construction quality are employed.

Hollow masonry units should be used with caution in non-engineered buildings. To ensue satisfactory seismic performance of masonry walls built using concrete blocks, it is critical that the minimum material strength and construction quality are employed. The following units are not recommended for confined masonry construction:

1. Masonry units with horizontal perforations. 2. Natural stone masonry and adobe (sun-dried earthen units)

The Seismic Design Guide for Low-Rise Confined Masonry Buildings concludes that such buildings have performed well in several earthquakes worldwide and that this construction practice is widely used in many countries and regions for the following reasons:

a. It is based on traditional masonry construction practice. b. It does not require highly qualified labour (as is the case for RC framed construction) c. Confined masonry technology falls in between that of unreinforced masonry and RC

frame construction; however, due to its similar member sizes and the lesser amount of reinforcement it is more cost-effective than RC framed construction, especially when labour is inexpensive.

d. It has a broad range of applications, that is, it can be used for single-family houses as well as for medium rise apartment buildings.

However, the following disadvantages are associated with confined masonry construction:




a. Confined masonry construction is more expensive than unreinforced masonry construction and requires somewhat higher level of labour skills, however its earthquake performance is significantly better than unreinforced masonry construction.

b. It is characterised by lower strength and ductility (brittle) when compared to properly designed and built ductile RC frame construction and may require larger wall area when compared to RC frame construction with masonry infill’s.

Confined masonry construction has a good potential for saving lives and property in areas of high seismic risk around the world. However, like any other construction practice, good earthquake performance is based on the following premises:

Use of good quality materials. Good quality of concrete and masonry construction. Simple architectural design.

Unfortunately we saw the disastrous consequences in Haiti when none of the above are achieved and instead of building safe habitats, large scale urban death traps were created, as is evident from the attached photos in Appendix A.




10.0 MARCH 2010 FIELD OBSERVATIONS

The author undertook his own inspection of the building damage in Haiti in March 2010, as part of an initial evaluation report on behalf of Build Aid titled ‘A Disaster Many Years In The Making’, 29.03.2010. What became apparent whilst undertaking the evaluation survey was the random and indiscriminate manor in which the earthquake caused building damage i.e. two adjacent building of similar construction type, with one suffering severe damage and the other only very little damaged. Whilst the underlying ground conditions will influence the magnitude of the ground borne vibrations, and hence the extent of building damage, but not so for buildings in close proximity to each other, unless there was a fundamental difference in their design approach. Earthquakes will exploit any inherent weaknesses in a building structure from design concept, to poor geometric layout, to poor workmanship, to age related material dilapidation to inappropriate structural alterations or repairs.

The negative impact of deleterious materials in the use of RC was not previously understood by the typical domestic house builder. High chloride (salts) content resulting from the use of unwashed beach sand and aggregates will result in long term corrosion of the reinforcement when combined with insufficient cover to the reinforcement and poorly compacted (vibrated) concrete. Over time the alkalinity of the concrete is neutralised – this is called carbonation and it increases the potential for corrosion where oxygen and moisture can permeate to the reinforcement. In the past the government campaigned to discourage the use of beach sand and instead use river sands. How successful this campaign has been is uncertain owing to the lack of independent building supervision. Regardless of its success there is a significant volume of housing stock and other buildings that have been built using beach sand.

In Haiti the other source for high chlorides in the concrete is from the atmosphere owing to its proximity to the sea (sea salt). This can be equally detrimental to the reinforcement where poor quality porous concrete exists. Unfortunately, earthquakes have the uncanny ability of exploiting inherent building fabric weaknesses.

Owing to Haiti’s large deposits of limestone it is used extensively as aggregate in the making of concrete. Compared to igneous rocks, limestone is not as strong and the limestone deposits in Haiti is particularly weak. Owing to limestone’s natural cementing properties more limestone aggregate is used to save on cement when making concrete. The combination of both compounds the problem with regard to producing concrete of very low compressive strength. In recognition of this Haiti’s public works ministry prohibited the use of weak limestone aggregates after the earthquake and instead recommended the use of sands and rocks from river beds. Again how successful this has been is difficult to gauge owing to the lack of supervision.

All cement is imported into Haiti, as home production ceased in 1997 when it was privatised thus making it even more expensive.




Fig.10.1: Poor quality concrete in a damaged column. Poorly graded large rounded aggregate and weak cement paste that crumbled leaving the aggregate unfractured. Good quality concrete will fracture through the aggregate.

To aid pouring/placing of the concrete, excess water is frequently added and this also increases the volume thus reducing on the quantities of materials used and saving on cost. This further weakened the concrete as it is only as strong as the cement paste and when fractured will fracture round the aggregate and not through the aggregate which should be the case for good quality ‘strong’ concrete. The grading of the aggregate is clearly something that is also lacking,

particularly for the Self-build Home-projects where all concrete is site prepared.

Fig.10.2: Coils of reinforcement being delivered to a building site by hand cart

Steel reinforcement in Haiti is imported in large, tightly bound coils approximately 1M in diameter. The coils are then straightened and sold in 9M lengths these pieces are then bent in half for transportation. Once on site the reinforcement is cut and re-bent to suit site specific requirements.

Fig.10.3: Earthquake damaged building floor slab being carefully demolished with the reinforcement kept insitu for re-use and supported off the existing insitu repaired columns. Whilst in Haiti we saw reinforcement being salvaged from nearly every building destroyed for re-use. A substantial amount of the reinforcement was mild steel (smooth reinforcement bars), this could no longer be purchased after 2000, now it is only deformed (high

yield) reinforcement that is available. In some instances where some or all of the columns were still upright the concrete slabs were carefully broken out with the reinforcement remaining in-place for re-use in the recast floor slab. The bending and re bending of the reinforcement is common practice with




little appreciation for the effect this will have on its strength. Most of the reinforcement in Haiti is sold as ungraded

Fig.10.4: Poor application of confined masonry construction due to the infill blockwork being constructed in advance of the masonry walls. The columns are too slender to have been designed as an RC frame with infill masonry panels.

Fig.10.5: Lack of vertical reinforcement continuity between the RC beam and floor slab over. Note also how inadequately the beam is reinforced and the poor quality of the concrete.

Fig.10.6: As fig.10.5 showing woefully under reinforced poorly compacted backing concrete concealed by rendered facing brickwork giving a false impression on the adequacy of the construction. The concrete simply turned to dust from the ground shaking.




Fig.10.7: Classic failure mode of ‘table-top’ construction due to the absence of vertical bracing and inadequately sized RC columns which were not designed to develop moments at their base. The bulk of the column size is the ‘non-structural’ stone cladding which belies its vulnerability to horizontal seismic loading. The heavy concrete roof slab would have magnified the dynamic loading from the ground shaking.

Fig.10.8: Classic sway and torsional failure of the pseudo-type confined masonry single storey shed due in part to there being no / limited diaphragm action generated by the roof i.e. not adequately cross-braced on plan. Whilst the infill masonry wall panels remained adhere to the concrete columns the torsional effects ‘snapped’ the wall and the base of the columns as shown. Note however, the foundation remained intact. Correctly constructed confined-masonry has the walls constructed in advance of the columns and not the other way round as was the case here.

Fig.10.9: Excessively thick mortar bed joints (of the order of 30mm) will impair the compressive and shear strength of the walls and the lack of block stretcher bonding significantly compromises the homogenous-mass behaviour of the wall panel. Note also the soft joint ate the head of the wall compromising its confined masonry behaviour together with the absence of restraint at openings. When rendered these shortcomings are hidden. The various re-entrant angles of the elevation adds to its vulnerability to sustain more significant seismic damage.




Fig.10.10: Internal view on the top floor of a two storey building of confined masonry ‘design intent’ showing the concrete columns inboard of the perimeter walls and a clear joint at the head of the wall plus no confinement around the openings. All of this adds up to making it extremely vulnerable to the destructive effects of seismic loading.

Fig.10.11: Vertical discontinuity of load path introduce at floor level. Whilst the floor beam ‘corbells’ out over the column there is no top steel or links to prevent ‘bursting and the bottom steel is fully visible and is not anchored into the supporting column. All-in-all a total mess resulting from a total lack of engineering understanding on the technical aspect of reinforced concrete. Note also there is no tie beam at the head of the wall and the wall over is most probably supported off an inappropriately detailed cantilevered floor slab. Note the variation in the masonry bed joint thickness.

Fig.10.12: Insitu concrete floor slab soffit showing the insitu solid strips and hollow concrete blocks. The construction is extremely poor lacking any obvious continuity of the concrete strips, extremely poor quality concrete poorly compacted and exposed reinforcement where used. The slab had visibly deflected and appeared to be only supported of the perimeter columns plus incidental support off masonry walls. All-in-all a toxic mix and a disaster waiting to happen.




Fig.10.13: Sadly the finished product belies the hidden dangers highlighted in Figures 10.9 to 10.12 inclusive.

Fig.10.14: Structural discontinuity of vertical loads makes structures much more vulnerable to sustaining more significant seismic damage if not properly engineered instead of rule-of-thumb design which is a kick back to the more vernacular construction.

Fig.10.15: Timber framed Gingerbread house in Leogane which remained standing following the earthquake despite numerous concrete framed buildings having collapsed in the immediate vicinity of the house.




Fig.10.16: Timber framed house that despite being highly distorted from the seismic ground shaking yet remained standing.

Fig.10.17: Two-storey timber framed house despite having suffered partial collapse of the 1st floor the building remained partially standing due to its lightweight construction, joint continuity and the beneficial propping of an adjacent structure

Fig.10.18: Traditional Kay wooden framed house that survived the earthquake relatively intact. Its lightweight construction would have been hugely beneficial.




Fig.10.19: Streetscape showing traditional two storey braced timber framed dwelling intact following the earthquake.

Fig.10.20: Significantly demolished loadbearing stone masonry building with a steel framed roof and timber floors. Note the rubble wall is sandwiched between a brickwork skin on both faces. Such construction will crumble to dust very easily when shaken, particularly when subjected to torsional loads due to poor diaphragm action of the floor plates and roof.

Fig.10.21: Traditional Gingerbread house having sustained partial collapse of the projecting stairwell (such appendages are structural discontinuities vulnerable to collapse). Note however that the traditional timber roof over remains in position as it is cantilevering out from the main roof. Although the brick piers have sustained damage the arched windows proved beneficial in being able to attenuate the motion. The fact that the openings are formed with brickwork this helped contained the infill rubble wall.




Fig.10.22: Traditional Gingerbread House with loadbearing masonry on the ground floor and braced timber framed infilled with masonry (Colombage). Apart from the boundary fence wall sustaining partial collapse the house itself survived relatively intact.

Fig.10.23: Elevation of a building showing the characteristic layout of the mixed brick with rubble stone masonry found in many Gingerbread houses in Port-au-Prince. The brick piers and horizontal brick courses are crucial in restraining the walls from complete collapse.

Fig.10.24: The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de L'Assomption, often called Cathédrale de Port-au-Prince, built between 1884 and 1914 sustained significant damage from the earthquake. Being a loadbearing rubble/masonry building of significant stature it would have lacked any real robustness to deal with the seismic ground shaking. Such buildings would need significant seismic retrofitting (prior to an earthquake) to have any chance of avoiding significant collapse.




Fig.10.25: The National Palace built between 1914 / 1920 by the US Marines is of hybrid construction of reinforced concrete and loadbearing masonry / rubble wall construction. It sustained significant damage from the 2010 earthquake.

Fig.10.26: As Figure 11.23. It lacked the necessary robustness to deal with the seismic ground shaking. Such buildings would need significant seismic retrofitting (prior to an earthquake) to have any chance of avoiding significant collapse.

Survey work undertaken by the WMF observed that while damage to some of the loadbearing masonry buildings was severe, few of the masonry houses actually collapsed. By rough estimates approximately 5% to 10% of the brick and rubble stone masonry houses suffered substantial or total collapse.

The most significant problem for many of the masonry buildings was that the two types – brick and rubble stone – were used together in almost all the masonry buildings. As a variant on the European practice of placing rubble in between two withes of brick to form a wall, in Haiti the rubble stone was empanelled between brick piers that surrounded the windows, doors and corners of the building. The extensive damage and collapse of a significant number of the historic masonry buildings can be attributed to the extremely low strength and rapid degradation of these rubble stone panels when subjected to seismic lateral loads from ground shaking.

The 2010 Mission Report found that the pan-de-bois buildings survived the earthquake much better than did the buildings with the rubble stone masonry. Those with the pan-de-bois on the 2nd floor with loadbearing masonry walls on the ground floor were often left with the pan-de-bois floor almost perfectly intact atop the heavily damaged brick and rubble masonry walls of the floor below. The internal walls in the Haitian pan-de-bois are clad with sawn wood boards. These boards make the building almost into an all-wood structure, with the brick or stone infilling simply an architectural feature. The masonry infilling however helped to dampen / absorb the seismic energy.




It was found that much of the rubble fill in the colombage construction, the infill stonework within the brick frame absorbed energy from the earthquake. The transmission of energy across the wall plane tended to jostle stones loose and the soft nature of the bonding medium allowed for failure to occur in stages. Thus the working of the structure caused by the earthquake vibrations resulted in the rubble collapsing from between the piers, leaving the building standing on the piers as a series of legs. It is clear that some of the buildings may have swayed considerably while the earthquake was ongoing as the infill panels degraded. The breaking of the rubble undoubtedly served to dissipate a lot of energy, and thus may have ultimately saved the structure from collapse, even though the weakness of the material made for an extremely low threshold for the onset of significant damage. It was observed for the Gingerbread Houses which have window and door penetrations on all elevations that the brick piers were crucial to protection against collapse, while the rubble stone was particularly vulnerable to collapse from earthquake vibrations. The low cohesion of the material used combined with the tendency of non-horizontally bedded low-strength masonry to suffer vertical collapse from the internal settlement and consequential horizontal expansion forces within the core of the wall from earthquake vibrations.

The damage to historic masonry buildings in Haiti suggests insights on the larger question of what lead to the profoundly high casualties in the newer buildings. It was apparent that the historic masonry construction with the rubble stone in the walls in Port-au-Prince was profoundly weaker and vulnerable to earthquake damage. However, they proved more resilient than many, but not all of the concrete buildings, where the concrete block infill walls acted as a rigid structure, in large part due to the higher bonding strength of the cement mortar. They tended to resist the movement of the frame to the point where the undersized columns of the RC frame failed completely, often causing pancaking of the building. This structural collapse mechanism resulted from a combination of inappropriate construction techniques and a total lack of understanding of the underlying design requirements for confined masonry construction. The ‘newer’ un-engineered buildings were a hybrid design of infilled panel and confined masonry construction, coupled with very poor construction, creating a lethal cocktail of defects that resulted in a building with only minimal robustness and threshold level to resist only minor magnitudes of seismic ground shaking. To refer to them as ‘confined-masonry’ buildings is somewhat of a misnomer and they may be better described as pseudo-infilled masonry buildings.

Approximately 90% of the building stock in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan region is residential housing. Nearly two thirds of these buildings, across all economic classes, are one-storey single family dwellings constructed in a homogenous manner with reinforced concrete frame elements infilled with unreinforced masonry. Housing was the single most affected sector as a result of the earthquake.

In downtown Port-au-Prince fully 36% of the commercial and industrial buildings were totally or partially collapsed, and an additional 15% were heavily damaged, but the number drops to 11% collapsed in the high density residential areas, which presumably includes the squatter settlements. This means that the remaining 64% in the downtown area and 89% in the high density residential areas were still standing. This level of damage is not even close to what has occurred in some other recent earthquakes PDNA where almost 100% of buildings had collapsed in densely populated cities Bachau, in Gujarat in 2001, (A.F.Lang, J.D.Marshall).

Had this kind of construction been adopted in California for all new urban construction as it has been in Haiti then an earthquake of similar magnitude there would probably cause a similar level of damage. Instead of concrete 90% to 95% of all buildings in the US are constructed of timber which is both easier to build correctly and far more forgiving of mistakes in design and construction than concrete frames with infill masonry.




Thus, it was mostly extreme variations in quality of reinforced concrete frame design and construction rather than particular construction typologies that made a difference. The fact that 36% of these downtown commercial buildings collapsed compared to about 10% of masonry buildings with the weakest form of rubble stone should lead to a more fundamental change in approach to mitigation in rapidly developing cities in earthquake areas than simply saying that what is needed is a greater attention to seismic performance in building design. It is time to curtail the current near-total reliance on the current form of RC with infill construction. In addressing this problem, it is masonry rather than concrete that may be the key.

The post earthquake reconnaissance for the United States Geological Survey USGS and Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, EER, concluded that severe damage to numerous buildings could have been avoided with greater attention to seismic performance.

A report produced by UN Habitat titled Strategic citywide spatial planning, A situational analysis of metropolitan Port-au-Prince 2009, made the following statement with regard to housing quality: “Despite the lack of security, overall housing quality is quite high, residents in the metropolitan area are not threatened by evictions and therefore invest in their homes. Most houses, even many in dilapidated slum areas, are built with permanent materials such as a cement floor, concrete blocks and wooden doors. The lack of enforcement of building regulation and planning standards is however both a blessing and a curse for residents,; it allows residents to stay informally (normally cheaply) and securely in their houses, but also increases the environmental and safety risks associated with unplanned settlements.” In light of the impact the 2010 earthquake had on the built-environment it was more a curse rather than a blessing, and whilst the lack of enforcement was recognised the ‘finished’ external appearance of the buildings i.e. nicely rendered and painted, belied the dangers that lay beneath this glistening exterior – a deck of cards ready to collapse catastrophically from ground shaking. A recommendation of the UN HABITAT Report : Strategic Citywide Spatial Planning, (2009) with regard using densification to counteract urban sprawl was: “Urban sprawl, could be eliminated through changing construction norms so that it e.g. will be easier to get permission to build more than one floor. This type of construction takes place already informally, in areas that are considered a bit more ‘secure’ from the point of view of evictions and where inhabitants are wealthier. An encouragement of building in several floors would also open up for more renting than there is today, when almost everyone is constructing their own house. …..To limit the sprawl will on the long term also mean shorter distances, and a more walkable city, less dependant on motorised transport. Municipal advice offices could be established for assistance regarding e.g. applications for construction permits, technical support for construction and legal advice on different forms of ownership or leasing.” Again for such a consideration ever to be actioned it could only be carried out through a coordinated programme of municipal building projects which are properly engineered and designed and supervised during construction least we have an even bigger loss of life from future earthquakes. The reality on the ground is there are areas on unused plots that aren’t accessible by transportation that people have begun moving onto. There are people who are rebuilding homes with the exact same materials as before the earthquake, in the exact same manner. Since the government is almost entirely absent from the rebuilding process, people have just begun the process on their own, and this is worrisome.




11.0 HOUSING

Very few Port-au-Prince residents have legal titles for their land. Even in the more wealthy areas of the city the normal procedure, when selling and buying a property, is to go to a public notary who makes a declaration of ownership. The problem is that there can be several claims to the property, as there is no cadastre or official register of ownership. The ownership or transfer of ownership is normally not registered by local authorities or the legal system and is therefore not fully secured.

The land in Haiti is either owned by the state or by a private person or organisation, Due to inadequate registration and follow-up, there are no clear records of what land is owned by the state or by someone else. If there are doubts, people have to bring their case to court.

The land and property belonging to the state of Haiti is divided into two groups; public and private property. The state’s public property is not transferable and contains mainly of public spaces such as roads, lakes, rivers, parks, cemeteries and shorelines. The state’s private property can on the other hand be appropriated by an individual or judicial person, and this property falls under the jurisdiction of the General Revenue Office (DGI).

The rules for buying and renting state-owned and privately owned land are different. In both cases it is a cumbersome expensive and long procedure to become the lawful owner of a property. While the buyer is in the process of obtaining the title, which takes years, a temporary title is normally issued. One of the longer steps in the process involves the actual transcription of title at the DGI and can take between one and two years. For these reasons most people do not even try to acquire land. Instead they lease land and build a house, rent a house or get property on the informal market.

There are many shades of informal or illegal tenure. The two major types are informality in land acquisition and informality in construction on or use of the land. The owner or leaser of the land can be different from the owner or leaser of the construction, which in turn can rent out part of the construction. For land and house tenure there are several different ways in which the property can be considered informal:

1. Land: Lack of title, squatting, land grabbing Illegal sub-division Fermage (a type of lease) is used for non-agricultural land. Leasing land from false owners or false state representatives. Sellers did not comply with tax regulations

2. Houses. No construction permit Non-compliance with construction standards. Not following planning or land use regulations. Subleasing without permission. Failure to pay rent.

Ronel Thelusmond, director of the technical division of the National Institute for the Application of Agrarian Reform (INARA), part of the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture advised:

“The government has to deal with the issue of land security, but they’re not taking any proactive action. And there are at least five different government offices which give land titles and they don’t interact with each other. They’re all issuing decisions at the same time and that creates confusion and problems. Every institution is looking out for its own interests and there isn’t any coordination taking place in any real way, and this applies to international aid as well.

The law expressly gives the government the right to find land to build new houses on, and it says what measures the government can take to take control of that land, as well. In short, the government




has the necessary means and the legal tools for displaced people to have places to build homes. The question is if it’s willing to use those means, if it has the political will.

Plus, we can’t rebuild houses the way they were built before. Haiti needs a social policy for housing. The government has to create the social elements and conditions under which people that don’t have a home can get one.

In the Dominican Republic they have housing co-ops. Why can’t we create something similar here? Why can’t the government make use of the funds it has and let people take part in building their own houses? It’s possible.

But before we can even talk about construction, we need clear policies toward a comprehensive development plan. We at INARA believe that there should be a national debate, with a chance for all people to present proposals. This is about letting people participate in the building themselves, letting them have a say in what vision they have for the nation. A comprehensive, national development needs to involve the participation of the entire population.

Here another, broader issue is at stake: the expansion of Port-au-Prince. We must have zoning. This means the government should define where homes can be built, where factories can be built, where irrigation can be done, et cetera. Otherwise we’ll continue to be in trouble.

There is land available, in the metropolitan zone of the department of the West [the equivalent of a state, which includes Port-au-Prince]. One of the largest landowners in Haiti is the government itself. But the government doesn’t even know what land belongs to it, because a full survey has never been done. INARA began to work on this but it didn’t have the necessary resources to finish, even though the constitution gives it the right to do this. We can’t speak of development without speaking of decentralization. Everything they are doing is focused on Port-au-Prince. Why is that? It has to do with the mentality of centralization in the capital which has been in place for many years now.

The Haitian Right to Housing Collective, an advocacy platform of human rights organisations that includes a coalition of 26 grassroots groups and displacement camp committees, is calling on the Haitian government, with the support of its allies and donors, to prioritise public or affordable housing for Haiti’s urban poor and homeless. In order to do this the Haitian government must first:

1. Designate land for housing construction. 2. Create one centralised government housing institution to coordinate and implement a social

housing plan. 3. Solicit and allocate funding to realise this plan.”

More than three years after the earthquake hundreds of thousands of Haitians are still waiting for visible housing solutions. Even before the earthquake, Haiti was experiencing a major housing crisis, with an estimated shortage of 300,000 homes in 2009. After the earthquake more than 1.5 million people were left homeless and today the number of people still living in tent camps is estimated to be over 360,000, with even more Haitian’s living in substandard housing, deemed unsafe by public authorities. Historically, vast public works programs have been implemented around the world to build and manage rental housing, and finance programmes to facilitate private home ownership. It is argued Haiti should be no exception. The government is bound by a constitutional directive to support the needs of people living without adequate housing. Despite the existing crisis, the GoH has not yet produced a comprehensive housing plan to address the shortage of housing affecting homeless Haitians. A draft National Housing and Urban Development Policy was published in April 2012, by the newly formed government institution, Unite de Construction de Logements et de Batiments Publics (UCLBP), with significant technical and financial support from the World Bank. The policy provides a framework for reconstruction that relies heavily on private investment, by companies and Haitian families, to rebuild sustainable housing for the estimated 1.5 million Haitians that remain displaced. One of its stated challenges is to build 500,000 new houses to address the current housing deficit and need over the next 10 years.




According to the UCLBC policy, the housing deficit can only be met by “Haitian families and the private sector.” Further the document states that the role of government is solely to facilitate the work of the families and the private sector, notably in planning land use, providing construction codes, risk reduction, environmental management, security concerns, and plan the appropriate rural/urban mix to meet the country’s needs. No funding mechanism is outlined in the UCLBP project and although it is being branded as a housing plan, it is clear that the UCLBP policy emphasizes private financing, putting the responsibility back on the people. It is argued that by relying on private housing options that require significant investment of money and labour from ordinary Haitians, the Policy marginalises the poor, and women in particular, who are less likely than men to control household incomes and are predominantly responsible for unpaid, time-consuming housework. The policy recognises the need for ordinary Haitians to “establish their priorities on the basis of their own needs” based on a “right to choose and self-determination” that is “fundamental and inalienable”. Yet the Policy omits that Haitians have the right to decent housing, guaranteed in Article 22 of the Haitian constitution as well as Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Policy states that “housing construction is the responsibility of families themselves”. In this way the Policy, under the banner of empowering Haitian families, places the onus for reconstruction on the destitute poor who lack resources for construction with no assurance that private investors will provide the means to do so. If the policy promotes investment by private companies to address the housing crisis, it must also ensure that it does not make Haitians, particularly women, more vulnerable. The Haitian housing crisis demands a long-term comprehensive solution, and this solution must address gender-related concerns to be effective, (Gender Action, September 2012). The plan does also not commit to preventing forced evictions. With the support of international donors, national authorities also launched, in August 2011, a plan to relocate and resettle out of the IDP camps and into a safer and more secure environment. This activity was scaled up on the request by the Haitian government and the desire of the HRC to be involved in the government’s ‘Project 16/6’. Project 16/6 refers to the government’s focus on the renovation of 16 neighbourhoods and the decongestion of 6 camps. Through the project, families receive a rent subsidy of US$500 over a period of 12 months to encourage them to leave the camps for better housing and US$25 for transport. Families are responsible for finding their own home to rent and reaching an agreement with the landlord, (Gender Action, September 2012). Through its decongestion programme, the International Federation of the Red Cross, (IFRC), offered all households the standard package that included a 12-month rental grant, T-shelter, house repair or host family support including additional livelihood grants and vocational training. Due to its success the IFRC is studying the possibility of expanding its rental grant project in an effort to support and to continue the decongestion of camps in designated areas.

Amnesty International reported that even though the project helped some families, subsidies are too low, individuals are not supported to find accommodation and families are not offered support in the long-term. One major challenge acknowledged by IFRC to the alternative shelter solutions, especially the rental grant option, is the danger that the household will not be able to afford rent the following year. It is therefore important to find sustainable solutions that can remain beyond the first 12 months, IFRC immediate solution is increased access to livelihood activities for the sustainability of the shelter solution activities.




It is essential that while the available grants are providing incentive and resources for households to leave the camps, it is important that investment in housing stock through house repairs and new construction continue to increase. However, that needs to take place faster and at a faster pace in order to meet the increasing demand in housing. Shortage of affordable housing has been a concern in Port-au-Prince even before the 2010 earthquake.

Many people told Amnesty International delegates in Haiti of their worries about not knowing where they would live after the end of the subsidies, as they would not be able to afford the rent. As it is, they are currently struggling to feed themselves and their children, let alone pay for other basic essentials such as clothing, medicine and education. “Current government housing initiatives seem to focus more on preventing people from living in public squares than providing them with safe homes. What we want to see is the implementation of policies that will actually make the right to adequate housing a reality in the country,” said Javier Zúñiga, Special Advisor at Amnesty International. The withdrawal of humanitarian actors in early 2011 and funding shortfalls have contributed to worsening living conditions in the makeshift camps. Only a fraction of funds pledged by donors has been allocated to fund housing projects. “Back in 2010, the world couldn’t move fast enough to help Haiti but three years on, we see that the hopes for its recovery have not been realized, as the rights of Haitians do not seem to have been made a priority. The country needs action from national authorities and real support from the international community,” said Zúñiga. Of the US$988 million in US Government post-earthquake recovery and reconstruction efforts, it’s been reported that only 10% has been spent to provide shelter to those left homeless. It’s contended that international assistance for housing has not even scratched the surface of the need, with less than 5,000 homes constructed since the earthquake. Relief and reconstruction efforts have neglected to prioritise the most basic need for earthquake survivors, forcing hundreds of thousands of women, men and children to remain under tents for the past three years. The US government has been involved in the Caracol Industrial Park, financing housing construction for potential factory workers in the new free trade zone, as well as a power plant and a deep sea port. The Haitian government used eminent domain (compulsory purchase) to make the land available for the factories transforming a fertile farming area into a 617 acre industrial park. The housing in Caracol has received extensive criticism from the Architectural Peer Review of Caracol EKAM Housing. According to these engineers, the housing has no provision for water connections, uses improper roofing material, provides little space between houses and states that it has the potential to become a “blighted slum or public health disaster resulting in added despair for the Haitian people.” Three of the major housing projects managed by the Haitian government have provided little reprieve to the housing shortage. A project in Morne Kabrit, located just nine miles from Port-au-Prince, was financed by the Venezuelan Petro-Caribe Fund at a reported cost of US$44 million to build 3,000 houses. There is very little known about this project on the ground. Some of the many questions being asked by stakeholders are: “What is the exact number of lodgings to be built? What is the total budget? When will the construction be completed? Under what conditions was the contract signed, and by whom? What firm is executing the project, and what firm is overseeing the project? Does the project fit with the government’s new housing policy? Who is or are the landowner(s), and how much money did he or they receive? Are the houses meant to be public housing for the victims of the January 2010




earthquake? Or like the housing being built in the North near the new industrial park in Caracol or are they private meant for the eventual workers at another industrial park, planned by the government? Or maybe for the workers that will work at a third set of factories, planned for the private Integrated Economic Zone of Corail, more commonly known as NABATEC? Is the public subsidizing the private by making it cheaper and easier for foreign corporations to set up factories where they can hire workers for the lowest salary in the hemisphere? On the ground, there are many mini-houses, but no sign explaining who is doing what, for how long, and at what price to the Haitian nation.” This apparent lack of transparency is a concern and does not bode well for generating good relationships with grass-root stakeholders.” The second project to build 400 new homes was developed in Zoranje and paid for by a grant from the IDB worth $30 million. Despite the completion of these Zoranje homes in February 2012 only a handful has been offered to some government employees. Unfortunately, the remaining houses stand empty, waiting for the government and donors to resolve beneficiary selection. This project is part of a programme in three phases, to build a total of 2,000 units in the departments of the West, North East and South. The project was coordinated by the Fund of Economic and Social Assistance (FAES) [Government of Haiti], supported by a steering committee comprising several stakeholders in health, education, the Ministry of Planning and institutions like the DINEPA. In July 2012 the Fund of Economic and Social Assistance (FAES) signed with the Taiwanese firm, Overseas Engineering & Construction Corp. LTDA. S.A, (OECC), the contract for the construction of 100 social housing in Brefèt and a fundamental school in Les Cayes I Southern Haiti. This project is the result of an agreement between the Government of Taiwan and the Republic of Haiti through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This donation of US$4.42 millions will be used to rehouse 100 families of the Ravine du Sud, exposed to weather hazards and to facilitate the education for some 500 students from the same commune.

Unfortunately there is little information on the total number of permanent houses currently built by NGO’s. However, many Haitians seemed critical of how large scale aid funding has been spent on shorter term ‘band-aids’ (e.g. $500million on 110,000 ‘temporary’ shelters) and on large start-up/ expatriate personnel costs of various international agencies whilst awaiting a credible reconstruction/ recovery policy from the government.

Haiti Grassroots Watch reported in March 2012:

[A two-month investigation by the Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW) investigative journalism partnership in the mountains above Léogâne, found that 34 of the 84 families who received temporary houses, distributed by the British organisation Tearfund, didn’t live in them, and that 11 families got two houses from two different humanitarian organisations, six months after they were built. In total, over the two years since the earthquake, humanitarian organisations have built about 110,000 T-Shelters in the earthquake-struck zones, for a total cost of about US$500 million. The total number of families in need of housing following the quake topped 300,000. To get a T-Shelter, a family had to have proof it owned land or had a long-term lease. Over two-thirds of the post-quake refugee families – some 200,000 families – were renters, meaning they were not eligible for the structures. According to sociologist and economist Camille Chalmers, the presence of hundreds, if not thousands, of organisations and agencies doing humanitarian work, sometimes with methodology that is inappropriate – or worse – is not without its negative consequences.




They are having the tendency of "creating a vicious circle of humanitarianism and of assistance, where people have the mentality of being dependent on hand-outs. This can be very, very negative… in the medium and the long run," Chalmers told HGW in an interview in October 2010.] January 2012 – Chronicle of Philanthropy - Lack of Housing Bedevils Haiti Earthquake Recovery as Cash Runs Low article reports on the following: [Housing has proved the trickiest challenge facing aid workers in Haiti, as they grapple with disputes over land ownership and where they can legally build. And now, with hundreds of thousands of people still homeless, money is starting to dry up. Only about a third of the money raised by aid groups remains. Charities like Food for the Poor and Habitat for Humanity International, which specialize in housing, have spent all the cash they received. The American Red Cross and other large charities still have money, but they are struggling to find effective ways to spend it. Most Haitians didn’t own land before the quake and have nowhere to rebuild. Squabbles over land titles have scuttled projects. Critics fault aid groups for focusing too much on transitional shelter and not enough on long-term solutions. The American Red Cross plans to put $187-million of the $486-million it raised toward housing. Mostly it is providing aid to other nonprofits; so far, it has committed $58.8-million to other charities to provide shelter. But while Red Cross money has given temporary shelter to 36,270 people, it has yet to build a single permanent home. The Red Cross blames the slow pace on confusion over land ownership. Julie Sell, spokeswoman for the Red Cross Haiti assistance program, says fighting over land has brought a few projects to a halt after the charity identified a place to build and gave money to other nonprofits to carry out construction. “We all wish that there were not so many people living under tarps and tents,” she says. “But given the significant challenges working in a place like Haiti, we have made significant progress, particularly in this last year.” But critics fault the charity’s approach. They say the Red Cross, whose focus is on disaster preparedness and immediate emergency response, lacks experience in rebuilding and has not worked closely enough with local organizations and government officials, a charge the nonprofit denies. Dominique Toussaint, chairman of Mobilize for Haiti, a non-profit started by Haitian-Americans, says that last month his group pulled out of an informal collaboration on housing with the Red Cross and other charities, called the Haiti Reconstruction and Redevelopment Task Force, because of lack of progress. He said he’s talked with mayors in Haiti who offer to help arrange land for building but that nonprofits like the Red Cross don’t seem to take advantage of such opportunities. “Groups are unfamiliar with the process of building in Haiti, but if they did more outreach, they would find that there are solutions,” he said. Nonprofits “have become accustomed to operating in a certain way that is very top-down; they don’t do much in terms of consultation.” Others say they wish the Red Cross and other large nonprofits would put more pressure on Haiti’s government to free up land and resolve disputes.




“There are legitimate concerns about land and having title to the land, but many [nonprofits] are sitting at cluster meetings and throwing up their hands,” says Melinda Miles, who directs the Let Haiti Live project at the TransAfrica Forum, an advocacy group. “That borders on criminal negligence. They should put their voices together and exert influence on the Haitian government.” Other non-profit officials say critics vastly underestimate the challenges facing large-scale construction. Mark Andrews, vice president for Habitat’s earthquake recovery work, says his group has built 100 permanent homes so far and plans to build another 400 on the same plot of land. It would be difficult to overstate the complications his charity has faced, Mr. Andrews says. First, Habitat planned to build permanent homes in a town called Cabaret. But several people said that the mayor, who gave Habitat the land, had done so illegally. Habitat moved the project to another town, Léogâne, where similar disputes erupted before the mayor there helped resolve them. As soon as word got out about the project, 300 homeless families moved onto the land in hopes of being awarded one of the homes. Habitat can’t simply remove them, says Mr. Andrews, and the homes have already been assigned to other families. “If you are doing a small project like an orphanage or a school, yes, the church community and those kind of entities can deed land,” he says. “But large-scale housing is a politically loaded issue, and every politician who has a stake in the land will be involved, and it’s just extremely complicated.] Clearly the aid agencies are operating within an extremely challenging theatre with regard the transition from relief to recovery, refer to Figure 1.2, and possibly some are working outside their field of expertise with regard the procurement of long term built-environment projects. It is inevitable however, that they get ‘sucked’ into trying to fill ‘the-gap’ in light of the challenges working with municipalities and government agencies which have been found not to have the necessary capacity or expertise to manage and coordinate such works under their jurisdiction. This lack of capacity is one of the most important challenges to overcome before an exit strategy can be realised by the aid agencies. Working with and engaging the communities to ensure that they take responsibility for the activities and planned outcomes is at the centre of the Integrated Neighbourhood Approach, (INA), programme, and possibilities of a long-term impact for the communities ultimately depend on this. The Red Cross ensures that community groups are formed in all areas where IFRC or Partner Nationale Societies, (PNS), are working as part of INA. Clearly the mantel needs to be taken up by the Haitian government and its secretariat, if we are to avoid perpetuating the ‘two-state’ approach with regard the administration of aid towards the long term rehabilitation of Haiti, and avoid the pitfalls of the 1980’s / 1990’s. However, for this to be effective there needs to be total transparency and accountability by government, stakeholders and funders, (both local and international). The most appropriate type of housing is a discussion that needs to take place in light of the current lack of technical capacity for reinforced concrete buildings, the current lack of forestry to foster vernacular type construction and high import taxes, which significantly impacts on the financial viability of imported proprietary code compliant engineered products. The pressure to meet immediate human needs often leads to imported resources and infrastructure that cannot be sustained after NGO’s withdraw their aid, (Mayo 2009). Therefore, it becomes essential that the effort to meet basic human needs in the short term is flanked by the implementation of infrastructure, institutions and policies that can build the capacity of the Haitians in the long term, (Kijewski-Correa, Taflanidis 2011). Generally in developing countries there is a distinction between public infrastructure and residential housing. Critical infrastructure such as schools, hospitals government buildings etc are usually engineered designed to meet acceptable codes and standards and the works supervised on site and financed by NGO’s. That said, many concrete framed / masonry infill school/university buildings




collapsed as a result of the earthquake, including a UN building. Whilst one would readily blame the complete absence of government oversight, this should not have been the case for such privately funded projects and highlights the deep-rooted ignorance with regard the need for adequately engineered buildings to cater for all hazards, namely, hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding and associated geotechnical considerations. Clearly this was not fully appreciated in some instances and local builders were entrusted to deliver the projects using their “existing ways of building” which we now know were fundamentally flawed. With regards residential housing it did not have the same level of support or funding from NGO’s and not surprisingly they had similar shortcomings in their design and construction. The majority of Haitians who are desperately poor cannot even afford the seemingly low-cost homes which have been show-cased by several private company proposed housing solutions at an exposition in June 2011 organised by The Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission, titled, “Highlight Best Practice for Housing”. The ‘proprietary’ built homes were to sell for upward of US$5,000, with many ranging higher than $10,000 and a few even more than $20,000. It was estimated that only 10% of the house types exhibited relied exclusively on locally sourced materials, (Macdonald 2011). Furthermore, a Haitian Government engineer estimated that over half of the model homes at the Expo were not resistant to earthquakes and hurricanes. Let’s not forget the gross national income per capita in 2011 was a mere US$700 for Haitians, according to the World Bank. Unfortunately, even engineering adequate seismic resilience of the “existing ways of building”, (pseudo confined masonry), can cost up to $20,000 – again, well beyond the reach of the majority of displaced Haitians who have no source of income (Phillips 2011). To enable Haitian’s purchase these properties international banks have been developing financial products to make it easier to offer loans to potential home-buyers, essentially residential mortgage backed securities. The criticism is “even with low interest rates, requiring Haitian families to take out loans to purchase homes is predatory and, for most, would guarantee a life of debt. The prospect sounds eerily familiar to the predatory lending that took place in the US in the lead-up to the subprime mortgage crisis of the late 2000s, when low-income families were trapped by housing loans they could never pay back and were essentially set up for foreclosure”, (Deepa Panchang, Other Worlds, February 2012). Such an approach runs counter to Haitian culture were all private residential building was generally owner self-funded, exclusive of bank borrowing. This proposal gives an average borrowing multiplier of 7 times the gross national income, assuming 100% loans based on the US$5,000 house! We have witnessed credit bubbles throughout the entire Western world and the mess that the lure of ‘cheap’ money brought with it. Even if all such mortgages were underwritten by the Haitian Government it would ultimately expose the Haitian’s to even greater debt and risk on a far greater scale than it has witnessed to date, as there is no such thing as a free meal! Exposing the masses to such high-risk financial products in a country such as Haiti, that has a similar exposure level to natural hazards as Japan, but a much greater vulnerability, is currently totally inappropriate and economically a moral-hazard as it simply will not have the necessary financial resilience to deal with the down-side risks. Such quick-fix solutions are symptoms of an ill thought-out recovery road map that poises the legitimate danger of creating perpetual dependence on foreign aid and indebtedness to international banks for even the most basic infrastructure needs. Some will argue that a mature insurance market will provide the necessary safety net and confidence to increase the desirability for such products. However, with limited public/private insurance and international aid, ex-post public intervention in the case of a catastrophic event is a reality in most of the world, including countries with mature insurance markets. In the US, the average expenditure by the federal government for disaster assistance is significantly greater than the average annual loss borne by reinsurers on the US catastrophe coverage (Froot, 1997). Still, government disaster assistance seldom covers more than a modest share of the actual losses. Therefore, despite a large insurance and reinsurance industry, extensive government programs and international aid, the victims




in both rich and poor countries bear the major share of the increasing losses from natural disasters (Linneroothe-Bayer and Amendoal, 1998). In Haiti the insurance penetration is extremely low at around 0.3% of GDP, thus keeping loss expectations low as there will be little recovery from private insurers. Tha majority of Haiti’s insured risks are situated in Port-au-Prince and motor insurance accounts for 50%. However total economic losses have been estimated at US$8.5 billion, which is circa 120.6% of the country’s national GDP which is a staggering impact on an economy taking years to recover from. The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (“CCRIF” or the “Facility”) paid out US$7.7 million to the Haitian Government following the 2010 earthquake which is 0.096% of the total economic loss. It is estimated that most of the damage and losses have been suffered by the private sector at US$5.722 billion, i.e., 70% of the total loss. While the public sector share amounts to US$2.081 billion, i.e., 30%. So based on public sector losses the CCRIF payment equates to 0.37% of the total economic loss and 0.134% for the private sector losses. The shortfalls will have to be made up by remittance, ex-post borrowing, and assistance from international donors. Clearly the shortfall is significant. The jury is still out with regard the Haitian housing dilemma and how best to achieve sustainability and hazard resilience in light of the urgent need for a coherent nationwide solution, the current general lack of technical capacity to deliver the urban house type of construction choice that fulfils its cultural, economic and functional needs within this urban setting. It is important to remember that apart from the deforestation the other primary driver for switching away from braced timber framed construction was:

the ban on wood construction declared in Port-au-Prince in 1925 in response to a number of devastating fires in the city,

concrete and concrete block are resistant to the strong wind and rain of the hurricanes which regularly batter the island.

Ironically concrete and concrete block were increasingly seen as the building materials of choice in Haiti because they were considered to be more durable, technologically advanced, and modern. It is ironic that it has been a lack of technological appreciation in the application of such construction to resist earthquakes that accounted for so many deaths from the 2010 earthquake. The question then is what alternative structural systems fills the gap in light of the near total lacking in technical capability for modern forms of construction, high level of illiteracy (especially within the adult community) and consequently poor level of education and no appreciation of the need for buildings to be compliant to appropriate earthquake codes? The concern is there will be system built proprietary product(s) imported into Haiti, relying heavily on foreign subsidies and adding little to the inward investment and growth of the country, unless such companies are encouraged to establish production facilities in Haiti and train the local work force to ultimately run such facilities. From the authors own personal experience in assisting BuildAid on a review of available proprietary type residential building systems suitable for hurricane wind loadings and earthquake loadings, there are a multitude of different systems readily available on the open market, from modular to bespoke, ranging from single to multi storey, built from stress-skin timber framing, to light-gauge steel composite framing and post tensioned masonry. Notwithstanding the prohibitive cost, the Haitian construction industry currently does not have the necessary skill set to manufacture and install such systems and to encourage foreign companies to set up such manufacturing process in Haiti would require significant capital investment and training and whilst it may be a long term aspiration such an approach will not meet the medium to short term needs to provide cheap, resilient and sustainable permanent housing. For this reason the approach has to be a multi-solution stepped-approach to enable a transition from the current level of poor infrastructure to government lead municipal projects setting the bench mark and a more pragmatic pro-active approach taken to help the private sector ultimately upgrade their infrastructure over time. This can only ever be achieved via long-term ‘cheap’ loans e.g., interest free




etc. Where such funding is made available houses have to be designed and built to approved codes and standards and independently certified as being fit for purpose on completion. It is worth pointing out that whilst much emphasis is placed on the desire for locally sourced materials, the current primary building materials used in current Haitian construction i.e., reinforcement and cement are not produced in Haiti, and it is not unusual for large scale projects in developing countries for contractors not to include as a fixed sum price, reinforcement, cement and fuel, owing to daily price fluctuations they are normally included as a ‘cost-plus’, owing to their inability to forward purchase large quantities of these materials at a pre-determined price. Some will argue that it is futile to even try and introduce building code adoption and strict enforcement owing to the lack of understanding surrounding the requirements for Haitian homes and the locally available construction technologies, materials and practices as well as the vulnerabilities that they create (Lindell 2010). It is feared that such an approach, which would be coupled with the education of masons, architects and engineers to facilitate Haitian-led masonry reconstruction using native construction technologies, risks returning to the old bad building systems that proved so deadly in the 2010 earthquake. Particularly in the absence of donor funds and their technical due diligence. Others believe that it is easier to introduce minor, low or no-cost improvements to existing ways of building than trying to introduce completely new technology or reintroduce a traditional building method, (Kijewski-Correa, Taflanidis 2011).. For the transition period consideration should be given to all, for example, minor improvements to existing construction methods for ‘simple’ single storey buildings and a much more considered engineered design for two storey and greater buildings to ensure adequate robustness and minimise progressive collapse. The ‘Seismic Guide for Low-Rise Confined Masonry Buildings’ and ‘The Confined Masonry Workshop Handbook’, design guides which focuses on prescriptive design provisions for low-rise buildings give guidance in this regard. Also, Quisqueya University (UniQ) and the University at Buffalo's Earthquake Engineering to Extreme Events, ( MCEER), have united to provide a series of educational seminars on earthquake engineering in Haiti to practicing engineers, architects, graduate students and senior undergraduate students. At some future stage these “permanent intermediate buildings” would eventually be replaced with more robust forms of construction but provided they have been ‘well-built’ they should be fit for purpose as an interim solution. So in this regard vocational training, education and supervision are desirable and necessary. The observation that the re-introduction of traditional building methods is not appropriate, the author would not agree with, especially in light of how relatively well the timber-framed buildings performed with regard them generally avoiding total collapse and their relative light-weight construction minimised fatalities and serious injury. As discussed, the challenge can be simplified somewhat in that the reconstruction for public buildings, schools, hospitals, commercial buildings and public housing can be planned within an appropriate urban environment and designed and constructed to appropriate building codes. The challenge will be the policing of the private sector and the reality that mind-sets will not change over night particularly as there is currently no viable local alternative form of construction. The fact that the current National Housing Policy is focused on being an enabler and not a provider for low cost private housing has only added to the challenge. In one regard the earthquake has made things worse, along with the lack of clear implementable government directive. The extensive damage has lead to an acute shortage in building materials and price inflation which has resulted in the re-use of existing materials, cutting back on the more expensive materials, by using cheaper sub-standard materials to bulk-out the concrete/mortar, cutting back on reinforcement by re-using damaged reinforcement and patch




repairing damaged buildings as best they can. These private property owners have only to rely on their own personal finances to remedy their damaged buildings as best they can, as they have no insurance or government assistance to fall back on. The current academic discussions on identifying the most appropriate structural form for replacement of low to medium rise housing / family business premises is of little relevance to these people as they needed action in the immediate months following the earthquake. Long term there will hopefully be a sustainable and resilient solution but unfortunately short-term it may be very much a case of the majority of the people having to make do as best they can on available resources, this however may well adversely impact on the social cohesion which is already at a critical state and at risk of boiling-over, if it were not for the presence of the UN peace keeping force. Whilst the reconstruction efforts in Haiti may be the most difficult following any major disaster, sustainable and resilient recovery in Haiti will not only benefit its people, but can provide hope for the future population growth of the developing countries over the next 40 years, refer to Insert. 11.1, and the hundreds of millions of additional housing that will be required, most probably built on more highly vulnerable sites, at risk of flooding, landslides, and disease from poor sanitation and malnutrition. Insert 11.1: Urban Population Growth over next 50 years. Urban Population Growth For the first time in the history of the world the majority of the world’s population (50.5%) now live in cities rather than in the countryside, often at the expense of rural areas. The global population as a whole has become more urban and less rural. According to the 2009 Revision of Urbanisation Prospects: North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and Oceania are highly urbanised from 70% to 80% and their level of urbanisation is expected to continue rising so that by 2050 they are expected to be more than 84% urban. In contrast Africa and Asia remain mostly rural with just 40% and 42% of their respective populations living in urban settlements in 2010 and even by 2050 they are expected to be significantly less urbanised than the other major areas, reaching a proportion urban of 62% in Africa and 65% in Asia. Lower-income countries in Asia and Africa are urbanising especially rapidly, as agriculture becomes less labour intensive and as employment opportunities shift to the industrial and services sector. Already most of the world’s urban agglomerations are found in low-income countries. Today’s 21 megacities account for 9% of the world urban population (324 million). These cities are expected to number 29 in 2025 when they will account for 10% of the urban population. They are followed by 33 cities having populations ranging from 5 million to 10 million inhabitants, whose share of the urban population is 7%. These megacities in waiting are expected to increase to 46 in 2025 but will maintain the same share of the urban population as in 2010. Urban & Rural Populations by Development Group – 1950 – 2050

From a global perspective, between 2011 and 2050, the world population is expected to increase by 2.3 billion, passing from 7.0 billion to 9.3 billion (United Nations, 2011). At the same time, the population living in urban areas is projected to gain 2.6 billion, passing from 3.6 billion in 2011 to 6.3 billion in 2050, almost doubling. Thus, the urban areas of the world are expected to absorb all of the population growth expected over the next four decades while at the same time drawing in some of the rural population. As a result the world rural population is projected to start decreasing in about a decade and there will likely be 0.3 billion fewer rural inhabitants in 2050 than today. Furthermore, most of the population growth expected in urban areas will be concentrated in the cities and towns of the less developed regions. Asia, in

particular, is projected to see its urban population increase by 1.4 billion, Africa by 0.9 billion, and Latin America and the Caribbean by 0.2 billion. Population growth is therefore becoming largely an urban phenomenon concentrated in the developing world ( David Satterthwaite, 2007). Based on the Haiti experience the picture is gloomy with regard the consequences of future heavy earthquakes, mainly in developing nations as a result of the spectacular increase of worldwide population in a very short time period. Some estimate that the projected population increase in the next fifty years will require the building of one billion houses. The tendency towards earthquake-resistant building, despite being relatively successful in developed nations, is generally neglected in developing countries. The reasons can largely be attributed largely to indifference, ignorance and lack of financial support, lack of good governance coupled with corruption. The consequence is that earthquakes, which in the recent past had little impact on villages and towns, may in the future strongly affect urban agglomerations of one to some ten million inhabitants with catastrophic consequences in terms of human lives.




12.0 DISASTER RISK FINANCING / MITIGATION

When disasters strike, countries with limited economic resilience often seek assistance from the international donor community or divert funds from development projects to cover emergency and recovery needs. Funding for relief and reconstruction in developing countries generally comes from very different sources than is the case in industrial countries. In more advanced economies, losses from natural disasters are typically funded through a combination of private risk financing arrangements and an efficient public revenue system relying on wide and deep taxation catchments. In middle and low-income countries, which have relatively low tax ratios and ongoing fiscal pressures and where catastrophe risk markets are often underdeveloped, funding sources for post-disaster reconstruction tend to be more varied, with strong reliance ex-post, (sources obtained following a natural disaster), borrowing and assistance from international donors. In addition, the lack of immediate liquidity in the aftermath of a disaster often retards recovery and forces the government to conduct an emergency budget reallocation, which can be detrimental to the long-term fiscal stabilisation programs and investment programs. Assistance from multilateral financial agencies plays a particular important role in middle-income counties, while support from bilateral donors is generally dominant in low-income countries. The World Bank alone has distributed more than US$40 billion in emergency loans related to natural disasters, over the last three decades.

It should be noted that ex-post financing sources have limitations. Donor assistance, for example, is unreliable because it varies with conditions such as media coverage and the type of disaster. Furthermore, it may be in the form of pre-established aid that has been reallocated from other programmes. For example, Haiti whilst recovering from the 2010 earthquake was hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy, with hundreds of thousands of people still living in tents after the earthquake. The call for donations followed a 96% drop in financial support for UN humanitarian programmes over the previous two years, despite the continued vulnerability of the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, humanitarian funding had fallen from US$2bn in 2010 to just $75m 2012. Fig. 12.1: Main Phases of Post-disaster Funding Needs

The majority of the governments funding needs are not incurred until it enters later recovery and reconstruction phases, as illustrated by Figure 12.1, thus, the government is allowed time to mobilise ex-post funding sources. Ex-post sources include budget reallocation, tax increases, domestic credit,

external credit and donor assistance. However, if not planned for, this will place huge strain on the government (already under stress following a disaster) to source the necessary short-term funding for the post-disaster recovery. The demand placed on a government’s ‘coffers for immediate funding in the days and months after the disaster creates a liquidity gap that needs bridging if day-to-day operations are to be maintained.

The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the subsequent Kyoto Protocol refer to the potential role of insurance in disaster mitigation. The Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, signed in January 2005, identifies the need to promote the development of financial risk-sharing




mechanisms, particularly insurance and reinsurance against disasters, as a priority action for building the resilience of nations and communities to recover after disasters. While this is only one recommendation among many, the need for innovative risk financing mechanisms is particularly relevant to the middle and low income countries. Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, (GFDRR), aims to promote catastrophe risk financing as an integral part of a country’s economic policy and an important component of a proactive and strategic framework for disaster risk management. The World Bank has lead the agenda on country-level disaster risk management by developing a multi-pillar disaster risk management approach, in which catastrophe risk financing is an important component. The World Bank Financial and Private Sector Development Vice Presidency, working with regional colleagues, has assisted partner countries in the development of catastrophe risk financing solutions since the late 1990’s. Examples include the Turkish Catastrophe Risk Insurance Pool, the Mongolia Livestock Insurance Pool and the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility. As part of the Sustainable Development Network, (DFDRR), is the World Bank’s global initiative to enhance national capacities to reduce vulnerability by integrating risk reduction in country development strategies. It is supporting a number of catastrophe risk financing projects, including the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Pool Initiative. During the one to six months following a serious hurricane or earthquake, after emergency funds have been exhausted and before donor pledges come in, Caribbean governments experience a liquidity gap, when their monetary resources fell far below what is required to provide essential governmental services and begin the recovery process. Established in 2007, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (“CCRIF” or the “Facility”) is organized as a nonprofit mutual insurance company that ventures to achieve two divergent goals: (1) making adequate government catastrophe insurance available, and (2) doing so at a price that impoverished governments can afford. It offers a solution to the liquidity gap through the use of an innovative insurance scheme, directly to the participating governments, that aspires to fill that gap. As the world’s first multi-country risk pool parametric insurance facility, it employs innovative insurance schemes to do so. Its unique design and mode of operation provide, (it is owned and operated by the Caribbean governments) cash-strapped Caribbean countries with affordable risk-transfer opportunities that they would otherwise be unable to obtain on their own. Particularly by combining the resources of multiple Caribbean governments, the Facility supplies catastrophe insurance to each contributing government, covering catastrophic losses caused by hurricanes and earthquakes. Because payouts are calculated using pre-determined parametric equations, as opposed to using loss adjusters who physically visit the scene to discern the actual loss, payouts are made within a very short time after the tragic event, thus narrowing the liquidity gap. CCRIF was developed through funding from the Japanese Government and was capitalised through contributions to multi-donor Trust Fund by the Governments of Canada, the European Union, the World Bank, the governments of the UK and France, the Caribbean Development Bank and the governments of Ireland and Bermuda, as well as through membership fees and an annual premium paid by participating governments, (thereby instil some discipline to the ex-ante relief programme). The coverage was for relief funds that could be paid out immediately after a catastrophe, but were not intended to provide a substitute for long-term relief.

Since the inception of CCRIF in 2007, the Facility has made eight payments totalling US$32,179,470 to seven member governments. All payouts were transferred to the respective governments immediately after the stipulated 14-day waiting period (and in some cases advances were made within a week) after each event. These payments are shown in Table 12.1. Famously, the CCRIF was one of the first payers of monies (in the amount of US$7.7 million, approximately 20 times their premium for earthquake coverage of US$385,500) immediately after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The




coverage is provided in several levels of exposure. Essentially the CCRIF would provide for the first loss of up to US$20 million, the next layer is provided for by traditional reinsurance from the private market in two layers for a total of US$50 million of loss. Above that, the traditional market reinsurance and the World Bank absorb the risk proportionately for an additional US$82.5 million. The World Bank share of the layer is 36%. The World Bank has assumed risk in this layer by doing an excess-of-loss contract in swap form.

Donors also have a role in this model. They established a special fund to help establish the CCRIF in its early years in the approximate amount of US$67 million. This fund is helping to defray expenses and claims for running the fund while CCRIF builds up its own capital. The initial period of support is five years but can be extended. In its first years, the donor fund has reimbursed the CCRIF for its operating expenses, its reinsurance premiums and its claims. In short, the donors are in the first loss position.

Table 12.1: Payments made by CCRIF to donor countries since its inception in 2007 Event Country Affected Payouts (US$)

Earthquake, 29 November 2007 Dominica 528,021 Earthquake, 29 November 2007 Saint Lucia 418,976 Tropical Cyclone Ike, September 2008 Turks and Caicos Islands 6,303,913 Earthquake, 12 January 2010 Haiti 7,753,579 Tropical Cyclone Earl, August 2010 Anguilla 4,282,733 Tropical Cyclone Thomas, October 2010 Barbados 8,560,247 Tropical Cyclone Thomas, October 2010 Saint Lucia 3,241,613 Tropical Cyclone Thomas, October 2010 St Vincent & the Grenadines 1,090,388 Total for Period 2007-2011 32,179,470 The CCRIF has published a report suggesting that hurricane Sandy has not triggered the facility (wind damage) for any of its member countries. Three members were hit by Sandy, with Jamaica being first, then Haiti was impacted by Sandy’s rains and finally the Bahamas was next in Sandy’s path. The CCRIF said after initial model runs it did not look like Sandy has tripped any of the members policies parametric triggers.

Despite the fact that Haiti has the highest death toll from Sandy they do not qualify for assessment as the island was outside of the modeled wind field. With so much damage caused by rainfall induced flooding and landslides, Haiti is really in need of the long awaited CCRIF excess rainfall product. While CCRIF’s insurance cover has been extremely beneficial in the event of hurricanes and earthquakes, the CCRIF member governments still have significant exposure to floods and the hurricane policies presently in effect do not cover damage brought about by torrential rainfall and resulting flooding often associated with hurricanes, they only cover wind damage. Many nations have stated that they view a flood or excess rainfall product as essential. Also, CCRIF participating countries and stakeholders have continued to express a strong interest in having available coverage for excessive rainfall, both within hurricanes and in non-hurricane systems. Beneficiary Assessment of CCRIF undertaken by the World Bank in 2010 revealed that 94% of respondents felt that CCRIF should cover other hazards, including flooding. It is for these reasons that CCRIF is launching a new insurance product to cover extreme rain events. In conformity with its role as a catastrophe insurer, CCRIF’s rainfall product will only protect against “extreme high rainfall events of short duration (a few days).” An Economics of Climate Adaptation Study in the Caribbean lead by CCRIF in collaboration with other partners revealed that:

Natural hazards already represent a significant risk to inhabitants and economies in the Caribbean. Annual expected losses from wind, storm surge and inland flooding amount to 6%




of GDP in some countries. Climate change has the potential to greatly exacerbate these risks, and could increase expected losses by 1-3% of GDP by 2030.

Climate change will have an impact on local sea levels, hurricane intensity, perception and temperature patterns.

The study further stated that numerous adaptation measures are available to decision makers to respond to the growing threat of climate change. The results of the Study further indicated that these adaptation measures can be organised into two broad groupings - Risk Mitigation and Risk Transfer – and depending on each country’s characteristics, risk mitigation initiatives can cost-effectively avert up to 90% of the expected loss in 2030 under a high climate change scenario. It further stated that risk transfer or insurance measures also play a key role in addressing the financial consequences of low-frequency, high-severity weather events and can be used to limit the financial impact for people and assist in extreme events. These changes in climate, particularly hydrometeorological events, will have an increasing impact on the Caribbean basin. Similarly, CCRIF products do not offer private insurance policies; it exclusively caters to governmental needs. Also, it does not provide any coverage to the Caribbean agricultural and utility sectors, despite their appreciable vulnerability to extreme weather events and the far-reaching effects on the surrounding community when they do fall victim to such disasters, but again, changes are in the works. It is crucial to understand that the Facility is in no way an all-encompassing solution to the Caribbean’s climate threats. It only addresses a small niche in the required risk management ‘toolkit’, which is, as explored above, the lessening of the liquidity gap. CCRIF insurance is not designed to cover every post-disaster need, or even most post-disaster needs. While potentially of great value, it is but one piece of the puzzle. A benefit of advanced planning by the government for disaster losses is that it forces the government to access its financial exposure to natural disasters, and when vulnerability to disasters is translated into dollar signs, the significant return on investment from disaster risk reduction activities is made clear. Financial assessment sensitizes key decision makers, such as Finance Ministers, to the importance of ex-ante disaster mitigation. Disaster risk financing does not work in isolation; it enables governments to manage residual disaster risks, those that remain after financially viable and attainable mitigation and prevention measures have already been implemented. It does nothing, however, to physically shield populations and assets from natural hazards. Figure 12.2, illustrates the role of disaster risk financing in a comprehensive disaster risk management framework.

Fig. 12.2: role of disaster risk financing in a comprehensive disaster risk management framework




By clarifying the economic benefits of disaster risk reduction, disaster risk financing complements and promotes other disaster risk reduction actions; well-designed disaster risk financing strategies are required as an essential component of a broader disaster risk management strategy. Insert 12.1: Parametric Insurance What is CCRIF’s Parametric Insurance – How does it work? Parametric insurance is a type of insurance that does not indemnify the pure loss, but ex-ante agrees to make a payment upon the occurrence of a triggering event. The triggering event is often a catastrophic natural event which may ordinarily precipitate a loss or a series of losses. Parametric insurance principles are also applied to agricultural crop insurance and other normal risks not of the nature of disaster, if the outcome of the risk is correlated to a parameter or an index of parameters. Parametric insurance is ideal for low frequency but high intensity losses as in catastrophic perils, weather related risks in agriculture or other economic activities, and risks sought to be covered without sufficient history of losses captured as insurance readable data. CCRIF offers parametric insurance which disburses funds based on the occurrence of a pre-defined level of hazard and impact without having to wait for an on-site loss assessment. This feature is quite different from traditional indemnity-based insurance products in which claims are paid based on formal confirmation of the amount of a loss through on-site verification. CCRIF computes coverage due according to parametric equations and data supplied by the National Hurricane Center and U.S. Geological Survey, describing the hurricane’s wind speed or earthquake’s resultant degree of ground shaking. More precisely, each parametric equation represents a defined zone of the country in question. Depending on the zone’s population and governmental infrastructure characteristics, which embody its overall level of government exposure, it is assigned either a high or low weight. If a zone is sparsely populated and consists of little governmental infrastructure, its level of government exposure is minimal and its weight low. Conversely, if a zone is heavily populated and includes abundant governmental infrastructure, its level of government exposure is substantial and its weight high. Each zone corresponds to a proportion, based on its weight, of the country’s comprehensive government exposure. To generate the country’s gross loss and, accordingly, its CCRIF payout, either the wind-speed data or ground-shaking data are plugged into each weighted parametric equation. The outputs, which represent each zone’s individual loss, are then aggregated to arrive at the country’s total loss. This loss calculation is conducted immediately after the disaster and again fourteen days later to incorporate any updates to the wind-speed or ground-shaking data and thus ensure that the correct numbers are used. If the recalculation demonstrates that the loss is eligible for CCRIF indemnification, payment is then promptly made. A CCRIF policy is triggered based on the government loss estimated in the loss model, which in turn is based on the characteristics of the hazard and the distribution and exposure of government assets at risk of being affected by hazard (as described above). The trigger level (attachment point or deductible) specified in the policy/contract is then applied to the modelled government loss. The policy is triggered when the modelled loss for a hurricane or earthquake in a member country equals or exceeds the attachment point (deductible) specified in the policy contract. Payouts are made on the basis of exceeding a pre-established trigger event loss which is estimated in a model in which hazard inputs are generated (e.g. wind speed and storm surge in case of tropical cyclones or ground shaking for earthquakes) from independently-provided input data (such as a tropical cyclone track or earthquake location/magnitude). Payouts above the trigger level increases with the level of modelled loss, up to a pre-defined coverage limit. Therefore payouts can be calculated and made very quickly because there is no need to estimate damage after an event. This is an important feature considering the urgent need for liquidity after a catastrophe. The trigger level is dependent on the coverage purchased by individual contents. Member governments may purchase coverage which triggers for a ‘1-in-15-year’ hurricane or a ‘1-in-20-year’ earthquake, for example, with maximum coverage of US$100 million available for each peril. The cost of coverage is a direct function of the amount of risk being transferred, ensuring no cross-subsidisation of premiums and a level playing field for all participants.

The selection of a parametric instrument as a basis for the CCRIF policies was largely driven by the fact that parametric insurance is generally less expensive than an equivalent traditional indemnity insurance product, as that premium costs cover just the parametric losses and would be substantially higher, refer to Table 12.2, if they had to cover actual losses, despite there being an equal possibility of ‘winning’ or ‘loosing’ on the basis risk issued. In addition, the instrument is also less exposed to moral hazard and adverse selection problems (which are costly to monitor) because the cost of insurance can be immediately related to the probability of an event and the payout is independent of any mitigation put in place after the policy is issued.




Table 12.2: Comparison of Parametric and Traditional Insurance

USE OF PARAMETRIC INSTRUMENTS ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

Payout is quick because the parameters of the hazard are known immediately after the event

Basis Risk: The difference between the loss

calculated from the model and the actual physical loss on the ground.

Because cat models contain significant uncertainties, basis risk can be high in parametric contracts.

The loss amount is calculated entirely objectively using a formulae defined in the insurance policy

Basis risk is lower the more unlikely an event is: Therefore parametric contracts are best

suited to covering rare/large catastrophe events.

The technical risk on an insurance contract is better defined because there are fewer uncertain variables. This provides greater opportunity for risk transfer to capital markets.

Parametric insurance can be difficult explain and understand which can lead to challenges.

USE OF TRADITIONAL INSURANCE ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

The loss amount can be accurately calculated based on replacement costs of damaged property and business records of revenues prior to the event (there is little or no basis risk.)

Large sums of money have to be set aside by insurers/reinsurers to pay for potential large losses thus increasing the cost of capital.

The claims settlement process is costly and relatively lengthy as properties need to be inspected and settlements negotiated and agreed based on repair estimates and other supporting information.

Despite the benefits, parametric products are exposed to basis risk, i.e., the possibility that a payout may be higher or lower than actual losses. Although this is a significant challenge in terms of the development of the instrument, careful design of input parameters and the loss model as undertaken by CCRFI helps reduce the basis risk. Furthermore, as large institutions, governments are better able to accommodate basis risk than, say, individuals. An article published by The Arizona Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, August 2012, have raised concerns over the accuracy of the parametric models with regards data deficiencies resulting in the Facility’s parametric equations generating loss figures that in no way resembles actual losses on the ground. Government exposure is defined by the population and governmental infrastructure situated in each parametric zone. The equations are weighted commensurate with their zones’ level of government exposure. By CCRIF’s own admission, Caribbean exposure data did not exist at the time the parametric equations were developed because the states never kept records of such information; thus, many CCRIF models are rooted in assumptions. The foundation stone to the success of the parametric model concept is the ability to accurately estimate ‘estimated maximum loss‘, (EML) and fundamental to this is the accuracy of the infrastructure data ‘fed’ into the parametric equations. If the data is inaccurate the EML’s will be distorted. If the parametric outputs show that the estimated loss is above the actual loss, overpayment is made, thereby comparatively disadvantaging the other countries participating in the pool. Even more detrimental is the opposite outcome where the




parametric outputs convey that the estimated loss is below the actual loss, forcing an already compromised government to cope with an insufficient payout. Furthermore, the Facility has also acknowledged that, like the government exposure data, verification data to test the equation outputs was comparably lacking. Astonishingly, this means that after the equations were completed, CCRIF had no systematic way to confirm their accuracy. Rather, it learns what it can from each evaluated loss, much like an ongoing experiment. While such an empirical and iterative approach is probably the most realistic manner in which to fine tune the models it is nevertheless a work-in-progress that unfortunately, does not allow a retrospective reassessment of the policies and adjust as necessary for any under or over payment to affected member states. Of course, it must be conceded that in order to bring about the mere existence of the Facility, loss calculations derived without adequate exposure and verification data were unavoidable. After a Caribbean state experiences a qualified weather event and receives CCRIF payment, the Facility attempts to gather data indicative of the actual loss sustained, assuming that data exists. In some cases, it does not. Moreover, when the data is available, the multitude of agencies supplying it often report contradictory figures. Nonetheless, CCRIF compares the actual loss data with the estimated loss data generated by the parametric equations. While the Facility admits it is technically possible to adjust the equations to reflect actual loss numbers, it maintains it is not practically feasible due to the enormous complexity of the task. Instead, the Facility can only undertake comprehensive overhauls of its parametric model every few years. In the interims, the Caribbean will have to tolerate the kinks and accept the reality that for any given disaster, its CCRIF payout may conflict with its actual loss. When the World Bank learned that such data was lacking during the CCRIF design phase, it had no choice but to proceed on assumptions. Dispatching individuals to each Caribbean nation to collect the missing data would have been both time consuming and costly. Ultimately, the decision to use parametric equations heavily dependent on assumptions can be viewed as a tradeoff between CCRIF payout accuracy and overall CCRIF feasibility. They will hopefully be fine-tuned over time, but nonetheless, it simply cannot be denied how critical accurate payouts are. This is especially true in light of the extraordinarily harsh effects global climate change promises to bring to the Caribbean. With their uncertain futures compromised by climate change, Caribbean nations will need every last disaster-fighting resource available to them, and in the CCRIF context, every last penny to which they are entitled.




13.0 DISTRIBUTION AND ALLOCATION OF AID FINANCING

Fig.13.1: Funding and its allocation

Despite billions of dollars in international aid and pledges to help Haiti rebuild from the disaster, very little new, permanent housing has been built and about 350,000 Haitians are still living in squalid, makeshift camps — where they face an array of health challenges. There's been an epidemic of sexual assaults on women living in the camps and residents complain that unsanitary conditions and numerous cooking fires in the cramped quarters have caused respiratory problems among the children.

As can be seen from Figure 13.1, some $9bn (£5.6bn) of international assistance was given - $3bn from private individuals and companies and $6bn from governments and global institutions (known as bilateral and multilateral donors), according to the Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti (OSE), but what the OSE and others have been asking is why less than 10% of the $6bn from public donors has gone to the Haitian government and why less than 1% was given to local organisations. Donor pledges to Haiti in the Aftermath of the 2010 Earthquake The main area of donor concern do not always align with the Haitian government’s policies, as is evident by the differences in requests and pledges (Figure 13.2). For instance in the transportation sector, pledges were 510% (US$730 million) more than the Government of Haiti’s request. Whereas pledges for strengthening democratic institutions fell short – only 20% (US$31 million) of the GoH’s request was met by donors.




Figure 13.2: Government Priorities v’s Donor Pledges & Disbursements (US$ millions)

From available figures, it appears NGO’s and private contractors are the primary intermediate recipients of this assistance for relief and reconstruction, with very little money going directly to the GoH. Humanitarian agencies, NGO’s, private contractors, and other non-state service providers received 99% of humanitarian aid – less than 1% went to the GoH. Figure 13.3 shows the breakdown of the $2.29 billion in humanitarian aid from all donors committed or disbursed in 2010 and 2011. However, none of the $1.28 billion disbursed in humanitarian from the USA went to the GoH, refer to Figure 13.4A. The US however only distributed 1% of the recovery money to the GoH, refer to Figure 13.4B. Fig.13.3: Recipients of Humanitarian Aid to Haiti from all donors




Fig.13.4A: Recipients of US Fig.13.4B: Recipients of US

The Rise of the Quasi-Private State in Haiti Due to the limited capacity of the Haitian government and weak national institutions, NGO’s and private contractors have risen to play a prominent role in Haiti. The immense volatility in Haitian politics and US reluctance to give aid directly to the Haitian government resulted in NGO’s and contractors becoming the main thoroughfare for foreign assistance. Funding for international charities continued to flow even when aid to the Haitian government was prohibited. NGO’s, private firms, and multilateral banks quickly became the preferred recipients of aid as they were more stable and could be held more accountable to international donors than the Haitian government. Prior to the 2010 earthquake, one estimate was that 70% of aid money to Haiti flowed through charities and non-profit organisations. Some researchers describe how NGO’s have become key players in nation building and governance, with some having greater influence over local policies than the local population. It is clear that international organisations and NGO’s have access to disproportionate levels of funding in comparison with the government. NGO’s are a primary channel through which money can be siphoned off. Local politicians often seek support and funding from foreign NGO’s to aid in election campaigns and secure success. Various organisations, based in the USA and elsewhere, have been accused of funding the opposition to President Aristide. The inability of the Haitian government to count or register NGO’s further highlights the weakness of the public sector in comparison with the parallel non-profit system. Programs and activities run by NGO’s are usually not included in government planning and may lack long-term sustainability. There is no method for ensuring accountability or coordination amongst various organisations which are often operating under similar mandates and running identical projects. The Office of the Special Envoy has assisted the Government of Haiti in its efforts to regulate and oversee non-state providers, so that work programmes and funding might be better aligned with government priorities.




Criticisms on NGO’s and Private Contractors A lack of budget and program transparency has sometime led to investigations. The Red Cross has been the subject of negative attention about its operations in Haiti since the earthquake. Two reporters – Jacqui Charles and Frances Robles at the Miami Herald have asked some pointed questions about NGO expenditure and outcomes in Haiti. Robles points out that NGO costs are high – it costs $3,500 per month to rent an SUV, $30,000 per month to cover warehouse fees (Oxfam), $150,000/month on trucking water (Oxfam), and $30,000/month for electricity (Project MediShare, University of Miami). These types of expenditures may well be justified given the tough working conditions in Haiti, but it is hard to make that case without data on inputs, outcomes, or lessons learnt. It is certainly the case that NGO’s and private contractors in Haiti work under very difficult conditions and are often staffed by dedicated professionals who sacrifice much to deliver services. Yet, there is considerable dissatisfaction all round. Haitians are, in general, not very happy with the international community. NGO’s are variously described in Haitian Creole as vole“ (thieves or crooks), “malonet” (liars) and “kowompi” (corrupt). Much of the Haitian population is angry about the volatility in the delivery of basic services. Says UN Deputy Special Envoy Paul Farmer, “There’s graffiti all over walls in Port-au-Prince right now saying , ‘Down with NGO’s …. I think people in the NGO sector need to read the writing on the wall’ In an interview given by Mr. Pierre Erold Etienne, Director-General, Ministry of Finance Port-au-Prince in August 2012 on the challenges that arise when significant funds bypass the public sector and the difficulty this has on the government playing a leadership role in managing aid he stated: “We have very little information in this sector, very little. If we really want to help this country, we have to be able to manage this financial information, to centralize it somewhere for the benefit of everyone, both for the benefit of the state and also the donors themselves, so that everyone can know what interventions are being made in each sector …. And this will also facilitate the coordination of donors’ own intervention, …[so] if we had information on disbursements to NGOs, disbursements to public institutions and to what sector and region, this would facilitate the programming of our local resources – or the Treasurt’s resources. What good is it to open a clinic in an area where there are already three run by NGOs? There is duplication simply because we do not have advanced information…… We are required to be transparent. We publish the financial information relevant to the execution of our budget. All we ask is for the same transparency from our donor friends, which should help both us and them. This would place the dialogue between the state and the donors on a level that I would say is much better informed, where everyone knows what is happening, and what are the interventions that the state is making, what are the interventions led by donors through the projects they fund, and also through non-governmental organisations” It is vitally important that a joined-up approach is developed if we are to avoid the wasteful use and duplication of resources between GoH and the aid agencies and ensure funding and development is properly targeted. Clearly the lack of capacity and expertise within the government and its executive is a major contributing factor, encouraging both donors and aid agencies to bypass the state. This however is not a healthy situation and needs rectifying to ensure the ‘Recovery Plan’ is sustainable.




14.0 DISCUSSION

Haiti did not become a problem as a result of the January 2010 earthquake, all this event did was to bring Haiti within the World spotlight for a brief period due to the resulting huge number of casualties and deaths, and highlight to all, the longstanding underlying issues that resulted in such devastation. Unfortunately these issues are not unique to Haiti and they highlight the challenges facing built environment practitioners operating within this theatre. Since the disaster much discussion has focused on why Haiti is such a ‘failed state and has been used to highlight other potential disasters waiting to happen in other parts of the World. Unfortunately disasters are like health scares i.e. we may know of the risks but will do nothing until we get a ‘scare’ but sadly once the scare is removed from one’s psyche, most of us tend to go back to our bad ways again. This re-focusing of the mind is not a bad thing, ever if only briefly, as it does get people talking and it does stimulate action and re-evaluation to hopefully improve matters going forward.

With regards Haiti the one obvious point that has come to light has been the migration from the countryside to Port-au-Prince over the decades to the point where it has become totally un-sustainable. Its destruction following the earthquake effectively crippled the country long-term and highlighted the inherent risk of having it as the only commercial hub sited within a seismic active region, as it was the focal point for all commercial, industrial and export / import via air and sea.

The reasons for the massive urbanisation i.e., large-scale migration from the countryside, are equally tragic and have been perpetuated over the decades by the ‘big’ international players. For some reason the big picture was missed with regards prioritising Haiti’s long term sustainable development and more worryingly having set the strategy very few actors questioned its validity – no one dared said “ look! the emperor has no clothes”. Clearly there were underlying geo-political drivers and these hugely influence humanitarian aid programme strategies in Haiti.

The 1980’s export-oriented development strategy can be considered a contributing factor to the massive rural migration to Port-au-Prince and the over population of the capital city. It is a development strategy that has failed not only Port-au-Prince, in terms of increasing its vulnerability, but also the entire country in terms of weakening the Haitian state and disastrously affecting the agricultural bias of Haiti’s economy. The failure of this development strategy has been acknowledged by one of its key promoters, the World Bank. In its 2002 Country Assisted Evaluation, (CES) for Haiti, the WB concludes that the US $300 million distributed to Haiti during the 1970’s and 1980’s had “little recorded impact on poverty or economic growth and had caused no improvement in governance.”

By calling for the implementation of a new development framework in Haiti, national and international stakeholders are implicitly agreeing that past development policies have an explanatory power when it comes to understanding the January 2010 disaster. More specifically, they tend to concur that the 1980s/1990s, development paradigm implemented in Haiti has worsened the country’s demographic problem and increased, as a result, its vulnerability to natural disasters. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, (UNCTAD), correctly argues that the 1980’s/1990’s development strategy, which consisted of opening the Haitian market to ferocious foreign competition, was damaging to Haiti. It has destroyed Haiti’s national production and undermined the Haitian state. By the same token, the UN agency has called for the implementation of a new development paradigm in Haiti. UNCTAD (2010) invites national and international stakeholders to look at not only the devastating effects of the earthquake on Haiti but also at 30 years of slow development that preceded the earthquake.

From UNCTAD’s perspective, the occurrence of the earthquake should be used as an opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past and to implement a comprehensive development strategy with the potential to promote sustainable economic growth. The agency argues that the Haitian state should




be the leader of the post-earthquake development process and that the new development strategy takes into consideration the capacities and the weaknesses of local communities.

More importantly, UNSTAD (2010) asserts that the rebuilding process of Haiti should involve a new approach to international cooperation, which entails investment in the productive sectors of the country, mobilisation of domestic resources, and increased agricultural production. The new approach to international cooperation should be all-encompassing in order to allow for job creation and poverty reduction, according to UNCTAD.

The dominance of international NGO’s and private contractors in Haiti has created a parallel state more powerful than the government itself. These entities have built an alternative infrastructure for the provision of social services, but do not have much accountability to the Haitian government or people. It is clear that NGO’s and private contractors need to be more effective and more accountable. They do need to improve cooperation with each other and with the GoH and be held to common principles, in order to achieve better outcomes. Systematic and widely-accessible evaluations by NGO’s and contractors, compliance with the International Aid Transparency Initiative and increased use by the government of competitive bidding – may help to hold international organisations accountable and rebuild government capacity while maintaining the delivery of services to the people of Haiti.

The State for Social and Economic Reconstruction, (SSER), basically assigned to the private sector and NGO’s the key role of promoting economic development in Haiti. In fact, the SSER requires that the Haitian government call upon the private sector and NGO’s for “both the design and the execution of the relevant programms and economic and social policies”. The SSER requires, in other words, that the Hatian state take a back seat and follow the lead of not only the Haitian private sector, but also that of foreign businesses.

Major international donor agencies have also called for the implementation of a new development strategy in Haiti. In fact, the Haitian government and the international partners have come up with a development framework entitled the Action Plan for National Recovery and Development of Haiti (Action Plan), purported to be different from previous development strategies.

The concept of rebuilding utilised in the framework refers to the necessity of addressing all the country’s areas of vulnerability, so that “the vagaries of nature or natural disasters never again inflict such suffering or cause so much damage and loss” (Action Plan 2010). Rebuilding means building back better and not returning Haiti to the pre-earthquake situation.

The architects of the post-earthquake development framework points out that the 2010 Action Plan underlies a vision that “goes beyond a response to the losses and damages caused by the earthquake […] It aims to launch a number of key initiatives to […] tackle the structural causes of Haiti’s under-development”. It is argued in this development framework that the earthquake has offered an opportunity “to unite Haitians of all classes and origins in a shared project to rebuild the country on new foundations”. From the perspective of its designers, the framework underscores, not only a new development strategy for Haiti, but also a new vision for a new country.

However, research undertaken by Florida International University, Disaster Risk Reduction and the Action Plan for National Recovery and the Development of Haiti (2012): argues that the post earthquake framework has the potential to be the main obstacle to the execution of its own prescriptions because it has failed to address the necessity of reforming the Haitian state and increasing its capacity. This argument is based on the fact that decentralisation and systematic disaster risk management, two main prescriptions of the framework, are fundamentally political processes whose successful implementation requires direct state intervention. In choosing to bypass the Haitian state and assigning the driver’s seat of Haiti’s development process to the private sector, the post-earthquake development framework runs the risk of repeating the same mistakes of the past




and perpetuating Haiti’s “failed state” status. The current proposed national housing policy risks perpetuating the problem by relying exclusively on private funding – this risks continual marginalisation of the poor and the continued growth of slum developments.

How built-environment practitioners operate in such a theatre is hugely challenging owing to the myriad of external drivers and whilst a circumspect approach is called for, a pragmatic approach will initially be demanded owing to some of the more pressing issues. Nevertheless a strategic overview is a vital frame of reference to ensure the best advice can be given at any moment in time along the path to recovery. For the immediate months following the disaster the entire process will be very dynamic with strategic priorities changing quite frequently. Notwithstanding the criticality of the initial humanitarian response, input with regard the rehabilitation of the built-environment will probably be the most important aspect with regards ensuring a sustainable and resilient long-term recovery of an affected region, and initially how this coordinates with the humanitarian response. We have seen in Haiti how this joined-up approach is perceived to have been lacking from the criticism levied at the aid agencies, compounded by the lack of leadership and capacity from the government and general frustration with the whole process of efficient targeting, appropriation and coordination of funds to address the long-term needs of the Haitians, while many hundred of thousands of victims are still living under tarpaulins and in tents three years after the earthquake. In some instances poor coordination resulted in duplication of facilities by different aid groups.

Education is a key consideration for a more long-term sustainable solution and with this comes implementation of good-building practices but neither of these will happen unless there is effective governance in place. The socio-economic challenges are hugely demanding as are the ingrained cultural attitudes and to ignore these is somewhat naïve when endeavouring to provide a safer built-environment as this will lead to frustration and failure on both sides if not recognised. At best we are looking to reduce the potential risks posed by natural hazards to the masses and not to eliminate them, not even Japan can achieve this. As advised, the focus within the built-environment needs to be concentrated on the domestic / DIY construction and not the larger public infrastructure and commercial projects, which will most probably be funded by a combination of private equity and debt with institutional lenders requiring the necessary development due diligence. These should be the benchmark projects that need to engage the indigenous workforce much more closely and used as a form of vocational training to educate them in best-building-practice with the aim of this having a positive trickle-down effect on the built-environment as a whole, but particularly for the large volume of un-engineered medium-rise buildings that have and will continue to be built. It is naïve to think this will miraculously change overnight.

If anything, the scale of the disaster has put even more pressure on the Haitian population who were already under stress for decades prior to the 2010 earthquake. Since the government is almost entirely absent from the rebuilding process, people have just begun repairing their damaged buildings and unused plots that aren’t accessible by transportation homeless people have begun moving onto and building. With concrete and steel being more scarce and expensive, and as witnessed by the author and other visiting bodies, reinforcement and aggregate are re-used from the damaged buildings with people rebuilding homes with the exact same materials as before the earthquake, in the exact same manner, so much for building-back-better. This is clearly worrisome particularly as we know the risk from future earthquakes in Haiti has not diminished. The momentum of daily life does not stop, and even more so in a country such as Haiti where there is no social safety net to assist people, hence they get on with their lives as best they can. This is inevitable under such circumstances, and refers back to the need for a two-phase parallel approach, mentioned previously in this review – one deals with getting society functioning as expeditiously as possible and the other deals with delivering a sustainable and resilient long-term recovery plan, with the two activities not being considered as mutually exclusive but coordinated and synchronised. The second phase being




the strategic master-plan for the entire country, driven by the need to decentralise and grow the regions.

At the moment the only social housing proposed to be built by the government is possibly those for servicing the industrial parks. There appears to be a lack of transparency with regards social housing and the general lack of governmental momentum and philosophy of approach in this area has raised concerns amongst the many grass-root stakeholders. The draft National Housing and Urban Development Policy published in April 2012, states that the housing deficit can only be met by “Haitian families and the private sector” and that the role of government is solely as facilitator in planning land use, providing construction codes, risk reduction, environmental management, security concerns, and plan the appropriate rural/urban mix to meet the country’s needs. One of its stated challenges is to build 500,000 new houses to address the current housing deficit and need over the next 10 years. However, no funding mechanism is outlined in the Policy and although it is being branded as a housing plan, it is clear that the Policy emphasizes private financing, putting the responsibility back on the people. This will perpetuate the polarisation of Haitian society with large sectors of the population unable to afford to live in more resilient hurricane and earthquake resistant ‘modern’ housing, owing to their prohibitive cost. The cheapest ‘proprietary imported models’ retailing at circa US$5,000 which is clearly way beyond the US$700 gross national income per capita. The financial products proposed by banks to make it easier to offer loans to potential home-buyers, residential mortgage backed securities, are potentially high-risk products, inappropriate for a country that has a similar exposure level to natural hazards as Japan, but a much greater vulnerability. Such quick-fix solutions are symptoms of an ill thought-out recovery road map that risks perpetual dependence on foreign aid and indebtedness to international banks for even the most basic infrastructure needs and very much a moral-hazard. Ronel Thelusmon, director of the technical division of INARE, has cited the co-op housing in the Dominican Republic as a possible solution to the social housing crisis by providing funds to let people take part in building their own houses. While the majority of Haitians living in IDP camps have expressed that their primary concern is housing/relocation, a clear path to homeownership that does not rely on donor funds has not been offered to them (Phillips 2011) and quite frankly has not received legitimate attention thus far. Most effort have focused on providing solutions that could immediately support short-term housing needs, including providing one-time cash payments that desperate families often must spend on other needs, leaving them completely reliant on foreign aid, (Kijewski-Correa, Taflanidis 2011). The current proposals will do nothing to alleviate the plight of the poor/vulnerable, or the future growth of slum developments, so let’s hope more egalitarian solutions are considered that represent the entire Haitian demographic spectrum and are not beyond the financial reach of most Haitians. The rapid spread of RC construction, as a result of deforestation, has resulted in the displacement of the traditional vernacular from in all but the most remote rural regions within a single generation. This represented a transformation of the building process from an indigenous one to one more dependant on outside contractors, specialists and nationally-based material producers and suppliers of cement and cement blocks. Reinforced concrete has been introduced into a building construction process that continues to exist much as it did in the past. The system of local builders with a rudimentary knowledge of material science was sufficient only as long as they were working with timber and masonry. With concrete moment frames it has proved woefully inadequate although not always apparent to the casual observer when viewing the ‘finished product’. For example a report produced by UN Habitat titled Strategic citywide spatial planning, A situational analysis of metropolitan Port-au-Prince 2009, found the overall housing quality to be “quite high …. built with permanent materials such as a cement floor, concrete blocks and wooden doors”. Unfortunately the widespread devastation caused by the earthquake does not reflect this view. There was a deep-rooted ignorance with regard the need for adequately engineered buildings to cater for all hazards, namely, hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding and associated geotechnical considerations. Clearly this was not fully




appreciated and local builders were entrusted by NGO’s to deliver the projects using their “existing ways of building” which we now know were fundamentally flawed. Clearly the jury is still out with regard the Haitian housing dilemma and how best to achieve sustainability and hazard resilience in light of the urgent need for a coherent nationwide solution, the current general lack of technical capacity to deliver the urban house-type of construction choice that currently fulfils its cultural, economic and functional needs within this urban setting. It is important to remember that apart from the deforestation the other primary driver for switching away from locally sourced braced timber framed construction was:

the ban on wood construction declared in Port-au-Prince in 1925 in response to a number of devastating fires in the city,

concrete and concrete block are resistant to the strong wind and rain of the hurricanes which regularly batter the island.

Ironically concrete and concrete block were increasingly seen as the building materials of choice in Haiti because they were considered to be more durable, technologically advanced, and modern. It is ironic that it has been a lack of technological appreciation in the application of such construction to resist earthquakes that accounted for so many deaths from the 2010 earthquake. Built-environment practitioners focusing only on best practice for the design and construction of confined and infill masonry construction, whilst important and beneficial to the Haitian population, is too narrow a term of reference and they also need to be inputting into the bigger strategic drivers that ultimately define the best policy for the built-environment. For example, we know that in most earthquake regions of the developed world nearly all residential buildings are of wooden construction e.g., USA, New Zealand, Japan to name but a few, yet in most developing earthquake prone nations it is reinforced concrete used in combination with masonry commonly referred to as confined masonry construction. Timber framed domestic buildings are wholly compatible with the Haitian culture and their vernacular heritage and, long-term, their re-introduction can be achieved through reforestation, which is also critical in redressing the agroecological imbalances that have resulted from the decades of deforestation. The question then is what other alternative appropriate structural systems fills the more immediate housing gap in light of the near total lacking in technical capability for modern forms of construction, high level of illiteracy and consequently poor level of education and no appreciation (pre 2010 earthquake) of the need for buildings to be compliant to appropriate earthquake codes? The concern is, there will be system-built proprietary product(s) imported into Haiti, relying heavily on foreign subsidies and adding little to the inward investment and growth of the country, unless such companies are encouraged to establish production facilities in Haiti and train the local work force to ultimately run such facilities. Notwithstanding the prohibitive cost, the Haitian construction industry currently does not have the necessary skill-set to manufacture and construct such systems. To encourage foreign companies to set up such manufacturing processes in Haiti would require significant capital investment and training and whilst it may be a long term aspiration such an approach will not meet the medium to short term needs to provide cheap, resilient and sustainable permanent housing. For this reason the approach has to be a multi-solution stepped-approach to enable a transition from the current level of poor infrastructure to government lead municipal projects setting the benchmark and a more pragmatic pro-active approach taken to help the private sector ultimately upgrade their infrastructure over time. This can only ever be achieved via long-term ‘cheap’ loans e.g., interest free etc. Where such funding is made available houses have to be designed and built to approved codes and standards and independently certified as being fit for purpose on completion.




To maintain some semblance of social cohesion society has to be seen to function to enable individuals carve out a living. The more dysfunctional the governing institutions are the more vulnerable society is to a laissez faire approach and less social cohesion and the risks that come with it. A fully functioning coherent compliant built-environment is currently some way off for Haiti and will ever only be reached over an extended time period through education and better governance. Chile is probably the best example to look at as a best case scenario re approaching a more compliant built-environment, and the time period over which this took place began following the 1960 earthquake and the fruits of its efforts were evident from the very few casualties from the February 2010 8.8Mg earthquake, in which circa 500 people died. Failing a massive cash injection by outside donors / institutions to fast track this process it could take at least a similar time period for Haiti to upgrade but in reality it may take considerably longer that Chile. It is important to remember that safer buildings are a function of both good technical design and sound political institutions to eliminate any risk of corruption that could equally put the built-environment at risk. At the strategic level, built environment practitioners will need to engage with government and stakeholders, with regard spatial planning (both urban and rural), environmental impact assessments, strategic infrastructure planning etc within the term of reference of building-back-better and the need for Haiti to decentralise and the maximisation of its natural resources. Currently the perception by some is that attention is too heavily focused on assembly type manufacturing, export focused, ‘sold’ on the business model of Haiti’s cheap labour costs and attractive tax breaks for the investors. Raising fears of the bad-old sweat-shop days of the 80’s/90’s, with little signs, (at this stage), of coherent concrete plans for the development of the rural community by taking full advantage of its natural resources to assist in the decentralisation of Haiti and not just focused solely on such industries which do not have the capacity on their own to provide full employment. As ever, a balance approach is required rather than dominance by specific self interest groups. Table 7.1 identifies the ‘High Potential Target Sectors’ with the most investment potential but this cannot be to the exclusion of agriculture. It will be necessary to ensure workers are paid a decent wage and yet ensure the manufactured products can be competitive on the Global market. However, years of mismanagement of the Haitian economy and international embargoes due to internal political coup’s etc has meant their global competitors (and new competitors like China) have greatly improved their manufacturing processes, procurement and supply chain, from the days when Haiti manufacturing was at its height in the 1970’s. In this regard Haiti will need continued special assistance, like the trade agreements with the US and Latin America but extended to other continents, otherwise we risk paying lip service to fulfilling its aspirations and instead will risk perpetuating Haiti’s malaise. Sound democratically elected political institutions will be the bedrock for driving such initiatives forward and ensuring proper and transparent engagement with the Haitian population. The Caracol industrial park has not been without its critics with regard the apparent lack of adequate engagement with stakeholders, not undertaking a comprehensive environmental impact assessment study, particularly in light of it being sited on very fertile agricultural land, the potential for a large influx of migrants seeking work and the risk of further slum developments cropping up adjacent to the park as was the case with the 2002 trade agreement with the Dominican Republic for the CODEVI Free Zone in Quanaminthe, during the eight years since the zone was launched, thus creating another Port-au-Prince. This trade free zone also displaced many small farms along the fertile plain of the Nord-Est region on the Dominican border. We also know that the 2010 Action Plan had its critics regarding how it came to being with many feeling there had been little consultation with important Haitian stakeholders other than the major international donors and influential members of the domestic and international business community.




The challenges facing Haiti are significant and even with the best of intentions, they will not be achieved in the short-term, as this is very much a generational time frame and hopefully the social cohesion will remain positive, provided all sectors of the population are fully engaged and can see the long term benefits. Furthermore, it is of vital importance to free Haitians from being heavily dependent on the import of foods laying them vulnerable to sudden price increases on international markets. Clearly the under-funding of the agricultural and environmental sectors has to be reversed as part of the integrated rehabilitation of the Haitian economy. Prime agricultural land cannot be indiscriminately sacrificed for the benefit of industrial parks; zoning has to be carefully considered in light of its potential impact on the environment and long term impact on the economy. Until people are given a viable means by which to be raised out of poverty the vast majority of the urban poor will not see any real change in their circumstances and continue to live in abject poverty, with NGO’s doing their best to try and alleviate their misery by providing better sanitation, potable water and electricity, but it is ever only an ‘elastoplasts’ solution. Schools and medical centres are areas where NGO’s have made a significant contribution in Haiti over the years, but if the status quo of the poor does not change the best that can happen, and has been happening, is that these children will emigrate to carve out a better life for themselves and hopefully send remittance home to support their family. Of a total world wide Haitian emigrant population of circa 1 million, (10% of the population), figures for 2010 estimate that approximately $1.5 billion in remittance was sent back to Haiti. This equates to 21% of its GDP, 3625% of its Foreign Direct Investment, 123% of its Official Development Assistance (nett), 239% of its Merchandise Exports, 421% of its Commercial Services Exports. This just goes to demonstrate how small and underdeveloped the Haitian economy is. Furthermore, of the tertiary educated population 83.6% emigrated and 36.5% of physicians trained in Haiti. Such statistics makes for depressing reading with regard to aspirations for generating sustainable internal investment and growth in Haiti. The current Haitian administration is aiming to achieve an annual growth rate of 9% over the next five years and create one million jobs and house those living in tents, a tall order indeed. Turning aspiration into a reality will be the challenge.

Notwithstanding the extensive deforestation, much of which should be re-planted as the topography is not wholly suitable to arable farming and Haiti’s agricultural productivity and food security challenges are closely linked to a combination of mountainous topography, powerful storms, and severe environmental degradation. Approximately 63% of all land in Haiti slopes more than 20% and more than a third of the country lies above 400m, while only 20% of the land is considered arable, 50% is under agricultural production. Forest land was estimated in 1940 at approximately 30% of Haiti’s total land area and dropped to10% by 1970 and is now estimated to be 1.4% to 2%. As a result most hillsides are visibly eroded and according to USAID a third of all land is severely degraded. Agricultural productivity depends significantly on controlling and managing water run-off. Furthermore, approximately 85% of the country’s watersheads are degraded, the result of deforestation and other erosive farming practices. This results in frequent flooding that cause the destruction of crops and life, as well as further erosion, reduced availability of ground water for irrigation in the fertile planes, and depletion of the basic nutrients required for increased production. The upper watersheds (hills and mountains) also provide a significant amount of water to Haiti’s fertile planes, the areas with the greatest potential for agricultural growth. Depending on how they are managed, Haitian watersheds can be the source of either wealth and food security or catastrophic disasters, destroying crops, lives and infrastructure. While Haiti remains the only nation in the Western Hemisphere whose majority subsist as small farmers (White and Jickling, 1995), Haiti’s urban population is expected to surpass the rural population by 2025. Currently nearly a third of the population of circa 10 million people live within the Greater Metropolitan Area of Port-au-Prince. With the population growing at a rate of 2.1%, this trend towards urban migration will further exhaust natural resources as the needs of the urban population are met. Charcoal and firewood provided 85% to 90% of Haiti’s energy for home and industrial use,




and 62% of Port-au-Prince’s population relies solely on charcoal for cooking and heating. Declining soil fertility and falling commodity prices have lead many rural Haitians to intensify charcoal production as a means of guaranteeing cash income. With an annual deforestation rate of 5.7%, Haiti’s remaining 880km2 of forested land is gravely threatened (World Bank, 2001). Campaigns promoting alternatives to charcoal for fuel are hugely important but they will not be successful until a viable alternate is made available. Haiti’s ecological balance has been practically destroyed over decades of mismanagement and its re-balancing is vital to any proposed sustained and resilient re-development of its built-environment. This is more a risk diversification rather than risk elimination from natural hazards with careful consideration given to zoning, to maximize each regions natural resources, skill set, demographics etc. If a country is ever in need of a holistic approach to its rehabilitation Haiti certainly is. With regard to urban sprawl in Port-au-Prince, the UN HABITAT 2009 report recommended densification via the use of high-rise residential living. This has two obvious shortcomings one cultural and one technological. With regard to cultural it is not currently in the Haitian psyche to live in such an environment they are more accustomed to low-rise living, one / two storeys maximum. With regard technological, multi-storey high rise dwellings will demand fully compliant engineered structures properly constructed. Such large scale developments could ever only be undertaken by the government with the proper technical due-diligence from funders such as the World Bank and other regional funders. To leave such developments solely in the hands of private enterprise may risk the construction of sub-standard buildings by opportunistic developers/speculators. De-centralisation will alleviate the need for high density, high-rise living by dispersal of the population outside of Port-au-Prince.

Caribbean countries are highly vulnerable to natural disasters, which has caused them average losses amounting to 2% of GDP since 1970. Only 3% of potential losses are currently insured in developing countries vs 45% in developed countries. Disasters can present severe financial challenges to governments, international funders and aid agencies alike. For this reason disaster risk management strategies have become indispensible for enhancing the resilience of communities against disasters and reducing their social and economic costs. Immediate access to liquidity is critical for governments and individuals post disaster and smaller nations with high debt burdens can no longer afford to self-finance disaster risk.

Traditionally, in middle and low-income countries, which have relatively low tax ratios and ongoing fiscal pressures and where catastrophe risk markets are often underdeveloped, funding sources for post-disaster reconstruction tend to be more varied, with strong reliance ex-post, borrowing and assistance from international donors. In addition, the lack of immediate liquidity in the aftermath of a disaster often retards recovery and forces the government to conduct an emergency budget reallocation, which can be detrimental to the long-term fiscal stabilisation programs and investment programs. However, it should be noted that ex-post financing sources have limitations. Donor assistance, for example, is unreliable because it varies with conditions such as media coverage and the type of disaster. Disaster risk financing does not work in isolation; it enables governments to manage residual disaster risks, those that remain after financially viable and attainable mitigation and prevention measures have already been implemented. It does nothing, however, to physically shield populations and assets from natural hazards. Figure 12.2, illustrates the role of disaster risk financing in a comprehensive disaster risk management framework. A benefit of advanced planning by the government for disaster losses is that it forces the government to access its financial exposure to natural disasters, and when vulnerability to disasters is translated into dollar signs, the significant return on investment from




disaster risk reduction activities is made clear. Financial assessment sensitizes key decision makers, such as Finance Ministers, to the importance of ex-ante disaster mitigation. Parametric and traditional insurance are both natural companions to risk reduction within an overall risk management framework. Risk reduction is vital and should be continuous and risk transfer (insurance) is cost efficient to handle risks that are too expensive to reduce or mitigate i.e. residual risk.

The premium costs for the CCRIF’s risk-based pricing of parametric policies cover just the parametric losses and not the actual losses. Parametric products are exposed to basis risk, i.e., the possibility that a payout may be higher or lower than actual losses. Although this is a significant challenge in terms of the development of the instrument, careful design of input parameters and the loss model helps reduce the basis risk. It is nevertheless something of a ‘gamble’ as there is an equal possibility of ‘winning’ or ‘loosing’ on the basis risk issued. Premiums would be substantially higher if they had to cover actual losses, (traditional insurance). The primary attraction with parametric insurance cover is that monies can be released within a few weeks of the disaster when pre-defined trigger levels are exceeded within the parametric zones modelled. There is no need for loss adjusters to independently evaluate the extent of damage on the ground before releasing funds, which can take a considerable time, as this exercise had been calculated within the parametric model. Unlike conventional insurance which will cover the full insured reinstatement losses, parametric insurance is designed specifically to deal with parametric government infrastructure losses, within the parametric zone, as a one off up front indemnity payment. Currently it excludes the private sector, the agricultural and utility sectors. It only addresses a small niche in the required risk management ‘toolkit’, which is the lessening of the liquidity gap. CCRIF insurance is not designed to cover every post-disaster need, or even most post-disaster needs. While potentially of great value, it is but one piece of the puzzle. Flooding, including hurricane flooding was excluded but a new product was proposed to be launched in 2012 to cover this. Concerns over the accuracy of the parametric models with regards data deficiencies resulting in the Facility’s parametric equations generating loss figures that in no way resembles actual losses on the ground is worrying. Caribbean exposure data did not exist at the time the parametric equations were developed because the states never kept records of such information; thus, many CCRIF models are rooted in assumptions. The foundation stone to the success of the parametric model concept is the ability to accurately predict ‘estimated maximum loss‘, (EML) and fundamental to this is the accuracy of the infrastructure data ‘fed’ into the parametric equations. If the data is inaccurate the EML’s will be distorted. If the parametric outputs show that the estimated loss is above the actual loss, overpayment is made, thereby comparatively disadvantaging the other countries participating in the pool. Even more detrimental is the opposite outcome where the parametric outputs convey that the estimated loss is below the actual loss, forcing an already compromised government to cope with an insufficient payout. While the Facility admits it is technically possible to adjust the parametric equations to reflect actual loss numbers, it maintains it is not practically feasible due to the enormous complexity of the task. Instead, the Facility can only undertake comprehensive overhauls of its parametric model every few years. While such an empirical and iterative approach is probably the most realistic manner in which to fine tune the models it is nevertheless a work-in-progress that unfortunately, does not allow a retrospective reassessment of the policies and adjust as necessary for any under or over payment to affected member states. In the interims, the Caribbean will have to tolerate the kinks and accept the reality that for any given disaster, its CCRIF payout may conflict with its actual loss. Whilst the parametric insurance cover for Haiti paid out circa US$7.7 million, (approximately 20 times their premium for earthquake coverage of US$385,500). This accounted for approximately 50% of the total aid received in the first 10 weeks in the form of direct liquidity by Haiti, inclusive of all international and regional pledges. It is important to point out that as with most countries exposed to




both perils, Haiti spent most (85%) of its overall premium on hurricane coverage leaving just 15% of the premium to cover the effects of the 2010 earthquake. This gives an interesting insight into what was perceived to be the greater risk at the time. This equates to 0.096% of the current calculated total economic loss (US$7.8 billion). Of this figure it is estimated that most of the damage and losses have been suffered by the private sector: US$5.722 billion, i.e., 70% of the total loss. While the public sector share amounts to US$2.081 billion, i.e., 30%. So based on public sector losses the CCRIF payment equates to 0.37% of the total economic loss, and 0.134% for the private sector losses. The shortfalls will have to be made up by remittance, ex-post borrowing, and assistance from international donors and private insured losses which have been estimated to be circa US$30 - $150 million. Clearly the shortfall is significant and despite a large insurance and reinsurance industry, extensive government programs and international aid, the victims in both rich and poor countries bear the major share of the increasing losses from natural disasters (Linneroothe-Bayer and Amendoal, 1998).

An intrinsic consideration in disaster risk financing is what economists call ‘opportunity costs coupled with cost-benefit analysis’ i.e., by not spending the money the opportunity of enhancing a country’s resilience is lost and the benefits that this may bring with it; weighed against the extra over cost of remedying the after-effects of the disaster which is compounded by having to spend money that could have been put to more beneficial use elsewhere had the original opportunity been availed of. It is however recognised, in this process, that it will not always be possible to remedy all known risks but it nevertheless enables governments to manage residual risks better, i.e., those that remain after financially viable and attainable mitigation and prevention measures have already been implemented. Whilst these risks continue to pose a physical threat to people and assets the reinstatement costs incurred can be insured against. In retrospect, looking at Haiti for example, when considering the amount of money spent for emergency management and reconstruction at the time of and after the earthquake, a question to ask is whether such an amount invested prior to the earthquake might have been possible to decrease significantly the number of victims, and destruction by ‘adequate’ prevention. In light of the inherent structural shortcomings apparent from the resulting widespread destruction within the built-environment was it ever financially feasible to undertake ‘adequate’ prevention? There are clearly many esoteric arguments surrounding such speculation, particularly when the probability of the event occurring may be high but the time frame in which it may occur cannot be precisely defined. Where vulnerable countries are also poor and have weak governance the probability of effectively addressing such vulnerabilities is extremely low. There is also the matter of how do international funders and aid agencies prioritise the most vulnerable countries, as the costs would be prohibitively high to prioritise all, when looking at some of the larger cities and conurbations. The cost of insuring such risks may be prohibitively high and in some instances not available on the open market, but knowing the risks, contingencies can be put in place. Mitigation/prevention will always be the first and best solution in disaster preparedness for in-country development. All other methods are secondary and generally designed to bolster a country’s financial resilience to ensure the transition between relief to recovery is kept to a minimum, refer to Figure 1.2. The UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) has now commenced campaigning together with its partners for this to happen. In May 2010, Port-au-Prince was one of the cities that signed up to the “Making Cities Resilient” world disaster reduction campaign. As Haiti has taught us, vulnerability stems from two potential sources:

Lack of knowledge Lack of resource to implement this knowledge properly.

The first must be addressed to build the necessary local capacity in the long term and has been the focus of most NGO’s focused on education and outreach; however even when the threat of a seismic




hazard is well understood (Kerr 2010), all the education, building codes and enforcement in the world cannot eliminate the risk it presents if builders have only failed housing designs at their disposal, sited on geo-technically and geo-environmentally vulnerable sites. In the interim NGO’s actively involved in development projects need to ensure they have the necessary technical competence to deliver such projects and to undertake all necessary due diligence in this regard. Long term these efforts should be flanked with policies that encourage and support research to develop alternative, low-cost, sustainable housing that provides hazard resilience, while operating within the economic and cultural constraints of these regions so that all families will have a legitimate pathway to empowerment, (Kijewski-Correa, Taflanidis 2011). The socio-economic considerations will as ever be the main underlying drivers for both short and long term rehabilitation of Haiti. An intrinsic part of this process, to ensure the rehabilitation is sustainable, is Capacity Building /Resilience within the built environment with regard building national and regional resilience and drilling down to community based disaster risk reduction, CBDRR. Some of the areas where built-environment practitioners can constructively input include:

Spatial planning – both rural and urban Strategic planning frameworks Built environment stakeholder frameworks Environmental Impact Assessment Studies Assistance with the setting up of strategic built environment frameworks Land tenure and rationalisation of its administration processes Resource driven regional development - maximising each regions natural resources and

avoiding miss-matches Vocational training in best-practice in the built environment – linked with employment for

construction work. Long term educational programmes in the built-environment Strategy for the development of a fully functioning and coordinated national infrastructure

policy including road, rail, airports and deep sea ports. Project procurement frameworks. Building regulations implementation and training. Building on the indigenous skilled labour in vernacular construction and translating this

into modern forms of construction. Risk mitigation. Regional and site specific geo-environmental and geo-technical assessments. Assistance in the evaluation of ‘estimated maximum loss’ as part of the parametric

insurance models.

Collaboration of built environment institutions sharing their respective expertise with the Haitian government, regional and international stakeholders and donors can assist with these processes.

There is no silver-bullet that will address all of Haiti’s built-environment vulnerabilities and as ever they have been intrinsically intertwined with its cultural heritage, socioeconomic vulnerabilities and geo-political history. The Haitian disaster was many years in the making and came about as a result of the unsustainable and unplanned urbanisation of Port-au-Prince resulting from the systematic dismantling and neglect of the countryside, which came about from failed and exploitative industrial production policies and corrupt Haitian governments, coupled with international geo-political positioning, embargos etc over the past 40 years. The initial huge loss of life was a direct consequence of poorly designed and constructed ‘modern type’ buildings collapsing, killing and maiming people and compounded by a total lack of resilience and capacity to deal effectively with the aftermath. Although Haiti is the poorest ‘Western’ country it is nevertheless a ‘modern-type’ metropolis, albeit a crumbling one, due to its close geographic proximity and trading with the




America’s. As such, its rehabilitation with regard its built-environment will require the core skills of the built-environment practitioners to take it forward and these will extend beyond the expertise of the relief agencies, who even now, because of the lack of effective governance, are being forced to try and fill the ‘gap’ between relief and reconstruction, thus diverting their resources away from where they can be put to best use. This situation needs to be urgently redressed to ensure the principles of ‘building-back-better’ actually means that and to avoid a repetition of this occurring for future urban disasters in developing countries, particularly in light of the fact that the population living in urban areas is projected to gain 2.6 billion, passing from 3.6 billion in 2011 to 6.3 billion in 2050, almost doubling. The urban areas of the world are expected to absorb all of the population growth expected over the next four decades and it is estimated that this will result in hundreds of millions of additional dwellings, many of which will be built on more vulnerable sites, and existing urban centres will become more vulnerable if not properly planned. Mitigation of urban disasters pose their own unique challenges and in this regard a much more joined up approach between built-environment practitioners, NGO’s, funders and governments is desirable, otherwise we risk perpetuating the mistakes of the past.




APPENDIX A




TYPICAL URBAN CONFINED MASONRY CONSTRUCTION IN HAITI

PHOTO 1

Typical 2 storey residential building in Kingston Jamaica using a combination of traditional RC framing

and confined masonry. Note the engineered cantilevered 1st floor beams.

PHOTO 2

Three storey residential building in Port-au-Prince using confined masonry construction. Note the visually apparent poor workmanship, the vertical discontinuity,

the un-engineered cantilever 2nd floor slab which is visually deflected and the discontinuity in vertical tie-

columns.


PHOTO 3 Two storey retail/residential building (with potential for

an extra storey) using a combination of RC framing and infilled masonry. The construction is not consistent with

confined masonry construction. The columns are highlighted by the arrows. Note the blockwork has not

been bonded.

PHOTO 4 Two storey retail/residential building (with potential for

an extra storey) built using confined masonry construction with rendered elevations.





PHOTO 5 As Photo 4 showing un-rendered flank elevation. Note

the cantilever at 1st floor and the lack of vertical structural continuity. Note also the position of the soil

pipes through the column head. The red arrows identify the ground floor columns buried within the elevations –

none apparent on the 1st floor.

PHOTO 6 As Photo 5 showing the horizontal joint at the interface between the slab soffit and the wall. Note also the lack

of confined framing around the opening


PHOTO 7

As Photo 5, note the beam / column reinforcement arrangement and the poor quality concrete. None of

the reinforcement appears to be anchored into the RC column.

PHOTO 8 As Photo 5, taken at 1st floor showing the perimeter columns inboard of the perimeter masonry walls and

no tie-beam at the head of the wall, totally negating the beneficial effects of confined masonry construction.





PHOTO 9

Floor slab showing the soffit of the RC beam and block slab. Note its very poor construction, showing poorly

compacted concrete, exposed bottom slab reinforcement and visual signs of the slab haven

deflected. Note also the joint at the head of the walls.

PHOTO 10

RC stairs to the roof. Note the visually very poor quality concrete and the bowed slender column that appears under sized. Unlikely that the column is adequately

reinforced or tied into the roof slab.

DAMAGE TO INFILL MASONRY/CONCRETE PANEL CONSTRUCTION AS OBSERVED IN HAITI FOLLOWING THE 2010 EARTHQUAKE OWING TO POOR DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 11

Extremely poor quality construction and note the vertical discontinuity at first floor level.

PHOTO 12

Partially collapsed RC / infill masonry building primarily as a result of poor design and construction. Note the adjacent buildings are still

standing.




DAMAGE TO INFILL MASONRY/CONCRETE PANEL CONSTRUCTION AS OBSERVED IN HAITI FOLLOWING THE 2010 EARTHQUAKE OEING TO POOR DESIGN/CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 13 Demolished top floor of a two storey building. The ground floor had no

openings which enhanced the confined masonry behaviour. Poor quality construction and openings resulted in the collapse of the top

floor.

PHOTO 14 Extremely poor quality concrete is a damaged RC column. Note the

cement paste crumbled leaving the aggregate unfractured and exposed. Good quality concrete would fracture through the aggregate if of adequate strength. Note also the poor reinforcement detailing i.e.

size and spacing of the links.


PHOTO 15

General view of damage to a partially constructed school framed in RC concrete and infill masonry. Whilst the design intent may have

been confined masonry construction the construction did not reflect this but more infill masonry construction. Note the top storey columns sitting on a flimsy RC transfer beam which presumably was designed

to be supported off the wall under when constructed. Again not following the sequence of confined masonry construction.

PHOTO 16

Note the vertical service pipe embedded within the wall totally negating the desired behaviour of the infill panel. Note also the poorly

constructed blockwork and excessive bed joint widths. The blocks consistently failed along the bed joints suggesting poor quality mortar.





PHOTO 17 As Photo 15.

PHOTO 18

Buckled RC column. Only being restrained by the blockwork for its lower half the roof sway caused the column to deform as shown. Poor quality concrete and insufficient reinforcement made if more

vulnerable to this mode of failure, particularly owing to the lightness of the structure over (no floor slabs installed). Had the slab been

installed it would have resulted in a ‘soft-storey’ failure mode.

DAMAGE TO CONFINED INFILL MASONRY PANEL CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 19 Diagonal cracking of the masonry between the confining

tie-columns and tie-beams. The confining members ensured that the panel did not collapse.

PHOTO 20 Diagonal cracking between the tie-columns and the

window. Note the lateral deflection of the right hand tie-column. The confining members ensured that the panel

did not collapse.




DAMAGE TO CONFINED / INFILL MASONRY PANEL CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 21

Restraining tie-columns distorted and locally crushed and the solid infill masonry wall panel collapsed. Although the columns are distorted they are still

providing some level of structural support.

PHOTO 22

Total loss of an infill hollow block masonry wall panel due to the wall panel being too large for the thickness of blockwork used. Additional column and tie-beam should have been installed. Note, this lead to the ‘soft-storey’ collapse between 1st and 2nd floors – pancaking, the

most devastating form of structural failure.

CONFINED INFILL MASONRY PANEL CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 23

Partially confined masonry and RC framing structure. Note the bowing of the tie-columns on either end of the

building.

PHOTO 24

Inadequately restrained infilled masonry building. The walls are constructed inside the external columns, there is no restraining tie-beam at floor level and the external column is not continuous. It can be seen that wall panels have collapsed and been displaced. Again

these errors are negating the beneficial effects of confined masonry construction.




CONFINED INFILL MASONRY PANEL CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 25

Although the top floor has collapsed the masonry panels on the ground floor remained due to the restraint

offered by the tie-columns and beams.

PHOTO 26

Large infill masonry panel inadequately restrained due to lack of additional tie columns / beams.

CONFINED MASONRY PANEL CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 27

Although appearing to be poorly constructed the presence of tie-columns and beams maintained the

stability of the building. Note the lateral deflection to the head of the ground floor column and local crushing of the concreter, but the continuity of the reinforcement

maintained its integrity

PHOTO 28

Damage to an infill masonry single storey building which had no tie-beams at roof level and roof plan bracing to

ensure the building behaved as a rigid box.




CONFINED MASONRY PANEL CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 29 Out of plane failure of a masonry walls and RC columns.

Although the wall failed the composite behaviour between the walls and the RC columns prevented the

wall from total collapse.

BLANK

PHOTO 30

CONCRETE FRAMED BUILDINGS




PHOTO 31 Example of the failure mode of a table top structure not designed to resist the laterally displacing seismic loads.

This is achieved by designing the structural frame to resist the seismic induced sway moments or cross

bracing the panels between the columns.

PHOTO 32 Inappropriate hybrid construction of confined masonry

and RC frame with flat slab construction. Such construction is particularly vulnerable to sway collapse and pancaking with the floor slabs punching through

the column supports. Note the exposed corroding soffit reinforcement.

CONCRETE FRAMED MULTI-STOREY BUILDING

PHOTO 33

Worst example of pancaking of concrete floor slabs. The three upper floors are resting directly on top of

each other. Three upper floors are visible in this photograph! This collapse would have been sudden

with little warning.

BLANK

PHOTO 34

TRADITIONAL LOADBEARING MASONRY CONSTRUCTION




PHOTO 35 National Palace Port-au-Prince built circa the 1920 sustained significant damage. Mixture of reinforced

concrete and loadbearing masonry

PHOTO 36

Collapsed structure of the National Palace. Whilst adequate for vertical and wind loads it was not capable

of resisting seismic loading.


PHOTO 36 Port-au-Prince Cathedral dating back to the late 1800’s

built of substantial load bearing rubble walls and cut stone arches not appropriate to resist seismic loading.

PHOTO 37

Government building built circa the late 1800’s built of substantial load bearing rubble walls not appropriate to

resist seismic loading. .





PHOTO 38

Government building built circa the late 1800’s using substantial load bearing masonry/rubble walls. Not

appropriate to resist seismic loading.

PHOTO 39

Government ministry building built circa the late 1800’s using substantial load bearing masonry/rubble walls.

not appropriate to resist seismic loading


PHOTO 40

The more hybrid traditional buildings of masonry / rubble walls laid in lime/sand mortar and timber floors

generally survived better than the more ‘modern’ forms of low-rise construction.

PHOTO 41

Hybrid construction of traditional masonry / rubble walls laid in lime/sand mortar and concrete roof sustained

partial collapse.





PHOTO 42

Hybrid construction of traditional masonry / rubble walls and concrete floors and part concrete framing sustained

partial collapse.

PHOTO 43

Total collapse of a hybrid construction of traditional masonry / rubble walls laid in lime/sand mortar, steel

framed roof and timber floors. The lack of floor and roof plate diaphragm may have accounted for the extensive damage to this building coupled with possible historic

structural alterations.


PHOTO 44 This building’s elevations had solid facing rendered brickwork with backing insitu concrete very lightly

reinforced. The poor quality concrete and insufficient reinforcement accounted for the observed damage i.e.,

shear failure of the loadbearing vertical members.

PHOTO 45

Classic diagonal cracking through masonry panels in a multi-storey building. Note also the horizontal cracking

between the windows. The substantial masonry / rubble walls would have contributed to the damping of the

seismic energy being imparted into the building. The self weight and bulky nature of the building would also

have been beneficial.




VERNACULAR TIMBER FRAMED CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 46 Two story braced timber-framed Gingerbread house survived intact.

PHOTO 47 Two story timber framed building - despite having suffered partial collapse of the 1st floor the building remained partially standing due to its lightweight construction, joint continuity and the beneficial propping of an adjacent structure

TRADITIONAL TIMBER FRAMED CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO 48

Traditional Kay wooden framed house that survived the earthquake relatively intact. Its lightweight construction

would have been hugely beneficial.

PHOTO 49

Timber framed house that despite being highly distorted from the seismic ground shaking yet remained

standing.




URBAN DESTRUCTION

PHOTO 50 The hills outside Port-au-Prince showing the devastation

caused by the earthquake with the added problem of land slides.

PHOTO 51

Port-au-Prince street scene near the port.

URBAN DESTRUCTION

PHOTO 52

Port-au-Prince street scene near the port.

PHOTO 53

Port-au-Prince street scene showing rubble mounted up on the streets, damaged buildings in danger of collapsing and people getting

on with their daily lives in the midst of the ruins and not having the luxury to worry about their own safety.




URBAN DESTRUCTION

PHOTO 54

Typical street scene of a partially collapsed building. Note the soft-storey collapse.

PHOTO 55

Typical street scene of a partially collapsed building. Note the soft-storey collapse.




APPENDIX B




THE WORLD RISK INDEX

What is society’s risk of becoming a victim of a natural hazard and climate change? The World Risk Index, WRI, provides an illuminating response. The United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn calculated a risk score for 173 countries throughout the world. This index value is calculated by combining the exposure to natural hazards with the vulnerability of a society, which in turn combines its susceptibility and its coping and adaptive capacities.

Whether an earthquake or a tsunami, a hurricane or a flood, the risk that a natural event will develop into a disaster, depends only partially on the strength of the event itself. A substantial cause lies in the living conditions of people in the affected regions and the opportunities to quickly to respond and help. Those who are prepared and who know what to do during an extreme natural event have higher survival chances.

The World Risk Index, WRI, indicates the probability that a country or region will be affected by a disaster. The index is the result of close comparison between scientists and practitioners. Experts in the analysis of natural hazards and vulnerability research as well as practitioners of development cooperation and humanitarian aid have discussed and developed the concept of the index. Globally available data are used to represent the disaster risk for the countries concerned.

In the framework of the WRI, disaster risk is analysed as a complex interplay of natural hazards and social, political and environmental factors. Unlike current approaches that focus strongly on the analysis of the various natural hazards, the WRI, in addition to exposure analysis, focuses on the vulnerability of the population, i.e. its susceptibility, its capacities to cope with and to adapt to future natural events as well as the consequences of climate change. Disaster risk is seen as a function of exposure and vulnerability.

The index consists of indicators in the four components below and is subdivided into further subcategories:

Exposure: Exposure to natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, droughts and sea level rise;

Susceptibility: Susceptibility is the predisposition of society and ecosystems to suffer harm depending on infrastructure, nutrition, housing and economic conditions.

Coping: Capacities to reduce negative consequences depending on governance, disaster preparedness and early warning, medical services, social and material security..

Adaptation: Capacities for long-term strategies for societal change in relation to future natural events and climate change.

The overall index is calculated by combining the four components, each of them including several sub-categories. To obtain the index value, the exposure to natural hazards is combined with the vulnerability of a society.




The 2011 Japan earthquake and subsequent nuclear meltdown proves that even the countries that perform well in the WRI in the categories of susceptibility, coping capacities and adaptive capacities, cannot cope with all disasters – i.e. when uncontrollable risks are known, assessed incorrectly or even tolerated. If the complex disasters in Japan (earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown) had struck a less developed country, the material damage would have been far higher and far more people would have been affected by the earthquake and meter-high tsunami waves.

The examples of Japan, Chile and the Netherlands, all belonging to the 15 countries with the highest exposure, show that good disaster preparedness in view of the development of coping and adaptive capacities can significantly reduce the disaster risk. These three countries are ranked 35th, 25th, and 69th, respectively, in the WRI.




TABULATED WORLD RISK INDEX OVERVIEW

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