land own haiti v 3.2

1 Haiti Land Tenure and Ownership Documentation Challenges by Alister Wm Macintyre

Land Tenure andReal EstateOwnership

DocumentationHaiti

Understanding Complex ChallengesRate of resolution of a barrier to building back better permanent housing

Alister William Macintyre research notes1

last updated 2011 June 18

Version 3.2

Table of ContentsFirst time viewer (1 Jun 18)............................................................................................................ 3

Introduction (1 Feb 17)....................................................................................................................... 4

Tags (1 Jun 18) ............................................................................................................................ 9

World Bank Recovery Steps (1 Feb 17) ....................................................................................... 9

1 Many sources of information credited throughout this research notes document.


Pre-requisite Priorities Solution Path (Sep 17) ..........................................................................11

Haiti Housing Statistics (Glossary) .........................................................................................14

Terminology and Concepts (Glossary).......................................................................................14

Earthquake Rubble Debris (Glossary) ...................................................................................14

Defining Human Housing Rights (Glossary) ............................................................................14

Land Tenure Big Picture (1 Mar 03) ...........................................................................................14

Land Policy Challenges (Sep 15).............................................................................................16

Elites (Dec 28)...........................................................................................................................17

Haiti Red Zones (0 Oct 03) .....................................................................................................18

Forced Eviction Risk (1 Apr 19).............................................................................................18

Land Tenure Reform (0 Sep 17) .............................................................................................18

Recent History Abuses (1 Mar 03) .........................................................................................18

World Bank Key Decisions (1 Feb 17) ..................................................................................19

UN Habitat (Sep 19).................................................................................................................20

Patents (1 Jun 14) ......................................................................................................................20

Defining Owner Documentation (Sep 11) ................................................................................20

Quebec Parallel (Sep 14) ..........................................................................................................21

Haiti Resolution (0 Sep 12)......................................................................................................22

Delaleu Solution (0 Sep 12) .....................................................................................................22

Wise Re-Building Standards (1 Feb 17)......................................................................................23

Haitian People Confusion (Sep 21) ........................................................................................23

Government officials confusion (1 Feb 17)..........................................................................23

NGO confusion (0 Oct-03).....................................................................................................24

Other People Confusion (Sep-22) ..........................................................................................25

Gov Land Water Pollution (1 Apr 04) ............................................................................................26

Textile Jobs (1 Apr 04) .............................................................................................................28

Korean Textile Pollution (1 Apr 04) ......................................................................................33

Haiti Challenges (0 Sep-21)...............................................................................................................34

How long until mess resolved? (Sep 18) ....................................................................................36

Dimensions (1 Feb 17) ........................................................................................................36


Brookings Analysis (Sep 19) ....................................................................................................37

UN and International Community (1 Feb 17)......................................................................37

Alternative Approaches (Sep 19).................................................................39

Leslie Voltaire View (Sep 19) ............................................................................40

Major Players (0 Sep 17) ..........................................................................................................41

Direction Générale des Impôts (Sep 14)...........................................................................42

Public Notaries (Sep 14)......................................................................................................42

Local Municipalities (Sep 13) .............................................................................................. 42

Before Quake Reality (Oct 09)................................................................................................ 43

Urban vs. Rural land tenure (0 Oct 09) .............................................................................44

After Quake Reality (1 Feb 17) ............................................................................................... 45

Documentation is a Western Concept (0 Sep 23) ................................................................ 47

No Documentation = No Ownership (0 July 11)................................................................ 47

Violent Evictions by Non-Owner Gangs (1 Mar 08) ..........................................................51

Build back Better (0 Sep 14) ........................................................................................................52

First time viewer (1 Jun 18)If you are viewing my notes for the first time, where these fit into the big picture:

It is now a year and a half after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, whose survivors livingconditions grow ever more desperate, while little progress is apparent with any permanentsolutions. Most all reports, on Haiti, mention the serious problem of land ownership,without explaining the problem. Here I try to explain the problem, mass confusion about it,and suggest ways to solve it. It is a problem common to many developing nations, broughtto global light by the disaster.

Less than 5% of Haiti’s land is legally registered as to who owns it.

It takes upwards of a year to research who is the legal owner of any land.

Haitian court system ignores land disputes, usually solved by whoever has the mostpowerful thug army, often uses elements of the UN military, and Haitian police,many of whom are illiterate.

Over a year ago, President Preval said land needs to be designated which can be usedfor replacement housing, then the government will condemn it, and can compensatethe legitimate owners, if they prove that they are in fact the legitimate owners.


President Martelly needs to re-iterate this is the policy of the replacementgovernment, once Parliament stalemate is ended, so the replacement government canfunction.

NGOs act like they do not know this, constantly saying say they cannot buildbecause of the lack of ownership clarification, when in fact they only need to ask theHaiti government to identify the land where the government authorizes them tobuild, and get appropriate government documentation and UN protection.

This also includes Gov of Haiti Ministries, which have had to cancel majorinfrastructure rebuilding projects, due to inability to get land ownership disputesresolved.

$ Billions in aid has been pledged, $ Millions have been delivered.Many recovery efforts are stalled, for lack of funds. Some humanitarian assistancehas ended, for lack of funds. Part of the problem is matching up money pledgedwith where it is most needed.

Within a few months of the earthquake, an action plan for recovery had been draftedin concert with the Gov of Haiti, UN, Diaspora, many other interested parties. Thisshould be reviewed by the new government, since priorities may have shifted, due tothe Cholera epidemic, and other interim events.

Debris removal. The Action Plan outlines an 18-month need of $265 million fordebris removal. As of March 2011, IHRC approved an estimated $52 million fordebris removal projects. Additional funds came below the reconstructioncommission threshold for their involvement. Current estimates are that it will takeseveral years to clear the rubble (most of it by hand), and that must be completedbefore serious rebuilding.

Agriculture. The Action Plan outlines an 18-month need of $260 million foragricultural production. IHRC has approved projects in the agricultural sectortotaling about $380 million.

Institutional rebuilding. The Action Plan identifies an 18-month need formore than $800 million to rebuild and improve Haitian government institutions;IHRC has approved about $113 million in projects to address this challenge.

Transportation network. The Action Plan identified an 18-month need of$180 million to improve the national transportation network. As of February 2011,IHRC has approved road-construction projects totaling more than $680 million.

Introduction (1 Feb 17)I know this introduction has grown too long, needs re-thinking.


The land ownership documentation crisis now does not seem as bad as it was earlier, sincethe Preval government says Haiti may use eminent domain to get whatever land is neededfor reconstruction, then compensate the correct land owners when.

1. The correct land owners can prove they are in fact the correct land owners.2. The government of Haiti has the money to compensate them.

But the almost total lack of cooperation means Haiti reconstruction leadership continues toattack Haiti government for not yet coming to the conclusion they came to very soon afterthe Jan 2010 quake, but failed to communicate effectively, and we see from my researchnotes 1 year report on NGO cooperation NOT, that this leadership chaos maynever end.

Several of my "1 year reviews" are now available from http://www.haiti.prizm.org/ and thecollection of files on my Linked In profile. http://www.linkedin.com/in/almacintyre

These notes began in a separate research document, which subsequently got split into relatedtopics, when they became too voluminous. If your interest is in Haiti housing challenges,perhaps you should start with my Glossary of Haiti Housing challenges, whichincludes references to all my related Housing research notes documents, and to manyexternal sources.

Topic sub-titles end in a date signifying when that info last updated, so by viewing table ofcontents, we see where most recent input to these research notes, especially aiding peoplewho have a copy of an earlier version.2 1 in front of month means 2011.

Where “date” in parentheses is instead “Glossary” that means that whole section of contenthas been moved to reference facts document “Glossary Housing Haiti” in preparation forsplitting this and other Housing documents into research by more focused sub-topics, inwhich the glossary document will contain facts and definitions common to overall themesof: Housing rights, Land & Tenure, Land and Housing; Land Tenure Security; RubbleDebris disposal.

2 First major sharing via Blog on Haiti Rewired, May 15 2010, to which other people added insightfulcomments. I am now periodically sharing latest editions of this and other Haiti housing research notesdocuments, for other people to download the documents of most interest to them on: Yahoo Groups / HDRR = Haiti Disaster Recovery Research / Files / Recovery

Challenges

Haiti Prism which has developed economical and safe housing solutions to meetHaiti’s needs.

HR = Haiti Rewired / Building Housing Communities / Discussions / De-Mystifying Barriers to Haiti Recovery


Users of my research hold Alister Wm. Macintyre harmless, and also the places I upload myresearch to, and agree that my copyright is reserved and that the information is available forthe intended purpose of helping in the recovery of Haiti. Some of my research content isdirect quotes from other sources. I try to give credit every time I do this.

As I research more and more into some topics, my research documents also grow in size,and sometimes I feel the need to divide them into smaller documents focusing on variousfacets of the bigger picture. Earlier this research document split into: Transitional Shelters – where are they going, and what organizations are running the

show; Land Ownership and related policy issues, which are ultimately the responsibility of

the Gov of Haiti, but they could use help from other actors.

This latter document has also mushroomed, as I have delved into related topics. I am now in theprocess of doing another restructuring, where potential sub-topic documents may include: Earthquake Rubble Debris Eviction Scandal Haiti Life Quality Statistics Housing Policy Glossary Human Rights Housing Land Owner Documentation Secure Land Tenure Transitional Housing

There is a popular expectation by ordinary people donors to charities that in the aftermathof any disaster, that with enough donated funds, the humanitarian community ought to beable to wave its magic wand and for all natural disasters, and man made disasters, for all thevictims miraculously make them whole again, very rapidly.

Five Years after Katrina, there are people who have not yet been made whole again. Thereare people still living in those trailers which were shown to have certain poisons to bebreathed by the occupants. Popular opinion, of general public who care about this subject, isthere must be some racism, or other nefarious explanation for this reality.

Many months after the Haiti earthquake, there’s over a million people in tent cities, the UNand World Bank saying it will be over a year before most of those people are in anythingbetter, Haiti facing a parade of hurricanes, where no one seriously believes a tent city cansurvive a hurricane. On top of that there is an epidemic of rape and other violence. Theconditions, for the people in the tent city camps, seem like criminal negligence. (Risk fromhurricane roulette, epidemics of violence and sanitation problems, forced evictions,malnutrition.) In addition to the 350,000 or whatever number of Haitians were killed in theJanuary 2010 earthquake, another 35,000 or so were killed after the earthquake because offailure to get them minimum aid.3

3 Stanley Lucas.


Living conditions in the tent cities are very poor, some getting worse not better. We sawfrom Ushahidi early after the disaster that many desperate SOS were apparently gettingignored. The crowd sourcing service had provision for an SOS to be updated, saying “thesepeople got rescued” but that not only was happening, some SOS would go out againshowing people had survived, but not yet been rescued from their horrible situation.

The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) published a report “We have beenforgotten, conditions in Haiti displacement camps eight months after the earthquake”4 whichshowed that living conditions in the camps continue to violate basic human dignity. Thecamp investigation was conducted by a coalition of human rights organizations, includingIJDH, its Haiti-based affiliate the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, the IJDH-coordinatedLawyers' Earthquake Response Network, and partner organizations LAMP for HaitiFoundation and University of San Francisco School of Law Center for Law and GlobalJustice.

In 75% of families surveyed, at least one family member went an entire day without eating inthe past week.5 In 50% of families surveyed, at least one of those family members was achild. "Our data show that aid to the camps has slowed and even stopped in some places,making life far worse for displaced families.6 Their basic human rights are beingsystematically violated," said Sarah Mi Ra Dougherty, co-author of the report.

When IOM installed suggestion boxes in the camps, they were flooded with SOS fromHaitians living there, in desperate conditions.7 One of the writers says “To this point theyhave not responded. It’s like screaming into the wind.”

In whatever time it takes to resolve this national Haitian crisis, there is also a need to balanceneeds of legitimate land owners with that of the survivors of the latest disaster.

60% of tent camps are located on private land.8

Tens of thousands of Haitians, displaced by the quake, have been violently evictedfrom the camps, often in middle of night, with no advance warning.9

4 Summary on Relief Web. Full report. Download the 4.3 Meg PDF. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)5 Two months after the earthquake, March 8, the government of Haiti demanded that NGOs stop providingfree food or water to the quake survivors, on the grounds that this was undermining the ability of Haitianfarmers to make a living. While many NGOs disregarded the government demand, this dramatically reducedfood aid to the camps. There were also numerous observers suggesting compromises, such as NGOs buyingall food from Haitian farmers, to stimulate Haitian agricultural economy. However, USA law mandates that allfood aid from US government must come from USA. Many NGOs get their food aid through that channel.6 The US news media and popular opinion in USA has been demanding exactly that. There is great oppositionin America to NGOs supplying a steady supply of aid. The opposition wants NGOs to spend all the moneythey get, as rapidly as possible, then leave, when there is no more funding. I do not share this opinion, but itdoes seem to be the majority view point.7 New York Times Sept 19.8 USAID Earthquake Fact Sheet #58, Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, page 2 http://bit.ly/cacnME9 We have been tracking instances of this in Architecture for Haiti Group: Forced Evictions of QuakeSurvivors from Camps with no advance notice, (also Rape Epidemic, Accountability, Perspective).UN reports estimate 10-20,000 people evicted. What we have found looks like in excess of 50,000 so far.


48% of families have been threatened with forced eviction since the earthquake.10

Less than 5% of Haiti’s land is legally registered as to who owns it.11

Around the world there are many disasters, and relief to those people seems to take foreverbefore they are getting anything more than subsistence assistance. It is like once a nationgets into a fragile condition, they can never get out of it. The mainstream news media wouldhave us believe that this is a scandal, corruption, incompetence, something is very wrong.

When we look at reports issued by the UN, the NGOs, the governments involved in thehumanitarian relief effort, it is evident that most of the mainstream news media has beenpainting a rather superficial picture of the Haitian challenges.

It would be like a journalist going into a hospital or nursing home and showing all those sickpeople, who have been there for a while, not telling us anything about what diseases theymay have, what the statistics are regarding recovery rates from different diseases, then sayingthat the failure of the doctors to cure these people instantaneously is evidence of somethingcriminal.

However, there are some challenges faced by the relief and recovery efforts, which are alsoreported in the news media. Many of these challenges do not seem to have goodexplanations in either the reports by the people on the scene, or in the news media stories.That is the focus of my research, where this document has my notes so far, on trying tomake sense of multiple inter-related challenges.

In this collection of housing research documents,12 I will try to wrap my mind around:

As I figure things out, explain so other people can also understand situation.

Include sources of my info, so people interested in pursuing some of these threads abit differently than me, do not need to duplicate my effort.

What are the dimensions of Haiti challenges to be resolved?

Are Haiti or International Laws being violated, with respect to Human Rights? Ifnot, what laws should be added, to protect disaster survivors?

Is the Debris Rubble challenge as serious as the news media has painted? It needsto be moved out of the way before replacement housing, but there is no place for itto go, and it cannot be used in replacement construction? Is that true?

What is Land Tenure? How is that different from real estate ownershipdocumentation?

10 We have been forgotten report of IJDH and partners.11 Situation Report 2010 July 15 Habitat for Humanity12 Unfortunately, I often find relevant info much faster than I am able to take the time to clean up my research documents so thatsome of them also are a mess more often than not.


What is Haiti’s system of real estate ownership documentation?

Does this system work elsewhere in the world, why not in Haiti?

Can it be fixed? How could it be fixed?

What are the pitfalls of various proposed solutions?

What are the priorities? What needs to be fixed as a pre-requisite to fixing otherthings?

This is an on-going research effort, where many of these questions have not yet beenanswered to my satisfaction. I freely admit that there’s a lot I do not understand, and mayhave got wrong.

These challenges are a combination political, both national and international, economic andsocial, legal and administrative, that ought to be solved by Haiti, with or withoutinternational help. We constantly hear stories of how international interference in Haitianaffairs has caused many problems.13 We can help with international advocacy to denounceinternational economic oppression that has done so much damage to the Haitian economy,and perhaps reverse that damage.

Tags (1 Jun 18)When uploading this document, where tags or keywords invited, here are suitable choices:

Confusion, Disputes, Documentation, Elites, Eviction, Gov, Haiti, Housing, Land Policy,Land Tenure, Lease, Ownership, Politics, Property, Real Estate, UN, World Bank,

Description: Demystifying Haiti Real Estate owner documentation, how come it is a barrierto Haiti disaster recovery.

World Bank Recovery Steps (1 Feb 17)While their 46 page 8.6 PDF report was delivered to the Gov of Haiti May 2010, it was notpublished on Relief Web until Sept 2010. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)

Key Decision Points, they say:

1. Establish early the best mechanism to manage the recovery. Clear modalities ofoperation will be critical.

2. Speed should over-ride detail planning in the early phase. “Cluster approach” canhelp establish leadership clarity.

3. Hold monthly decision meetings with international partners and senior governmentofficials. This protects their time, while keeping their leadership in touch with what’shappening.

13 I have written of many of them in my research document on Haiti Political history.

10 Haiti Land Tenure and Ownership Documentation Challenges by Alister WmMacintyre

4. Tracking money and results needs to be started early. A strong and detailed Damageand Loss Assessment is critical to effectively allocate resources later.

5. Establishment of a Multi-Donor Trust Fund can help reduce fragmentation of aid.

6. Allow for flexible PFM arrangements. Projects do not need to be channeled throughcountry systems if the regular budget cycle makes efficient implementation difficult.

World Bank advice to the powers that be may or may not have been followed, butirrespective, there is little transparency to the world’s public who vote for political leadersbehind the international community, and contribute financially to the NGOs involved.

The main challenges for Haiti, they say:

1. Assessing the disaster’s environmental and social impacts. Many rapid assessmentshave been made, but need to be compiled and made accessible to decision makers intheir own language.

2. Harmonizing Environmental and Social Guidelines. How best to develop aharmonized environmental and social framework for the various operations andagencies involved in the recovery and reconstruction, so as to facilitate cooperation,and avoid unnecessary complications and transaction costs.

3. Reinforcing Institutional Capability for effective environmental and socialmonitoring.

According to this World Bank document we should now (Sep-Oct 2010) be close to atransition where emergency relief aid would diminish and reconstruction accelerate. Theycompare pros & cons of different models which could be used to help Haiti reconstruction.They make several statements that other people might have some arguments with:

The cluster system is working effectively in Haiti.

Their pros and cons regarding moving the capital city.

The systems used, in 2004 Tsunami recovery, are applicable in Haiti.

USA FEMA is also a useful model.

T-shelter decisions will have a spill-over for years into the reconstruction process.

Transitional shelters, as defined by this report,14 have any correlation with what isbeing called Transitional shelters in Haiti.

14 Transitional Shelters (as defined by the World Bank) are a habitable covered living space and a secure healthyliving environment, with privacy and dignity to those within it during the period between a natural disaster andthe achievement of a durable shelter solution. Affected population would be consulted on options. Sitesselected to facilitate flexibility of population access to essentials of life – jobs, voting, community, basicservices. Weather, and resistance to further disasters, to be considered in design and placement.


Pre-requisite Priorities Solution Path (Sep 17)The powers that be in Haiti (international community, NGOs, Government agencies) arestruggling how to solve many problems, which could take them months, years, or decades.While they are doing so, hundreds of thousands of Haitian lives are at dire risk of multiplehazards. They need to have intermediate solutions implemented, while working on thebetter solutions, for the long term.

The powers that be, such as Gov of Haiti, UN, international community, NGOs, need tocome to an agreement that certain needs should have a higher priority for fixing, than theyhave got so far. Then they need to have conferences of all stakeholders to discuss proposedplans for resolution, where the plans are published for public comment. The plans shouldinclude a hierarchy of someone in charge of a master plan, if that person is to be appointedby head of Haiti Gov or by Parliament, a way for the courts to address grievances againstvarious portions of the plan, how it will be funded. This can be a model for goodgovernance resolution of many challenges.

Whatever the powers that be do, or are doing, need to be communicated to the Haitianpeople, through a healthy news media. When there is no communication of what is beingdone, the people either think nothing is being done, or have conspiracy theories to explainwhat they figure out is happening.15 This can lead to violent revolution. It leads to wellmeaning people, outside of Haiti, devoting great efforts to suggesting solutions, which arenot needed, because the news media had painted a fantasy picture of nothing being done.

Prior to the Jan 12 Earthquake, the Haiti “system” typically took people a year to figure outwho was legal owner of some property, longer after the quake. Challenges solving thedisaster aftermath need resolution faster than being constrained by that “system.”

The Government of Haiti needs to be functioning effectively, including:

A declaration by Parliament that there is no such thing as unowned land. It eitherhas a land owner, or it is owned by the government. Seizing land, with declarationthat it is unowned, should be considered to be a crime. The only organization withauthority to seize land by eminent domain is the national government, or thegovernment that is over the department or municipality involved. The prior ownershould get compensated, once prior ownership has been proven. It is not acceptablefor one department to seize land from another department, or one municipality toseize land from another municipality. The Government of Haiti needs to have thepower to enforce such declarations.

A judicial system which resolves ownership disputes, eviction disputes, rape anddeath threats, in a fair and even handed manner;16

15 http://solutionshaiti.blogspot.com/2010/09/weekly-haiti-electoral-update-4-by.html16 Multiple families can claim the same property as being theirs, according to Dessalines’ Children.


For example, if a land owner wants an encampment of homeless evictedfrom the property, or farmers evicted from agricultural land, or for whateverreason, a better process could be:

1. Show proof to judge that this person is in fact owner of the land,and/or is legal representative of the land owner. This process toinclude opportunity for official property record keepers ofgovernment to determine if this land owner has in fact been payingrelevant taxes, and there are no conflicting info regarding ownershipclaim.

2. Hearing is held with the judge at the site of the encampment, wherethe people there get to dispute the eviction, and date of hearing isannounced in advance.

3. “Friends of the court” (UN IOM, NGOs, local municipality officials,etc.) explain what practical alternatives are available to these people.

4. If eviction approved, it be conducted in a humane fashion, and thesite be posted appropriately, so additional homeless do not take upresidence in the vacated property, in ignorance of the eviction order.

5. Have a phone #, which works, for people to get help, if there is aneviction without approval of the judge.

Enforce an immediate moratorium on evictions of displaced Haitians (which areoutside any authorization by the court system) utilizing the labyrinth apparatus ofestablished MINUSTAH, OCHA, GoH, community systems and partners, toprotect basic human rights essential to survival, according to international andHaitian law;17

Government clarification of how tent city victims are to get protection from rapistgangs, alleged land owner eviction gangs, civil wars over who gets to control whichproperty, and other “bandits”, etc. who have killed many quake survivors;

Minimum standards, for human dignity of aid to disaster victims, mandated bygovernment, with swift action against “humanitarian” violators;

Certification of who is authorized to handle the land surveying, registration, etc.;

Legislative reform to outlaw land tenure, replace with land ownership;

17 The right of IDPs to remain (grounded in freedom of movement established by the CCPR, ratified bythe Haitian government) as well as the rights of IDP children to a standard of living suitable for normaldevelopment, and to free education are also legally binding on the Haitian government by ratificationof the CRC. (Conversely, the right to private property simply protects against “arbitrary deprivation” ofproperty, and is not legally binding in international human rights law.)


Local (Municipalities and Departments) review what ownership documentationexists, fill in the gaps with who decides for what property, pending judicial resolutionof any disputes;

Documentation of who owns what property and who has what rights to use whatland – this accessible for anyone who seeks to rebuild there, remove rubble debris,etc. or condemn the land for the public good, reimbursing the former owners;

Undocumented property where ownership cannot be verified should be reclaimed asstate owned property and made available for auction unless eminent domain isapplied;

Designate more sites where it is legal to dump rubble debris;

Public confidence in the government, as opposed to people not cooperating becausethey think everything is too corrupt;

Literacy such that owners can trust the documentation which has been issued tothem.

In the absence of Gov of Haiti functioning as just described, it may be impractical to solvethe challenges of Real Estate Ownership Documentation. A sane policy, for what to doabout the Rubble Debris removal, needs either resolution of the ownership, so permissioncan be obtained from the right people, or a legislative mandate that supersedes ownershiprights. Without the removal of the debris, it is impractical to rebuild on the property.

The leadership of the nation, whoever they end up being, need to have a mutual consensusthat these problems need to be solved, and agreement on what the end game should looklike.

According to IOM, at least 60% of tent camps are located on private land.18 The owners donot want the tent cities on their land, do not want quality services provided, whichencourage the people to remain there. Those owners need appropriate financialcompensation for the use of their land, or government mandates which supersede ownershiprights, until such time that the tent cities temporary “solution” can be replaced withsomething better.

Currently alleged land owners using excessive force to evict tent city dwellers, withoutwarning, is a MAJOR problem epidemic in Haiti.19

18 USAID Earthquake Fact Sheet #58, Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, page 2 http://bit.ly/cacnME19 For more information, reports and to find out how you can advocate to stop camp evictions go tohttp://haitirewired.wired.com/profiles/blogs/temporary-camps-lingering-as;http://haitirewired.wired.com/group/architectureforhaiti/forum/topics/forced-evictions-of-quake;International Action Ties; Camps vanishing at gunpoint; http://ijdh.org/projects/housing;


Civil Society interests should be encouraged to help solve Haiti’s immediate problems. InLeogane, for example, in the face of frustrating inaction by local officials, Haitian RoodyJoseph20 negotiated one-on-one with owners of empty plots of land. His partnership withSamaritan's Purse is leading to the swift acquisition of these plots and construction of T-shelters to relocate the most vulnerable families off private land where they are beingharassed. This model could be emulated all over Port-au-Prince. Organizational efforts tolease usable land or acquire land in existing camps need to be stepped up.

Haiti Housing Statistics (Glossary)Info from UN-Habitat as of 2001 was moved from here to “Glossary Housing Haiti”research notes, which will have info common to Al Mac collection of research notes onmultiple related Haiti Housing topics, instead of repeating core facts in each document.

Terminology and Concepts (Glossary)Al Mac now has a separate “Glossary Housing Haiti” research notes documentcontaining info common to multiple related Haiti Housing topics, such as links to additionalmajor info sources, instead of repeating pretty much same core facts in each of thosecompanion Haiti Housing research documents.

Earthquake Rubble Debris (Glossary)Al Mac moved this topic to a separate “Haiti Earthquake Rubble DebrisChallenges” research notes document, when this main document became excessivelylarge.

Defining Human Housing Rights (Glossary)Al Mac moved this topic to a separate “Haiti Housing Human Rights” researchnotes document, when this main document became excessively large.

Land Tenure Big Picture (1 Mar 03)People need to understand the intertwined issues, there needs to be the will to solve them,prioritize agreed upon solutions, then begin to implement them. Not getting this done is abarrier to permanent housing solutions, building Haiti back better than it was before recentdisasters, so the nation can survive future disasters.

For decentralization to work, there needs to be a reversal of the trend of people comingfrom rural areas and go looking for work and aid in the city. The Gov of Haiti needs tocreate agricultural sources of employment, with a master plan, mechanisms which wouldallow people in the countryside to earn money, creating schools and programs which

20 Contact Roody Joseph of Promised Provision Ministries. [email protected] or +509 3854 7176


encourage people to leave Port-au-Prince. Currently there is no plan, only uninformedwishful thinking.

We cannot solve agrarian reform, if we don’t first confront the problem of environmentaldegradation, and address issues of social injustice, the problem of inequality.

Land Tenure relates to the rights of people on land.21 Who has the right to own property,assuming they can get the money to buy it? Who may get a lease that spells out rights andobligations? What rights does an owner have to sell their property, pass it down todescendents?

Agrarian reform is not just the land, it has to do with water, credit, technical assistance.

According to Land Reform as a Pillar of Reconstruction by Beverly Bell in Haiti Rewired:22

when we talk about land security, there are three issues we have to take up, with seriousproblems at each level:

1. Which land are we talking about?

2. What rights do people have to this land?

3. And which people have these rights?

Considering the last question, 30-35% of Haitian population don’t have birth certificates. Ifpeople can’t be identified, they can’t establish what relation or rights they have to a plot ofland. As for determining the boundaries and owners of the property itself, the documentsand titles are non-functional. Furthermore, people don’t have the resources for the extremelyhigh costs of the procedures. The government has failed to create necessary conditionswhich would allow people to own proper title to their land.

A nation may supposedly be a Democracy, but still have a class system passed down fromhistorical times, when the King owned everything, and people got to use stuff at his pleasure,some people were Lords or Property Owners, other people (and their descendents) weresecond or third class citizens. There also needs to be a justice system which is functioningeffectively, for the resolution of disputes.

The first thing needed for true agrarian reform is political will, but Gov of Haiti is playingthe role of observer more than really supporting people. Haiti has a whole group ofgovernment institutions which are involved in land matters, but which don’t have much of arelationship with each other.

Land Tenure is a problem in many nations. Organizations like Global Land ToolNetwork (GLTN) http://www.gltn.net/ exist which address land tenure housing/shelter

21 Definitions: Google;22 http://haitirewired.wired.com/profiles/blogs/in-haiti-land-reform-as-a byhttp://haitirewired.wired.com/profile/OtherWorlds


specifically.23 GLTN is a UN sponsored org (under UN Habitat) so figure out theimplications?

Are there any socio-cultural negatives to pure ownership based on 'western' modes, i.e.,patterns of land ownership / agreements among families or friends that would be disruptedby the new system? Could these traditional patterns (collective ownership, vs. a singleindividual / couple, or a corporation, owning the land) be incorporated, in a replacementsystem?

Pinochet's coup in Chile was in part sparked by land reform:24 Allende's socialistadministration was trying to institute land reform to break up the large holdings of the eliteand distribute ownership to a larger part of the population; it wasn't moving fast enough forthe poor / more 'radical' left-wing elements, and it was moving too quickly for the rich /conservative / right-wing, who had the army (and the CIA) on their side.. The last thingHaiti needs is another coup, with or without foreign intervention. Plus we could look atMugabe's efforts in Zimbabwe to 'reclaim' the land of white landowners (many of whom hadlived in the country for generations), which had disastrous effects on agriculturalproductivity, among other problems.

Land Policy Challenges (Sep 15)

Amazing facts. Number people, per arable land area, almost as dense as India.25

Haiti is more mountainous than Switzerland. In 1923, over 60% of Haiti's land was forested; by 2006, less than 2%

was.26

Lack of trees contributes to significant soil erosion. 75% of energy demands are satisfied by wood fuel.27

Less than 5% of Haiti’s land is legally registered as to who owns it.28


1.5 million quake survivors will still be in tent cities more than a year and ahalf after the Jan 12 earthquake.30

44% of families primarily drink untreated contaminated water, for months after thequake.31 They do this even though the water makes them sick, because they do not

23 Thanks to Steve Michel on Haiti Rewired for this link.24 Thanks to David D. Gregory for pointing out this dimension on Haiti Rewired.25 According to Wolfram Alpha, Haiti has 358 people per square kilometer (rank 31) while India has 397 (rank28)26 Wikipedia.27 Earth Conscious Magazine.28 Situation Report 2010 July 15 Habitat for Humanity29 USAID Earthquake Fact Sheet #58, Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, page 2 http://bit.ly/cacnME30 Pamela Cox, World Bank 's vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, stated this Sep 14 at aconference on the Americas in Miami.31 We have been forgotten report of IJDH and partners.


have money to buy something better. Unaccompanied women cannot go get water,for fear of rape or lesser attacks.

78% of families lived without enclosed shelter.32

According to Haiti Country Studies and Haiti Security, Land Tenure and LandPolicy:33

QUOTE“For historical reasons, Haiti's patterns of land tenure are quite differentfrom those of other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.The three major forms of land tenancy in Haiti are ownership, renting (orsubleasing), and sharecropping.60% of farmers own their land, although some lack official title to it.

As a consequence of high rural population density and deteriorating soils,competition over land appeared to be intensifying. Haiti's land density,that is, the number of people per square kilometer of arable land, jumpedfrom 296 in 1965 to 408 by the mid-1980s-- a density greater than that inIndia.”

UNQUOTEData is often incomplete, not up-to-date.

According to the Miami Herald, Haiti needs substantive reform of property laws.

Haitians transfer ownership of property informally, because of hightransactional costs of dealing with government officials perceived to becorrupt.

Inheritance laws mean land gets divided up to multiple family members of deceasedowners. This fragmentation, of ownership of family property, undermines incentivesfor long term improving the land such as reforestation.

Elites (Dec 28)Some people speak of the well-to-do land owners having an unfair influence on the Haitipolitical scene. One of my informants told me:34

Look into the Mevs family. Below is a list of the rest:

MadsenBrandtLacombeGardereBigio

These are some of the behind the scene players in Haitian politics.

32 We have been forgotten report of IJDH and partners.33 Also Wikipedia.34 Greg D.


Haiti Red Zones (0 Oct 03)Since I became a student of Haiti immediately after the Jan 2010 earthquake, I have seenmultiple stories about Haiti Red Zones, where apparently it is illegal to provide any residentsin there with any aid. It was pretty much a mystery to me how come a nation would havesuch arrangements, until an article in Haiti Libre, where Commissioner of Haitian NationalPolice is basically stating that there are some neighborhoods with high levels of crime.Instead of solving the problems, Haiti just treats everyone in there like they are all felons.

Forced Eviction Risk (1 Apr 19)According to an article in the New York Times,35 about 40% of the world’s population issubject to forcible eviction from their homes because of a lack of documentation provingownership. It is close to 70% in Haiti.

Land Tenure Reform (0 Sep 17)Putting a legal document in the hands of the poor land owner/farmers, gives them:36

access to 21st century of bank credit and the world market;37

providing an incentive to make their land productive instead of migrating to thecities and depending on factory jobs;

increasing the standard of living of many poor farmers into the middle class;

a greater constituency to influence the direction and policies of a democraticgovernment.

This means the Elites will become a political and economic minority, which is notacceptable.

Recent History Abuses (1 Mar 03)According to Land Reform as a Pillar of Reconstruction by Beverly Bell in Haiti Rewired:38

In his first term, President Aristide issued the decree to create INARA.39 But it wasPresident Préval, during his first term, who took the first action toward agrarianreform in the Artibonite Valley, in 1999 through 2001.

35 NYT March 1 2011 by Julie Satow, titled “Born of 9/11, an effort to rebuild shattered Haiti”, I saved a copyof the article, calling my copy “Shelter Rebuild 2011 Mar 01 NYT” because I store my downloads, named aftergeneral content focus, grouped with others of same general focus.36 Thanks to Michel Francois for explaining this on Haiti Rewired.37 Also there is risk of losing your land forever if you default on bank loans, or if for other reasons the bankcomes to claim your land, such as someone doing identity theft on you, then as alleged owner, selling yourproperty.38 http://haitirewired.wired.com/profiles/blogs/in-haiti-land-reform-as-a byhttp://haitirewired.wired.com/profile/OtherWorlds39 National Institute for the Application of Agrarian Reform (INARA), which is part of the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture.


Close to 6,000 families in the Artibonite got a total of 5,000 carreaux [15,938 acres]of redistributed land. The Artibonite has between 30,000 and 40,000 carreaux[95,629 and 127,506 acres] total. They gave each peasant half a carreaux [1.6 acres],which came out of the holdings of large landowners and also the state. The goal wasto see to it that the peasants could earn an income higher than the minimum wage.

The land each family got was practically nothing, but it was the compromise solutiongiven land pressures and the number of people who were demanding land at thetime. This was part of a system of complimentary actions, which because they werenot taken, the effort was doomed to failure.

People weren’t made owners of those small plots. They didn’t get titles to the land,only given a usufruct contract [the right to use the land and own all products fromit] with the state. This made the situation very fragile. People couldn’t appeal to thejustice system. Then other challenges arose, like a blight called black straw whichaffected rice, plus hurricanes, and droughts and floods.

After the [2004] coup d’état which removed Aristide, Latortue came in as PrimeMinister and gave land reform the coup de grâce. He disapproved of the reformswhich had been taking place in the Artibonite, so large landowners started takingland away from the peasants. And that’s when the peasants began to fight back again.In fact, the conflict continues to rage in the Artibonite. Close to 40% of the peoplewho’ve been given land by the government in the Artibonite have had their landoutright stolen from them. No concrete actions have been taken to see to it that thegovernment’s authority is respected.

Then came the second administration of President Préval. He came in with adiscourse of reconciliation, a mentality of bringing back peace in society, so the land-related problems were set aside. They didn’t deal with them.

Today, INARA has a program with the Inter-American Development Bank toremove obstructions on 28,000 carreaux [89,254 acres] in the Artibonite so peasantscurrently working that land are legally protected. Other, smaller programs areunderway around the country.

If Haiti wants to create a society in which the rule of law is respected, we have to allow andsupport the institutions, whose purpose is to defend people’s rights, to play their role.

World Bank Key Decisions (1 Feb 17)While their 46 page 8.6 PDF report was delivered to the Gov of Haiti May 2010, it was notpublished on Relief Web until Sept 2010. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web) Key DecisionPoints:


A legal framework to address land acquisition and occupation should be developedfor immediate reconstruction needs.

The diverse categories of affected people will need to be addressed.

Gender considerations should be included.

Forms of proof of ownership other than existing formal land title might beconsidered.

A second phase might consider broader system strengthening and reform.

Involving communities strengthens buy-in and promotes success.

UN Habitat (Sep 19)The UN-Habitat agency40 has a global campaign for secure tenure. Mike Perrett is studyingwhat they are doing, and feeding useful tit bits to Al Mac.

Patents (1 Jun 14)A related topic to having good quality land ownership documentation, is intellectual propertyprotection. This topic has been discussed in the comment section of Haiti RewiredArchitecture Group.41 There are some very serious implications there, where NGOs andothers, like Monsanto, may do anything they please in Haiti with intellectual property, whileHaitians have no such protection or ability to profit from inventions, or new processes.When the NGOs finally leave Haiti, they can charge an arm and a leg for Haitians tocontinue using whatever they leave behind: structures; methods; any kind of intellectualproperty.

Defining Owner Documentation (Sep 11)A system of clearly identifying geographic boundaries of a piece of property, spells out whois the owner of that property. This documentation is in the possession of both the owner,and the government, so that the owner has undisputed proof of ownership, and independentinvestigators can figure out who owns what. When there are financial loans against the valueof the property, sometimes the deed of ownership is held by the financial institution until theloan is paid off.

To be of any value a claim to any property must be accompanied by a verifiable and legalproperty description, which historically has used references to natural or manmadeboundaries such as trees rivers hills (whose placement can move over time) highways.Sometimes tracts of land are broken into chunks with unique numbering, then who owns

40 Thanks to Facebook contact Mike Perrett for bringing this agency to my attention.41 http://haitirewired.wired.com/group/architectureforhaiti


which ones, or they are broken into smaller portions. In recent years, with the advent ofGPS, longitude and latitude is more often included.

Improvements on the land, such as buildings, crops agriculture, can sometimes be owned orleased to someone other than the land owner. For example, there can be mining leases,grazing rights, with different rights granted to different people using the same real estate fordifferent purposes. These are often for a limited time frame, and usage spelled out in thelease, such as access to water. This is similar to an apartment lease, where the tenant maystay there so long as certain rules are obeyed, and the rental fees paid on time.

Each nation, state, locality, etc. can have its own laws regarding how all this is managed,what can be done by owners of the land, and people using the various improvements.

Quebec Parallel (Sep 14)I had posted the above Land Tenure situation, and how Real Estate Ownership is done inHaiti, to a blog in Haiti Rewired, and the topic came up in other threads, such as this one:

Rick Davis informed me: QUOTE

The system you describe is the same as that used to record land title transfer inQuebec. It is based upon the historical French system using Notairies. It is terriblyinefficient.

The fact it is inefficient and prone to greed, theft, bribery and incompetence doesnot prevent Quebec from having a vibrant and workable property market. I havebought and sold land in Quebec. The system is frustrating and very complexcompared to what I am used to experiencing in the US, however it can work.

UNQUOTE

I asked:

@ Rick: In Haiti, many people buy and sell land without going through the officialsystem, because they believe, probably correctly, that there's lots of corruption in theofficial system. This would be like people buying and selling cars and their licenseplates without registering the sales with the DMV like with the Times SquareBomber, except the property could go through several generations of families resalesoff the government books. I doubt that Quebec also uses that part of the Haitisystem.

Rick replied:

@ Alister: Yes in Quebec transactions are often left unregistered because in fact thenotaries are the official record keepers of property ownership. They have quasi-governmental responsibilities and wide latitude in how they do their work.


Apparently the Quebec authorities42 are aware of some minor problems with their system,which they are working on fixing.

Haiti Resolution (0 Sep 12)In multiple threads about this topic, I pointed at the planning for the Rebuild Haiti BackBetter Plan which was presented and approved at the UN March 31 Donor’s conference. Inthe month leading up to that, the powers that be held meetings with all Haiti stakeholdersseeking consensus on the plan, and how to implement it. I believe the Land TenureOwnership Documentation could be solved in a similar way.

Agree a plan is needed,

lay out a proposal,

hold discussions with all stakeholders to refine it.

The plan includes how to finance it, and any legislative requirements to authorize it.

Delaleu Solution (0 Sep 12)In the run up to 2010 Haiti Presidential Election, where 19 were approved by CEP toparticipate, there were many others, not accepted by CEP. One of them proposed a solutionto this problem, as part of his platform. Dr. Eddy Delaleu is a member of theRotary Club International, is President, Founder, and Chief Executive Officer of OperationHope for Children of Haiti (OHFCOH). He has a website and did an interview on August 8,2010 on BlogTalkRadio. Here is the google document for his plan for Haiti. MIA Aug-20

Here is his solution for the Land Tenure and Ownership Documentation challenge.

Land Documentation: Land documentation is needed to eliminate the uncertainty thathas historically surrounded land issues in Haiti and exacerbated by the lack ofdocumentation of government land distributions and other land transactions that has leftcitizens with little or no proof that they are in lawful possession of their land.

o The program will be initiated through planning meetings with local authorities andcommunity meetings to inform local residents about the project.

o Land law information will be created and provided.

o Sketch maps will be created with inventory of existing household and land.

o Titles will be awarded.

42 Reform of the Québec cadastre.


Wise Re-Building Standards (1 Feb 17)A civil engineer appointed by Preval to resolve the land issue, Marie George Salomon, says43

his plan is to raze the most damaged parts of Fort National and build orderly rows of wood-framed shelters. But the disorganized way in which the neighborhood grew, with narrowalleys and houses on top of houses, means the area held far more people than the rebuilt oneever will.

Haitian People Confusion (Sep 21)USAID Fact Sheet # 72 dated 2010 Sep-1744 reports:

As of September 14 2010, IOM had registered more than 300,000 families residing in1,193 displacement sites. IOM plans to complete initial registrations in all of Haiti’sestimated 1,215 settlements by the end of September; however, Phase II registrationsto verify the data will continue through the end of 2011. IOM registrations representpreliminary, unverified figures, as data collected earlier in the year is likely out-of-datedue to the transient nature of spontaneous settlement populations.

Initial registration data indicates that nearly 90 percent of displaced individuals residein camps near their former houses. According to IOM, approximately 57 percent ofregistered displaced persons were tenants prior to the earthquake, and the majorityindicated a willingness to depart areas of origin if given the opportunity to becomelandowners. IOM noted that many settlement residents harbor themisconception that moving to planned camps entitles them to landownership. Of settlement residents who owned land prior to the earthquake, themajority would prefer to return to their former home, regardless of the condition.

According to the article “No Plan in Sight for Haiti Homeless”45, many camp dwellersbelieve a rumor that IOM registration of them, is a first step to having them evicted. IOMspokespersons say this is untrue.

"Those who expect progress immediately are unrealistic and doing a disservice to the manypeople who are working so hard," the chief US diplomat said, during a meeting at the UN.46

Government officials confusion (1 Feb 17)Goh and UN officials have designated which homes are safe to return to, and which needonly minor repairs, before safe for the people to live in again.

Of a total of 227,543 registered families in Port au Prince,

61% said they were renters.

43 LA Times Sep 20.44 Relief Web summary, with link to full Detail PDF. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)45 LA Times Sep 20 and reprinted elsewhere.46 Agency French Press (AFP) Sep 20 via Relief Web. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)


20% of families reported owning and ability to repair their homes,

11% also reported to own but can not repair their homes.

9% remains unknown.

Nearly half of those concerned (46%) said they wanted to live in a camp

This confirmed by Fysh Adam, head of Shelter group who said "most victims prefer toremain in camps because they are not obliged to pay rent". How do these people, mostlytenant, may return to their homes when they have lost their sources of income?47

NGO confusion (0 Oct-03)When decisions of Haitian government are not communicated to the people via news mediaor UN clusters, then that is the same as not making any decision. One example of that is thePreval saying that land needs to be designated that can be used for the replacement housing,then the government will condemn it, and can compensate the legitimate owners, if theyprove that they are in fact the legitimate owners. This kind of info needs to be shared on aweb sites of GoH, UN, Haiti reconstruction efforts, because people making decisions shouldnot be stymied for months or years for lack of knowing this.

We see NGOs not knowing this, when they say they cannot build because of the lack ofownership clarification, when in fact they need to ask the government to identify the landwhere the government authorizes them to build, and get appropriate governmentdocumentation and UN protection. The Government documentation to supersede anyother ownership claims, because the other owners will have to go to relevant court to provetheir claims, then get paid out of government condemnation fund. UN protection neededbecause of the widespread thug-gangs that operate outside of GoH judicial system.

Jean-Pierre Taschereau senior manager to international emergencies to Canadian Red Crosssaid "Difficult to rebuild in cities like Port-au-Prince, because the rubble of the earthquakeare still there and in the countryside , vast land remain unoccupied due to a legal tangle. It islegally impossible to construct permanent or transitional shelters on these lands, where theidentity of owners remains uncertain." This situation remains unresolved and raised by allNGOs involved in the construction of such shelters.48

Alistair Lamb, Haiti country director for the J/P HRO charity of Hollywood actor SeanPenn, which manages the Petionville Golf Club survivors camp, says "The main issue isspace, where do you evacuate to?"49

"Take a helicopter flight above Port-au-Prince and you will see sizableareas of open land. So don't tell me it's lack of space," said Leonard Doyle, spokesman

47 Haiti Libre Oct 148 Haiti Libre Oct 149 Reuters Sep 29.


for the International Organization for Migration (IOM).50 "The society needs to decide foritself, whether it's going to keep people in squatter camps, or organized camps, and whetherit's going to allocate resources for the move."

Many say moving quake survivors out of the Port-au-Prince camps, where they receive food,water, protection and medical care -- and pay no rent -- is pointless unless the governmentcan offer real economic livelihoods, jobs and income opportunities.

Other People Confusion (Sep-22)"Less than 5% of Haiti’s land is legally registered"

NO that does not mean that 95% belongs to the Government.

NO that does not mean it is the Government doing the forced evictions.NO it also does not mean that Haiti has any "unowned" land.

There is land that is simultaneously registered to 10 or more different owners, using asystem of government documentation that cannot figure out which ownership is thelegal one. There is no one in Haiti government who is in charge of fixing this.

There is land that used to be legally registered to one community, which is declared by thelaws of that community to be for a particular purpose, then another community sends in itsthugs to jail all the elected leaders of the first community, to do a land grab. The winner iswhich is whichever entity has the strongest thug-army. This goes on because the Haitijudicial system is seriously broke, people settle things with violence, not courts.

The evictions are conducted by:

People who claim to own the land, or their agents, who usually do not have any legal right tothe land, what they have is more thug-power than the people who are in the camps. Plusthey may have more counterfeit-skills when it comes to creating alleged ownershipdocumentation.

Government which does not want camps in certain places, such as on the grounds ofgovernment offices, which collapsed, like the National Palace.

Combined efforts, after the powers that be decided that re-opening the National Sportsstadium to sports games was more important than helping the 8,000 quake survivors whohad camped inside the stadium. Similar interest by private schools.

Street Gangs whose interest is other than the real estate or national recovery

I have a thread on Haiti Rewired where I have been posting links to articles about the forced evictions,which I think are now approaching 100,000 people, some of whom have had multiple evictions ... theyfind a place to camp, then in the middle of night a bunch of thugs, with guns and other weapons, drivethe people out like cattle, and the people are lucky to salvage any possessions ... they find another place tocamp, and then it happens again.

50 Reuters Sep 29.


Haiti is not a developed nation with systems and infrastructure familiar to people in thedeveloped world. Lots of education about the differences have been brought out in thecomments section of Architecture for Haiti group on Haiti rewired, such as:

Few businesses in Haiti pay taxes, so governance of common infrastructure such aspaved roads, schools and sewers are difficult to maintain.

Gov Land Water Pollution (1 Apr 04)Lots of people are confused about the availability of land for recovery projects, and prioritiesof Gov of Haiti and other authorities supposedly working on building Haiti back better.

Stuart Leiderman forwarded the following on March 29, 2011 thru MPHISE contacts:

thanks to Jacqueline Charles for this story in Miami-Herald, and to recent-Haiti builder JackTucker <[email protected]> of Tucker Resources LLC, for noticing it today. it'ssignificant for more than meets the eye:

- it proves that the government has land that it can use at its discretion. while leaving thefate of a million of its citizens up to the mercy of foreign NGO's, and not relocating thevictims after more than a year, it nonetheless found land - more than six hundred acres - toaccommodate the development plans of a private Korean textile company.

- the headline quotes "some 20,000 jobs to be created" while the text states "the possibilityof 20,000 new jobs," but an Associated Press article by Jonathan Katz from last September,per below, stated 10,000 jobs.

- the article boasts that the company would be "pumping 6,000 tons of ground water a day,"not mentioning that the water is largely for dyeing fabric in what is acknowledged as one ofthe most polluting of all industrial practices, per the World Bank below. a ton is 250 gallons,so six thousand tons is one-and-a-half million gallons. this is not to water petunias, this iscustomarily to flush dyes and other fabricating agents into the environment.

- according to the source below, "Korea has already been identified as the water deficientnation and most of the used water is released in the form of wastewater." what better reasonto come to Haiti? instead of a nice water bottling plant to help ten million people fight andsurvive cholera, and reach the Millennium Development Goal for water, health and hygiene,the Haitian government along with the United States and the InterAmerican DevelopmentBank have chosen to let a Korean company pump the northern aquifer to convert purewater to wastewater, with a sidestream of T-shirts for export. what equity is there in thatkind of operation? and where will that wastewater go?

- while the country is justifiably crawling with technologists, entrepreneurs, potters and


water-evangelists trying to purify and save Haiti's water, here we have a single source thatneeds to take the process in the opposite direction.

- http://www.cirh.ht/sites/ihrc/en/projects/Pages/default.aspx indicates that the InterimRecovery Commission acknowledged and approved the project last December:

Title: Northern Industrial Park, Phase 1Project Description: The GOH, in collaboration with the Inter-American DevelopmentBank (IDB) and the United States Government (USG), is developing a globally competitive150 hectare industrial park in the northern region of the country that will host export-oriented garment manufacturers and other businesses. The North Park Project will, in Phase1 (2012-2014), accommodate approximately 18,000 workers in the garment industry,growing to support 65,000 permanent jobs once the Park is fully developed in the secondphase of the project, increasing Haitian garment industry jobs by more than 200%. Theindustrial park will be owned by the GOH and operated by a private sector managementcompany. In addition to jobs in the garment industry – 60% of which traditionally are heldby women – the Park and associated investments in electricity, housing and portinfrastructure create opportunities for small businesses, suppliers, food vendors and localfarmers. And, as workers spend their income; additional jobs will be created in the local andregional economy.Partner: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the United States Government(USG)Implementer: GOH-Private CompanyTotal Budget: 174,000,000 over 2 years/Funded: 174,000,000Donor: UnspecifiedApproved: December 14, 2010

- if I remember correctly, this was the meeting where twelve commission board membersrevolted against the chairman for treating them as rubber-stamps. I think the commissionshould revisit this particular project.

it is one thing for a poor country to indenture its workforce for such an overpriced and low-priority item as T-shirts - second only in lowest nobility to throwaway diapers - but todeplete and filth its limited groundwater in the deal as well? harrumph!

thank you,

Stuart [email protected]

- - - - - - -


Textile Jobs (1 Apr 04)

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/29/v-fullstory/2140282_some-20000-jobs-to-be-created.html#storylink=addthis

Some 20,000 jobs to be created at new industrial park in HaitiU.S., Haiti team up with Korean garment firm to create 20,000 jobs and country’s first fabricmill.

By Jacqueline [email protected]

CARACOL, Haiti -- Standing in the middle of the dirt-poor rural village on a coolafternoon, the neatly dressed Korean garment tycoon surveyed the rugged mountaintops andsurrounding bean fields as he tried to envision the future a year from now.

But it wasn’t until Kim Woong Ki stared into the curious faces surrounding him that thechairman of Korea’s leading manufacturer and exporter of textiles and clothing, realized thereal value of his $78 million business investment decision.

“I didn’t really set out to bring people hope,’’ Kim said, as he rode away from the village onHaiti’s northern coast halfway between the cities of Cap-Haitien and Ouanaminthe.“Coming here, seeing the site and walking among the people, I realized that what I’m goingto do here in creating the factory and the jobs, is give people hope.’’

A major supplier to U.S. retailers Target, Wal-Mart, Kohl’s and GAP, Sae-A is expanding itsgarment-making operations to Haiti as the anchor tenant in a new 617-acre industrial parkbeing created in the country’s underdeveloped northern region. For the first time, Haiti’s 2million-a-week T-shirt-stitching industry will also include the country’s only knit and dyeingmill with Sae-A pumping 6,000 tons of ground water a day for its export operations.

“For the first time ever, apparel sewn in Haiti will be using fabric made in Haiti,’’ said Kim,whose company already has operations in Guatemala and Nicaragua.

With the company gearing up to recruit Haitian managers as early as next month for aplanned March 2012 opening, the deal is already having a multiplier effect. Local hotel andrestaurant owners are optimistic, as are potential workers like 23-year-old Luckner Peter,about the possibility of 20,000 new jobs in the area. Luckner was among dozens of youngmen hired by the government at 50 cents a hole to help install a fence around the property.

“This is going to change our community,’’ said Louicot Alexandre, president of the chamber


of commerce for Northeast Haiti, a region of about 300,000 residents. “This shows thatHaiti is prepared to do business with the world, and it’s OK to do business with Haiti.’’

Valued at about $300 million, the job-creation package is one of Haiti’s biggest foreigninvestments. U.S. officials call it an “unprecedented collaboration’’ between the Haitian andU.S. governments, and the Inter-American Development Bank. So much is at stake thatsome Haiti observers mused that it was perhaps one of the reasons for the United States’heavy involvement in the Nov. 28 presidential election debacle. Twice before, Kim had triedto invest in Haiti. Each time, his decision was thwarted. There was political turmoil in 1994after he signed a memorandum of understanding and then the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquakeshortly after another trip.

“We have in our business proposal a huge chapter called hurdles and obstacles,’’ said LonGarwood, advisor to Kim. “Our initial business proposal didn’t look like a businessproposal. It looked like why we can’t do business in Haiti.’’

But that was before the U.S. government stepped in, and U.S. Secretary of State HillaryClinton’s personal plea on behalf of Haiti during a Korea visit.

With the Haitian government donating the land and compensating farmers, the U.S. plans tobuild 5,000 houses, a 25-megawatt electricity grid for the park and surrounding area, and awaste and water treatment plant as part of its $124 million contribution. The Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank is contributing over $100 million for construction of buildings androads.

“These kinds of investment deals are incredibly hard,’’ said Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief ofstaff, who has been credited with leading the effort for more than a year to bring together allsides including Haiti’s private sector. “They take prolonged coordination and consultation,and accommodation and negotiation. But ultimately what they really take is an audaciousamount of faith.’’

It is this faith, the U.S. and others are banking on as they seek to revive Haiti’s post-earthquake shattered economy by helping the nation’s garment industry take betteradvantage of U.S.-Congress approved duty-free trade legislation. Once boasting 100,000jobs, the industry has just 28,000. About 9,000 of those were created because of the removalof tariffs.

Last May, a sympathetic Congress extended the trade benefits to 2020.

Now Haiti’s private sector is hoping to attract 60,000 new jobs with the industrial park in thenorth. They are also eyeing another park in the south, just outside of the quake-ravaged


capital of Port-au-Prince.

“We are no longer talking just about garment assembly. We are talking about a true textileindustry short of planting cotton. That is what is being developed,’’ said Georges Sassine,who is also responsible for implementing the U.S. Congress-approved duty-free legislationbenefiting the garment industry.

Sae-A’s revenues are more than doubled Haiti’s garment industry’s $512 million exports for2009. In addition to Haitian managers, the company has committed to pay line workers atleast four times Haiti’s average $640 GDP per capita. The facility itself will boast a coolingsystem, recreational facilities and a football field. With the construction bid package currentlybeing prepared to go out next month, the first phase has already been laid out. Sae-A’soperations will occupy 126 of 185 acres, said Mark D’Sa, a Miami-based executive with GAPwho has been on loan with the State Department to help Haiti better take advantage of tradelegislation.

D’Sa said other potential clients include a furniture maker and two other apparel companies.Not far from the site, and separate from the industrial park, the Dominican government isplanning to build a university.

Still, the deal has detractors with some protesting using farmland for what some are calling“sweatshops.’’ Government officials say the land belongs to the state and compensationpackages are being worked out for farmers who have been illegally living off it.

“We have sought investments outside of Port-au-Prince for years,’’ said Haitian PrimeMinister Jean-Max Bellerive. “In Haiti, the real tough infrastructure investments in energy,ports, and industrial zones have largely been avoided. It’s these investments that willgenerate the productive base of which Haiti can grow and prosper economically.’’

- - -

http://www.nextbillion.net/search/page/2?q=earthquake

Quake-hit Haiti Looks to Textile Park for Jobs BoonNewsroom

(Reuters) - The U.S. and Haitian governments signed a deal on Tuesday with a South Koreangarment manufacturer to develop an industrial park in quake-hit Haiti in one of the largestinvestment projects in the poor Caribbean country.


The project with South Korea's Sae-A Trading Company Limited is also backed by the Inter-American Development Bank and intends to breathe new life into Haiti's garment exportindustry and its shattered economy after a devastating earthquake a year ago.

The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is still reeling from the January 12,2010, disaster that killed up to a quarter of a million people.

Haiti's government and its international aid partners have appealed for more private capitalto help the country rebuild its aid-dependent economy.

The framework agreement signed in Port-au-Prince calls for the construction of an industrialpark in northern Haiti and aims to appeal to textile manufacturers who could benefit fromexpanded duty-free access to the U.S. clothing market under increased American tradepreferences for Haitian apparel.

Sae-A is expected to be an anchor tenant in the industrial park and employ as many as20,000 people, becoming the largest private-sector employer in Haiti.

Published on Jan 12 2011

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http://www.clothesource.net/go/latest-news?pgno=13Sae-A Trading announces Haiti openingKorea-based Sae-A Trading signed an agreement on September 20 to open plants in Haiti itclaimed will employ 10,000 people. Sae-A Chairman Woong-Ki... <snip>

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http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9IC015G0.htm

The Associated Press September 20, 2010, 8:47PM ETUS, Haiti accord paves way for Korean factories

By JONATHAN M. KATZ

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti

U.S. and Haitian officials signed an agreement Monday with a South Korean clothingmanufacturer to build garment factories that they said will employ 10,000 people in thisquake-ravaged nation.


U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton signed the memorandum along with HaitianPrime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and the heads of the International Finance Corporationand Inter-American Development Bank. Chairman Woong-Ki Kim signed on behalf of hisSeoul-based Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd.

The agreement, signed on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York,is part of an effort to inject foreign investment and create jobs for Haiti, a deeply poorCaribbean country.

Clinton also signed an agreement with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner toprovide a combined $50 million toward rebuilding the damaged and underfunded generalhospital of the State University of Haiti.

Restoring Haiti's once-profitable garment assembly sector has been a cornerstone ofeconomic plans for Haiti even before the Jan. 12 quake -- pushed most notably by thesecretary of state's husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, in his capacity as U.N.special envoy to Haiti. The U.S. Congress lent further support by extending tax-free importadvantages for Haitian-assembled textiles.

But those efforts have been criticized by labor groups, students and others in Haiti, who saythe factories pay workers too little to feed their families. Under a compromise law passed in2009, Haitian garment factories must pay workers about $3 a day -- less than two-thirds theminimum wage for other jobs in the country.

Clinton rejected that criticism Monday as she praised the agreement.

"These are not just any jobs. These are good jobs with fair pay that adhere to internationallabor standards," Clinton said. She added that the agreement sends the message "Haiti isopen for business again."

Bellerive thanked the U.S. State Department for brokering the agreement, calling it a "greatday for Haiti."

The proposed industrial park will be put in one of two locations: an undeveloped area northof Port-au-Prince or on the country's northern coast near the port of Cap-Haitien, the Inter-American Development Bank said in a statement.

The Associated Press first reported Sae-A Trading was talking with Haitian officials andbusinessmen in July about putting a garment factory park north of the capital neargovernment-expropriated land at Corail-Cesselesse.


AP learned those negotiations were handled by Gerard-Emile "Aby" Brun, who also headedthe Haitian government commission that relocated several thousand homeless families to aparcel of land his company owned at Corail.

Criticism by the international aid group Oxfam and others that the relocation site selectedwas too remote grew after much of the supposedly flood-safe camp was destroyed by waterin a summer storm. The camp would likely be the primary source of workers for thosefactories.

Sae-A Trading is a major supplier for Wal-Mart, Target, Gap, Banana Republic and Levi's,the International Finance Corporation said. Among its 20 existing factories are plants inNicaragua, Guatemala, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report from New York.

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http://blog.airdye.com/goodforbusiness/2009/09/30/water-pollution-and-the-textile-industry/September 30, 2009 by Aaron RaybinThe apparel industry has a big pollution problem. The World Bank estimates that 17 – 20percent of industrial water pollution comes from textile coloration and treatment(http://airdye.com/about/how). They’ve also identified 72 toxic chemicals in our watersolely from textile dyeing, 30 of which are permanent. This represents an appallingenvironmental issue for the industry. <snip>

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Korean Textile Pollution (1 Apr 04)

http://cptech.dost.gov.ph/APEC_Korea_2_Wowcom.pdfWaste minimization and cost reduction in dyeing processes in KoreaTextile dyeing processes are applied to almost all the textile products during its productionstage. It consumes massive amount of water, chemicals, and energy through consecutive wettreatments. Air pollutants come from the emission of CO2 generated from heat energyduring the dyeing process. In terms of water pollution, the dyeing process consumes a lot ofwater in a product to water ratio of about 1:200 by weight. Korea has already been identifiedas the water deficient nation and most of the used water is released in the form ofwastewater.


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http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/assistance/sectors/notebooks/textilsnp1.pdfTextile Industry. Sector Notebook Project, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,September 1997Most manufactured textiles are shipped from textile mills to commission dyeing andfinishing shops for wet processing, although some firms have integrated wet processing intotheir operations. A wide range of equipment is used for textile dyeing and finishing (EPA,1996). Much of the waste generated from the industry is produced during the wet processingstages; Relatively large volumes of wastewater are generated, containing a widerange ofcontaminants that must be treated prior to disposal. Significant quantities of energy arespent heating and cooling chemical baths and drying fabrics and yarns (Snowden-Swan,1995). [p28] <snip> Dyeing operations generate a large portion of the industry’s totalwastewater. The primary source of wastewater in dyeing operations is spent dyebath andwashwater. Such waste water typically contains by-products, residual dye, and auxiliarychemicals. Additional pollutants include cleaning solvents, such as oxalic acid. Of the700,000 tons of dyes produced annually worldwide, about 10 to 15 percent of the dye isdisposed of in effluent from dyeing operations (Snowden-Swan, 1995). However, dyes inwastewater may be chemically bound to fabric fibers (ATMI, 1997b). The averagewastewater generation &om a dyeing facility is estimated at between one and two milliongallons per day. Dyeing and rinsing processes for disperse dyeing generate about 12 to 17gallons of wastewater per pound of product. Similar processes for reactiveand direct dyeing generate even more wastewater, about 15 to 20 gallons per pound ofproduct (Snowden-Swan, 1995). [p40-41]

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[email protected]

Haiti Challenges (0 Sep-21)In summary, this is a huge mess. It is worse than anarchy. Many of Haiti’s problems arealso found in much of the developing world, so this is a condemnation not of individualnations with the problems, but state of art of civilization helping our fellow humanity resolvemajor challenges.

Most everyone knows that Haiti has rainy season, during which construction can be difficult,followed by Hurricane season. There’s a need for housing, for the millions displaced by thedisaster, which is protected against additional Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Rapists, Evictions.How come taking so long to get it? In the early days, major problem was time to repair


capacity of sea ports, air ports, roads, government agencies, to handle the relief cargo traffic.Later, UN cluster reports said the hold up was Land Tenure, so here I try to wrap my mindaround what that problem is. Turns out it is a combination of Land Tenure and Real EstateOwnership Documentation.

Many people say there is “a problem.” As we dig into defining what it is, we find a series ofunderstatements. John Holmes, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, said QUOTE"There wasn't a proper land registry system (before the earthquake) and this complicates theissue of the government taking land and allocating it for resettlement," he told AlertNet,adding that legal documents relating to land title were destroyed in the disaster.UNQUOTE

That is an example of a politically-correct UNDERSTATEMENT that does not clearlycommunicate the depth and seriousness of the problem. There WAS a system, but it wasnot being used in a consistent manner, plus to call the Haiti “system” a system, is an insult tothe word “system”. In reality there were multiple “systems” with no pretense of integratingthem.

A better understanding is depicted in World Bank‘s 2010 ―Ease of Doing Business Indicators,which provide an objective measure of business regulations and their enforcement across183 economies, Haiti ranked 151st , making it very difficult to start a legitimate business.51

While registering property in OECD and Latin American countries takesan average of 25.0 and 70.4 days respectively, it takes over a year in Haiti.It is an extremely confusing and complicated story in Haiti, compared to other nations.

Government records, of who owned what property, were paper records in buildingsdemolished by the quake. The records were manual, not kept current, backups also inbuildings demolished by the quake. Haiti has a high illiteracy rate, which allegedly caninclude government officials.

Land grabbing was seen on day one after the earthquake. Some people are returning totheir homes only to find that they can't get back into their house because it is now beingoccupied by someone else.

In many cases, the legitimate owner of property may have been killed in the quake, so there’sthe question of who inherits that property. After the Jan 12 Earthquake, thousands ofbodies were buried without any identification of who got buried. Most land titles have beenpassed down orally from one generation to the next.

Document: Situation Report 2010 July 15 Habitat for Humanity 2.2 Meg 5 page PDF sharedthe remarkable statistic that According to U.N. estimates, less than 5 percent of Haiti’s land is legallyregistered (see section on Pathways to Permanence).

51 http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreEconomies/?economyid=85


How long until mess resolved? (Sep 18)UN Security Council Sep 2010 review of Haiti52 stated hundreds of thousands ofHaitians are probably going to stay in camps or makeshift shelters over atleast the next 12 months, meaning all areas of Haiti remain fragile.

Dimensions (1 Feb 17)UN summarizes challenging dimensions, does not provide good assurance of resolution,when we factor in tales from other observers on the ground in Haiti. The UN had a list ofchallenges – I am adding here additional challenges that should be considered dimensions ofwhat ought to be dealt with.

hurricane season

complex issues relating to land, property and rights of landlords and tenants

the rule of law

find a balance between provision of essential services to displaced population andencourage those living in camps to join their community or neighborhood home

forced eviction of displaced persons

protecting vulnerable groups

sexual violence in refugee camps

trafficking children, drugs and weapons

disposal of rubble

identification and preparation of land for resettlement

presidential and legislative elections to be credible and fair, so that the new presidentand new government have a clear mandate to lead reconstruction

implementation of reconstruction projects

restore the confidence of the Haitian people in their institutions

international pledges actually get delivered, and continued funding of Haiti’s needs

replace the "completely dysfunctional" aid community's emergency appeal system53

decentralization under the Government's action plan to reverse the influx of ruralpeople in cities caused by the collapse of agriculture in the 80s.

52 Al Mac statement to Haiti Rewired about this vs. full story from UN in French.53 Relief Web Sep 21. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)


completion of constitutional reform launched by the Government of PresidentPreval, to simplify the electoral cycle and to increase the economic participation ofthe diaspora

NGOs spend the donated money, for Haiti, in a manner which is prudent and wise54

Brookings Analysis (Sep 19)Brookings Institute Sep 2010 analysis of burning issues for Haiti recovery andreconstruction55 does not explain the mess, or how it can be resolved, instead addressesissues of how to help Haitians do a better job of coping with it.

Consider supporting programs of legal assistance to homeless Haitians to help them dealwith complicated questions of land ownership.

Consider sponsoring legal clinics for lawyers, paralegals, and others to provide somebasic guidance on how to support Haitian land claims.

Work with a local university to organize a national or local conference on land andproperty issues in Haiti.

UN and International Community (1 Feb 17)

European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and CrisisResponse (ECHO) held a conference on Humanitarian and the Military: different mandatesand potential synergies in Disaster Relief.56

Natural disasters are occurring more frequently. Population growth combined with increasing urbanization,57 increased industrial

activity and higher levels of terrorism and climate change will cause far more floodsand other catastrophes than before.

2.57 billion urban dwellers living in low and middle income nations are exposed tounacceptable levels of risk58 fuelled by rapid urbanization, poor local governance,population growth, poor health services and, in many instances, the rising tide of

54 Many people, outside of the humanitarian aid profession, are opposed to charities managing money for ameasured level of support. Instead there’s an argument that if you get a ton of money, you should give a ton ofaid, then when you have used up all the donated money, just abandon the nation. I do not happen to agree withthis philosophy, but it is extremely common. The UN has organized clusters to work on particular types of aid,with the cooperation of the government of Haiti. Haiti and the UN do not want certain kinds of aid, certainkinds of NGOs, who are often there anyway, not cooperating with the clusters. Some NGOs provide exactlywhat Haiti and UN want, but do it outside the cluster system, resulting in some victims getting excess aid(which they sell), and some not getting enough aid. I have contacted several and asked why they are operatingoutside the cluster system. Many reasons are given, including: added beaurocratic overhead to participate; GoHblocks many legitimate NGOs from participating in the clusters; accusations of corruption.55 Brookings Report reviewed by Al Mac on Haiti Rewired Blog and Yahoo Group Haiti Disaster RecoveryResearch [HDRR].56 Relief Web Sep 17. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)57 Urban is the new rural says the Red Cross: Relief Web Sep 21 Summary; Word Disasters Report 2010 UrbanRisk. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)58 Relief Web Sep 21. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)


urban violence. Much of this urban population is also particularly exposed to climatechange.

In Haiti, the bulk of relief assistance was and still is provided through humanitarian and civilprotection instruments (which can encompass military assets of a civilian nature), but itshowed that the contribution of robust military assets in large-scale disasters can fill incritical "capacity gaps" notably as regards transport (cargo planes, helicopters) and heavyengineering– to remove debris and prepare relocation sites.

The military’s core mandate of their peace-keeping operation, is security. To the degree thatthey engage in engineering and humanitarian support, that can detract from their securitymission. Recognition of core mandates is vital. People should do what they are good at andwhat they have been trained for. The military is best at providing security, and this is wherethey are the most needed. Security is necessary for humanitarian aid to be effective. Butwhen the military competes with humanitarian aid workers, such as distributing leafletsoffering food in exchange for intelligence info, can disrupt the work of the NGOs.


Alternative Approaches (Sep 19)

NGOs, trying to help Haitian victims, have a couple of approaches to how best to deal withthe complexities of Land Tenure and lack of ownership documentation. Top Down, orBottom Up, following table summarizes these alternatives.

The earthquake not only wrecked a fragile nation, it also wrecked a civil service, becauseHaiti’s Capital City had no backup for the people skills and records there. Many governmentdepartments were demolished, not yet back in business, many months after the quake. InMarch 2010, Parliament gave the government the right to seize 17,297 acres througheminent domain, which the government had not yet done as of August 2010.59 PrimeMinister Jean-Max Bellerive, who co-chairs the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission,said the government doesn’t need to own the land right now. It just needs to ensure that

59 Dessalines’ Children.

Advantages Disadvantages

Top down: de précarité verslégalité

use legal documents andcontracts

comply with national law

Legal and longerterm

Slow, complicated and may beimpossible at any time butespecially after an earthquakeand may favour those alreadywith access to legal services

Bottom up: de précarité verslégitimité

support peaceful existingand spontaneousagreements but seek helpor arbitrate where conflictarises

prioritise those in the mostinsecure situations

collect local evidence torecord and legitimise tenurearrangements (includingrental tenure and leasetenure) in collaboration withlocal authorities and keylocal individuals withrecognised local legitimacy

Supports Haitiansystems that maydifficult tounderstand in anemergency, worksmore quickly, maylay foundation formore security later

May not be formally recognisedby legal entities or the state laterand may not be compatible withnational law


available land is identified. “What we need, is to be sure … nobody can use it” (landdesignated for build replacement housing) “without permission from the government,” hesaid.

Corail was originally designated as a temporary relocation camp, to move people to, whowere on camps at high risk of flooding in severe weather, but:

Soon after it started, it too was found to flood in severe weather. Space that had been set aside for better housing, now has a massive volume of

displaced people living there.

Leslie Voltaire View (Sep 19)

People are using land without permission, which has been a perpetual way of life in Haitisince before the Jan 2010 quake. “The owners are seeing their land squatted on, and theydon’t have the capacity to fight the squatters or the pirates who are selling the land,” saidLeslie Voltaire, an urban planner involved in reconstruction planning.

Voltaire, who is also a presidential candidate in Haiti’s Nov. 28 elections, said thegovernment needs to go from “decision-making to decision-taking.” The government, hesays, is “so full of priorities that they can’t choose” where to focus.

For weeks, Voltaire said, the commission he heads has been awaiting a decision fromboth President Préval and Prime Minister Bellerive on a two-part housing strategy itsubmitted. The strategy involves putting transitional shelters on demolished lots andhelping people return home by providing them with a financial-assistance package torepair their quake-damaged homes.

In exchange for between $2,000 and $30,000 in assistance, building materials or acombination of the two, residents would have to agree to inspections of the work, and usecertified workers trained in earthquake-resistant construction.

The second part of the strategy involves the planning of three future communities on theoutskirts of the capital, including where Corail is located. The Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank has designated money to hire a firm to do an urban layout, but theprocess is time-consuming. Voltaire fears that by the time it is done, “you can have200,000 squatters” living in the hills around Corail. Bellerive said the government hasvarious rebuilding strategies, including Voltaire’s.

“Housing is not only a matter of land and construction, it is mostly a question offinancing and management. How are we going to finance the construction? How are wegoing to guarantee the services for heavy concentration of population? We cannot rebuildslums,” he said.


Major Players (0 Sep 17)These research notes attempt to figure out what role each of the Haitian major players havein this mess of a “system”:60

Haiti Constitution

Central Government (Parliament, President, Ministries etc.)

10 Departments of the Nation (Do they have any government, like US counties?)

Municipalities

Land Surveyors

Public Notaries

Other Real Estate specialized job functions

Public Utilities

Courts

Civil Society Investors Entrepreneurs

Social Welfare institutions – public and private

Universities notion of ideal public policy

Elite Families

Haitian people

NGOs

Relevant UN agencies, such as UN-Habitat, UNDP, the World Bank, RegionalDevelopment Banks.

60 It may be impractical to discuss proposed solutions until we can wrap our mind around what is now beingdone, which is unsatisfactory.


Direction Générale desImpôts (Sep 14)DGI manages state-ownedproperties and is responsiblefor property tax collection.Property registers are notcomputerised and manualregisters are not updated, inmany cases. DGI is supposedto collect property tax anddeliver to the municipalities, butwhen this fails, manymunicipalities take over taxcollection.

Public Notaries (Sep 14)They are responsible forverifying the process oftransfer of ownership. They aresupposed to inspect thesurveying that has been done,control the previous chain oftitle owners and attest that theindividuals exchanging title andresources are the persons they claim they are. The notaries also attest that thewhole process of transfer is legal. The verification can take a long time, as thenotaries have to look up titles for the last 20 years in the register at DGI.

In my discussion on Haiti Rewired about this, Patrice Talleyrand said that somenotaries merely copy titles under buyer's name, which means that anyerrors or crookedness get perpetuated.

Local Municipalities (Sep 13)If in fact property taxes are managed at the local municipality level, then they are bestqualified to identify appropriate land to build shelters that are better protection than tentcities, less of a drain on the environment, able to keep secure, sanitary etc., identify landowners, make compensation, appropriate paperwork authorizing displaced homeless toreside there. There would also need to be protection of smaller weaker municipalities fromattacks organized by larger municipalities.61

61 Axis of Logic, and the French news media, reports that “an army” organized by Wyclef home city Croix-des-Bouquets, forcibly removes farmers whose land use is legal under their home city’s laws, for the purpose ofclearing the land for new housing. Ganthier is the attacked city. Its municipal leaders try to stop this, but arerelocated to the jail cells of the attacking city. Ganthier law had set aside land for farming. The invaders


Before Quake Reality (Oct 09)Ownership agreements: documentation exists but may not be up to date. The DGI, thenotary's big written register, and the landowner, are – in provinces - all likely to have somesort of official paper on the land sale, especially where their buildings were not demolishedby the Jan 2010 quake.

There are rental agreements, and lease agreements.

Rental agreements are typically six months to one year.

Lease agreements are typically 10-20 years, where property reverts to land owner, if norenewal.

Most of those made homeless, by the Jan 2010 quake, did not own the houses they were inbut were paying rent.62 In Port-au-Prince, many families rented from private landowners,who were not officially registered as owners.

Lack of documentation: the majority of renters and leasers in urban and provincial areasappear to have no formal documentation or documentation that is signed off at a level ofauthority that has questionable legal status seen from the perspective of national law.

Some areas families occupied land for free because it was family land. A nominal fee may bepaid to government to lease land for 10 years and land then moves from governmentownership to the lease.

A World Bank report, on the challenges, wrote: QUOTE

Land title arrangements were complex and ambiguous. Landadministration, land use planning, zoning and building codes, were all in need ofstrengthening before the earthquake, due to several factors. Reference systems andrecords were often unclear, incomplete, or not properly updated. Often there wasno reliable way of obtaining enforceable documented guarantees of land title.Overlapping, invalid, or improperly documented titles were a frequent source ofconflict, making land disputes common, and there was no fast and reliable formalprocess in existence for settling such disputes.

Titling Disputes. The existing land titling system, managed by the DirectionGenerale des Impots (DGI), is not computerized, and in need of modernization.Title to a property is established by the land purchase agreement and survey of thereferred property. Most property transactions are made by private act. Title is oftenunclear. The format sector purchases land and property through Notaries Public,who are commissioned by the President of the Republic. To purchase a property, it

choose to disregard Ganthier law, declare the farm land as unused, and thus available for anyone, and they havea mightier army.62 Pamela Cox, World Bank 's vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, stated this Sep 14 at aconference on the Americas in Miami.


is necessary to have a recent survey establishing its peaceful possession by the seller.The buyer then requests that the seller deposit with the Notary the survey and bill ofsale. The buyer deposits the purchase price with the Notary, and both parties signthe bill of sale. The seller receives the selling price after deduction of the addedvalue tax.

Structures. In order to legally build, one must first obtain authorization from thelocal authorities, in exchange for a fee. There are no town planning boards or otherland-use planning entities.

Land Tenure and Poverty. Titling procedures tend to be burdensome andcostly, making formal title largely inaccessible to the poor. Banks cannot usecontested properties as guarantees, which exacerbates poverty. In terms of housing,interest rates on home loans are high, and public housing is unavailable. There islittle effective support for poor people defending their rights in court. Specific ruraland urban poverty rights are addressed in those sections.

Institutions. There are good institutions, but spaces for potential strengtheningas well. The cadastre institution ONACA has been doing admirable work, butdepends mainly on external funding. They have a good reputation for helping ruralareas – and in particular, irrigation districts – to determine the location of plots topromote natural resource management and land security. The agrarian reforminstitute, INARA, is inefficient and has a mixed reputation. It would need anoverhaul in order to adapt it to the needs of current situation.

Informality. In light of the legal insecurity of land tenure, possession is vitallyimportant. People with a claim to land quickly build walls, and at least part of adwelling, as a bulwark against competing claims. Large landowners may quicklybuild rental housing in residential areas, or grant peasants tenure rights foragricultural lands. The rental housing and tenure rights then give the peasantspossession and thus, an incentive to defend the landlord’s tenure. Possession isespecially important for the poor, and in some cases, the only tool they have todefend their rights.

Urban vs. Rural land tenure (0 Oct 09)Continuing with the World Bank report, there are notable differences between land tenurepractices in urban and rural areas.

Urban Areas. Port-au-Prince and other urban areas have relatively reliable landsurvey and cadastre systems (Plans d’Arpentage) to identify individual land owners.While land and property titles are not always held, changes in title are generallyregistered in the Plans d’Arpentage. However, extensive informal settlement in recentdecades complicates the situation. Where formal land title systems are inaccessible


or inapplicable, informal systems arise, sometimes governed by violence. The area ofCite Soleil, for example, originally belonged to a single family, and is now a majorslum, with an essentially parallel informal land tenure system. Overcrowding inurban areas – and particularly PaP – will also have to be addressed.

Rural Areas. In the countryside, the process of Arpentage.has increasingly focusedon titling and the settling of disputes. While property is still often registered (seechart in the full World Bank report), conflicting claims may nevertheless be found(see table in the full report). In national parks and elsewhere, significant amounts ofgovernment-owned land is being used by farmers with no permit or rent agreement,leading to a lack of incentives to invest in the land. The high legal costs oftransferring title and subdividing land have led to the practice of subdividinginherited plots without titling them, resulting in disputes among family members.These conflicts must then be resolved by a local “Juge de Paix.”

Gender. Haitian land law does not discriminate against women. In practicehowever, land held informally is rarely allocated or equally administered for womenand men. Customary and other forms of “informal” tenure may allow women accessto land, although their rights are not equal to those of men. As most property ispurchased, women tend to have less access to land than men. If women are notrecognized heads of households or not included in existing ownership deeds, it maybe difficult for them to reclaim their homes.

After Quake Reality (1 Feb 17)Urban owner-occupiers: CARE found in Carrefour and Leogane that owners were:

more likely to be on their original plots able to reclaim materials (more landlords than tenants were in CGI shelters (en tôle)) more landlords than tenants seem to be hosting some tenants paid 1 year of rent in advance on 1 January 2010, now investment lost

Provincial owner-occupiers: when papers are lost in the earthquake and can't be found inthe official registers, a surveyor can legally recreate the land paper using the neighbor'spapers, if such exist.

Quake fears: A green house only means it is safe right now from consequences of lastquake. The people are fearful of more quakes. Some buildings, that allegedly were declaredsafe to return to, collapsed in later after-shock quakes.

Informal arrangements common says this Relief Web article (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)

Many aid agencies working in the some 1,400 makeshift camps sprawled in and around thecapital have been getting by on ad-hoc, informal agreements with landowners and localauthorities giving them temporary rights to use land, which then have to be renegotiatedevery three to six months.


So far, this has largely relied on good will. But how long that lasts no-one knows.

Pamela Cox63 said it was a "sad" comment on Haiti's poverty that some occupants of theinternationally supported camps might now be living in better conditions than they had beenpreviously.

Quake realities ignored by landlords: According to a CNN article QUOTE

“Landlords are refusing to accept people who cannot pay the back rent for the four monthsthey have been gone. Many of the displaced can no longer even afford the monthly amountthey were paying before.

Why would you leave an encampment that offers you a toilet, a shower, emergency foodrations and, yes, even an outdoor movie screen when you have no place to go and no moneyin your pockets?” UNQUOTE

Uncertainty over lease: land tenants may have lost their house (main asset) and may want to/ have to relocate while they wait

Multiple occupancy buildings:

in some cases the top floor is damaged but the bottom floor is intact so tenants aredisplaced

where site is full of rubble the owner or leaser on the ground floor has first access tospace

“vertical” living spaces are lost so more people must be accommodated on lessspace, unless the building is totally replaced.

Lack of documentation:

in some cases the signatory head of household was killed in the earthquake

in some cases documents have been lost in the earthquake

Community acceptance, legitimacy or legality:

rural context: community recognition of informal ownership, people know eachother, resolution of disputes possible at community level and there is more latitude

urban context: no record or clear picture of land tenure, less easy to resolve throughcommunity mechanisms and more complexity with a need to work with anauthoritative person or institution

63 Pamela Cox, World Bank 's vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean.


Soon after the 2010 Jan 12 quake, the Haiti government recognized and stated a need for itto use eminent domain to seize sufficient property for the building of intermediate campsfor Haitians displaced by the earthquake.

However, the land owners would need to be identified, and paid money that the Gov ofHaiti did not have. A problem here was that there were ways to raise funds through the UN,and allied nations international community, for this and other purposes that the GoH didnot seem to know how to do, while the potential donors did not seem aware of the urgencyof resolving this. So months have gone by, with no resolution.

Documentation is a Western Concept (0 Sep 23)When a government is weak, fragile, unable to extend its power over the whole nation, andall activities of the nation, then local management usurps national authority, more mightmakes right, than any standards of justice or rule of law.

“It is unclear who owns any property. Wealthy Haitians claim much of the country. Thevalidity of their claims will be judged by their peers. However, throughout Haiti's history,people have squatted on unoccupied lands. In time, their use of the land justifies their claimto ownership.”64

No Documentation = No Ownership (0 July 11)As the weather got worse summer 2010, this and other issues came up again and again indifferent discussion threads, in which some people had interesting additions to what we canconsider for solutions.

Linked-In has deleted 99% of what we posted over a period of months to HEDR, so manyinitial enthusiasts have departed, but there’s new enthusiasts still arriving there.

Otto asked:

So.......what happened to Uncle Sams and Bills promises??Is the story about Haiti to be repeated, again and again...............I just wonder........

Al posted:

The story will probably be repeated. Uncle Sam and other actors are pretty muchsaying that there are no problems with THEIR efforts, that it is too bad, but this isas good as it gets. Occasionally there is some finger pointing at other actors. Theymay just be marking time until they can send in Halliburton and other US beltwaybandits to profit off of reconstruction that really should be money into Haitieconomy for Haitians to do, assuming the millions in tent cities survive the cominghurricanes.

Otto observed up:

64 Seeing Value on Haiti Rewired.


Access to land seems to be a key issue to reallocate people from Port au Prince.Could it be a problem for the IMF to stop their 60 mill US$ in loans to theGovernment of Haiti, until they have fulfilled their task to bring forward the landneeded?In Norway we have different kinds of tools like Land Consolidation andExpropriation.Land Consolidation is used to reallocate land based on voluntary basis.Expropriation is used by the Government to buy land needed for the developmentof the society or if you like:.A politically motivated and forceful confiscation and redistribution of privateproperty outside the common law.New laws needed on Haiti urgently!I guess Bill does not know too much about these possibilities since hardly nothinghas happened the past months.

Al tried to clarify:

Access to Haiti land is one of the biggest issues, has been for months. Everyoneknows it. The issue has been extensively studied. We general public have not beentold why it is not getting solved. Info that leaks into news media is very superficial,leading to various people suggestions that will only make situation worse.

In one of the 6 month reports (Habitat for Humanity) we learned: According toU.N. estimates, less than 5 percent of Haiti’s land is legally registered. To move fromtransitional shelters to building permanent homes, establishing secure tenure forpartner families is essential. Without secure tenure, families could be evicted fromtheir new homes and have no legal recourse. I have downloaded that report (andapprox 300 others) & can forward as e-mail attachment to anyone interested (orupload to some mutually convenient site).

Ownership of real estate in Haiti is like Auto ownership in USA. There is like a pinkslip ownership document, spelling out the geography, with place for buyer selleridentification. This is supposed to be registered with Gov of Haiti, but manyHaitians do not do so, because of perceived bureaucratic and corruption hassles.When it is registered, it is all manual hand written, in offices many of whichdestroyed in the quake. There’s alleged fraudulent documents. So for most owners,there is not good proof of ownership.

Some ownership transfers or lease access rights are like mortgage credit deals, whereif financial contracts do not get paid off in time, or are renewed after so many years,ownership reverts to a previous owner. The paperwork documenting this statuscould be independent of what is on the pink slip.


Before anything is placed on someone land or property, the true owner needs to beidentified, and appropriate permission granted in writing, in a form which will workwhen many officials are illiterate, and there are two official languages. Prior to theJan 12 quake, it was considered normal for this process to take a minimum of 6months, and maybe years.

Many Haiti sites are blocked by debris from the Jan 12 quake. The volume isastronomical compared to most prior disasters. (Ask me for copy of “Debris factsheet.”) It could take years to clear via heavy duty construction machinery, exceptthat most is being removed by hand, and there is an Alice in Wonderland realityinvolved. People who are trying to do any kind of development work, just move itout of the way, to piles near their property, where it is now in someone else's way,for them to move later, maybe back to where it was earlier. Sometimes it ends upblocking a highway, so an NGO clears it back onto side of road so their water truckcan get through, then it gets moved out of the way again and again by the differentpeople whose needs it is now blocking. The whole process is like suburban winter,where people shovel snow to clear their driveway, then city plow comes along andrefills the blockage. Except the quake debris has been going in circles now for 6months. Journalists could ask the powers that be, what is their debris removalstrategy?

Many Haiti roads are too narrow for heavy duty construction equipment to get towhere needed to clear debris. Military air and sea power can deliver equipment towhere needed.

Hurricane Season’s heavier wind and rain could destroy temporary emergencyshelters, and maybe even some of the transitional shelters. UN assessment teamshave been visiting camps to see what population is at risk of flooding and othertrouble when the hurricanes arrive, then some NGOs doing mitigation wherepractical. However over 1/2 of the Haitians in the assessed camps need to berelocated to somewhere safer. Almost 2 million Haitians are in those camps.Hurricane prediction is not rocket science. Haiti will be getting another one. Thehandwriting is on the wall. If this problem is not rapidly fixed, Haiti is facing adisaster much worse than the Jan 12 quake.

Regarding Otto's suggestion that money be withheld from Gov of Haiti as a way toget this solved:

Early in the quake aftermath, the Haitian government told the internationalcommunity:


* Under Haitian Constitution, Gov of Haiti has the authority to condemn land forthe purpose of civic needs, such as providing replacement housing for the peopledisplaced by the earthquake, provided the property owners are financiallycompensated for the land that is seized.* We fully intend to do so, however two problems:1. We do not have the money to do the compensation.2. Haitian records on who owns what property have been severely disrupted by theearthquake ... it might not be possible to figure out who owns what property.Mainstream journalism has failed to follow up on this, like asking Gov of Haiti ifthey have received any help whatsoever from the international community in solvingthese two problems, and where they have asked for help, then going to ask leaders atUN and major donors how come Haiti not yet got the needed help.

The international community and NGOs basically said "Good, do it" withoutaddressing how to solve the stated problems. For month after month, we see in theUN reports that there is this unsolved land problem, without good explanation ofthe problem, and no effort devoted to getting it fixed. Rainy season started, and itnot fixed. Hurricane season started, and it not fixed. It is becoming more and moreof a crisis, and all the official voices are either wringing hands about it, or engaging inwasteful finger pointing and PR exercises, or talking like there is infinite time to solveit, and it is not a high priority. Journalists should ask WHEN they plan to start fixingthis problem.

Money is already being withheld from Gov of Haiti and from other rebuildingefforts.$ Billions have been pledged, $ Millions have been delivered.Many recovery efforts are stalled for lack of funds.

Solving the land ownership situation is one of them.Solving the rubble debris challenge is another.

Otto continued:

I very much agree in what you are saying and there are a lot of problems to besolved, but if there is no more documentation or papers available to proof yourownership there is "no ownership".Since only 5% of the land is legally registered, there should be 95 % ready to beallocated, legally speaking.Land can also be compensated by another piece of land elsewhere, there is no needof cash transfer in cases of Land Consolidation.These are issues of be "willing" to DO "something" and not only a matter of money.


Compensation can be given at a later stage according to proven documentation.If you are at "Ground Zero" literally speaking, you have to start afresh whether youlike it or not, just as simple as that.See this as a new start for Haiti also when it comes to tenure of plots and properties.If there is no documentation, there is no documentation and everything has to startfrom "the beginning", no doubt about that.This is a "unique" chance to build up a modern registry for the future of the wholeHaitian community.Land- and water disputes have caused a lot of problems and ending up in even warsin many countries.

Violent Evictions by Non-Owner Gangs (1 Mar 08) Less than 5% of Haiti’s land is legally registered as to who owns it.65


Tens of thousands of Haitians, displaced by the quake, have been violentlyevicted from the camps, often in middle of night, with no advancewarning.67

This is another topic where it has become controversial how much of this is going on,because many evictions do not make it onto the radar screens of Haitian Government, UNclusters, NGOs, news media, etc. and some camps are known by more than one name, sothe same incident could get double counted. When the victims are kicked out, they findsome other place to settle, and it could be a place that is vacant only because there just was amass eviction there, and they will be next.

Without a system of identifying who has what rights to what land, it is a war zone wheremight makes right.68

An article discussed on Haiti Rewired Architecture Group,69 about the Schack Institute forReal Estate Development at NY University. They have started a course in "post-catastrophereconstruction":http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/realestate/commercial/02haiti.html

“We don’t want to build a shelter that will cost $5,000 for a family that doesn’t own theland,” Ms. Blake said. “We learned the hard way that after the shelter is built, someone elsewill say the land is theirs and throw the family off, and so the donor money will be spent onsome other family and the family in need remains homeless.”

65 Situation Report 2010 July 15 Habitat for Humanity66 USAID Earthquake Fact Sheet #58, Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, page 2 http://bit.ly/cacnME67 We have been tracking instances of this in Architecture for Haiti Group: Forced Evictions ofQuake Survivors from Camps with no advance notice, (also Rape Epidemic, Accountability,Perspective)68 http://ijdh.org/archives/1759669 http://haitirewired.wired.com/group/architectureforhaiti


About 40 percent of the world’s population is subject to forcible eviction from their homesbecause of a lack of documentation proving ownership, Ms. Blake said. In Haiti, thatnumber is closer to 70 percent." (Blake/ Habitat for Humanity)

Some faulty language used here. These folks are not being evicted from their homes, butfrom the land their homes sit on. If their homes could move with them, they could, like theBedouins, remain sheltered wherever they can settle, for whatever period of time. The taskof government is to extend the tenure of settlement as long as possible. Temporary Domainwould work, especially where land ownership is in question, but not definitely in oneperson's deed. "Someone-will-say" only works if that someone is in cahoots with someone inpower.

Build back Better (0 Sep 14)

After being deluged with housing requests, and worldwide engineers, architects,construction companies etc. offering to help in Haiti, Bellerive and Clinton endorsed theidea of an international housing expo of anti-seismic houses for Haiti.70 Many potentialcandidates refused to compete because they were expected to pay 100% costs, have theirwork end up being owned by the government, with nothing to show for their investments.

Some 380 proposals were received. A jury will soon choose the best five models, whichwill be a living showcase in a planned community on government-owned land in Port-au-Prince. Quake victims will live in them, and the idea is to replicate the housing designsthroughout Haiti.

70 Dessalines’ Children.

land own haiti v 3.2

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