International workshop: After the cameras have gone - rebuilding sustainable communities in Haiti after the January 12 earthquake

The Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities after Disasters (CRSCAD), in concert with a number of non-governmental organizations, will host a one-day workshop to examine ways in which it can rebuild the communities in Haiti sustainably, following the recent devastating earthquake that hit that country.

Objectives

Before the earthquake, Haiti was a “country with tremendous development needs and numerous impediments to development,” according to Congresswoman Maxine Waters. These impediments include an overwhelming burden of international debt; lack of personal and community assets; and very little or no internal and external capacities. In 2007, according to the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, the country owed “over one billion dollars to multilateral financial institutions, including $21 million to the IMF, $507 million to the World Bank, and $534 million to the Inter-American Development Bank. Much of Haiti’s debt burden was accumulated during the oppressive rule of the Duvalier regimes, neither of which used the money to benefit the Haitian people.” In fact, the IMF estimated that Haiti would “spend $56 million on debt service payments to multilateral creditors during the 2006-07 fiscal year.”

Against this background, the workshop will, therefore, examine the following:

-The challenges of post earthquake rebuilding in Haiti
-New policy for urban/rural housing
-Social, economic, and infrastructural development (health, schools, higher education, water, roads, etc.)
-The reconstruction of state, public and commercial buildings
-Allocation of post-earthquake reconstruction financing to the various sectors of the economy
-Participatory post-earthquake reconstruction planning and development
-Choosing a Paradigm for Disaster Recovery
-The roles of government, institutions of higher education, the private sector and non-governmental and community-based organizations in post-earthquake rebuilding
-The participation of women and other special needs populations in the formulation and implementation of reconstruction policies after the earthquake
-The promotion of human dignity in the creation of sustainable environments that empower women, the poor and low-income households
-Clean and appropriate energy technologies
-Earthquake resistant design
-The role of the media in the reconstruction of Haitian communities.

The Workshop will seek to propose strategies, policies and programs for implementation, by the Haiti government, non-governmental organizations and multilateral agencies, for the long-term reconstruction of the country.