Haiti

Haiti: Leadership during Disaster Relief and Recovery In the early hours of January 12, 2010 an earthquake with the magnitude of 7.6 on the Richter scale shook the city of Port-au-Prince. The incident killed more than 220,000, with thousands more injured, 1.5 million people suddenly homeless on the Caribbean island. The earthquake hit in one of the poorest countries of the world- Haiti. One year later, the response to the disaster was overwhelming; private individuals, organizations and governments all over the world have donated or pledged billions of dollars, the flow of assistance helping to take the harsh edge off the emergency needs for food, clean water, temporary shelter and health care (Bieser, 2010). However the recovery remains to be seen, only a small fraction of the rubble from the collapsed buildings have been cleared, hundreds of thousands remain homeless in crowed camps. We most also remember that the earthquake destroyed the livelihoods of the majority of the survivors aggravating joblessness. Adding to the country’s problems, a cholera outbreak in the rural north in the fall has spread, with the death count at 3,600 and hundreds of thousands at risk of infection. With the void of leadership, lack of coordination of donors’ worldwide, and excessive bureaucracy from the U.S. one can understand why the relief and recovery efforts to the people of Haiti have been hindered (Cutler, 2010). Although many donor nations helped Haiti with all good intentions, most lacked coordination. There has been no single person or office tasked with simply coordinating the efforts or government agencies, non profits, non government agencies, and international bodies. A wide variety of people and organizations want to contribute to relief efforts ranging from non-profit organizations, to governments, to kind-hearted individuals. Everyone wants to rush in and save the day, or at least a life. That is a natural feeling and desire, but sadly, many times it’s impossible to do (CDC, 2011). Although there are many spontaneous disaster volunteers, without structure , proper training, supplies and equipment also became a part of the problem rather that the solution in Haiti. With the level of devastation for the people of Haiti, even the disaster volunteers with proper training have had difficulties. They arrived with supplies and equipments, but not enough to solve the problems, sometimes creating civil unrest between the people of Haiti (CDC, 2011) . Most disaster volunteers who did not determine the priorities of treatment and resources in an effort to see who can be helped with the personnel and equipment at hand and who cannot-don’t help, but rather hinder the entire process. Countries such as Germany, the US and France were channeling their assistance through their own institutions and bypassing the Haitian government, which is claiming to have sought to coordinate the efforts. The uncertainty of a process leads to redundancies and overlap, thus disagreements which create more delays in receive relief. Recovery efforts are also affected by cumbersome bureaucratic obstacles that are created when people try to manage a situation and not lead in the efforts. Leaders have to realize that management is not the same as leadership, but there are aspects of management that are important to leadership. ( Wolf, 1999) . The US government has long struggled with streamlining their own bureaucracies and in this case they have over promised and under delivered. The streets and roadways of Haiti are still filled with debris. This demonstrates a lack of planning for removal, a logistical obligation of the Haitian government. The void of leadership within the Haitian government is seen mostly in the convoys of UN trucks patrolling the streets whose sole driver displays the latest hair styles and sunglasses through their half open windows. The Haitian government is known for the years of corrupt governance that existed long before the earthquake. The people of Haiti will continue to face overwhelming challenges presented by the incompetence and instability of the Haitian governing authorities (Bieser, 2010). This article suggest that during this type of devastation aid should not be slowed by the leadership of the Haiti, U.S. and other sectors. Having an integrated process enables an organization to be immediately responsive to change, opportunity, and setbacks. (Wolf, 1999) Rendering aid should not be a complex process, as such that is significantly slows the progress and delay achieving the ultimate goals of relief and recovery. Leaders have to realize that disaster assistance, saving lives during the crisis, is quite distinct from economic development, building a successful economy that can withstand natural crises and creates prosperity. By building upon the local supplies and craftsman could assist in the sustainability of recovery. It is certainly true that the U.S. aid establishment and the Haitian government both face many challenges in capacity and have many flaws (Culter, 2010). However, this moment represents an opportunity to reexamine and improve capacity in the service of what is just and right, and what ultimately will help to stabilize our regional economic and political environment. Money allocated to economic development by U.S. government and organizations best spent on countries which have the leadership, tough enforcement against corruption, sound currency, and sheer determination to develop successfully (Culter, 2010). Such money, in a nutshell, best spent where it can do some long-term good, lead to sustainable development and progress without the infusion of outside assistance. In conclusion, I agree that we can learn a lot from the mistakes made in the Haiti disaster relief efforts. Largely, I have learned that the role and behaviors of leadership dictates the future of an organization and or/group of people. When selecting a leader one most consider many characteristics and past behaviors of that individual and are they a servant leader. The Haiti government acted as if they did not understand how the disaster was affecting the poorest people of Haiti, the people feel that they could go to the government for assistance during the disaster, the government did not seem to have a strong awareness of what was going on. Nevertheless the leadership influences the ability of Haitian people to recover from this disaster, no amount of relief will impact their recovery if the leadership/government of Haiti does not have a strong commitment to the people of Haiti.