July 08, 2010
Earlier this week CARICOM leaders met at a summit that included UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Inter-Press Service reports on the meeting, noting that CARICOM called for “some “level of order” among the hundreds of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that they fear could undermine the fragile democracy in Haiti.” Roosevelt Skerrit, the Prime Minister of Dominica and head of CARICOM is quoted as saying:
“With respect to the NGOs operating out of Haiti, we called on the U.N. secretary-general to do all that he can to bring some level of order to the situation, because while we speak about maintaining democracy in Haiti we can’t at the same time be affording NGOs to undermine the democratic institutions in Haiti.”
Skerrit echoed those who have been calling for more direct aid to the Haitian government, this blog included, IPS reports:
“We call on the international institutions and government to cease and desist from putting the resources into the NGOs,” he [Skerrit] said, adding that some donors were raising questions about transparency and accountability as a pretext for bypassing the government and dealing directly with the NGOs.
IPS notes that the CARICOM leaders were upset that Haiti had only received three quarters of the $150 million in budgetary assistance that had been requested, meaning that payment for teachers, nurses and police officers have been hard to guarantee. Haitian President Preval, and Ban ki Moon both used the occasion to call on the international community to live up to their previous aid pledges.
Another topic of conversation concerning Haiti was the holding of elections. Ban, for his part, stressed the need for elections to be “transparent and credible.” Preval, however, echoing statements made last week, told IPS “he is not worried about the credibility of the polls, since “elections should be transparent in all countries”‘. For more on the issues surround elections, see our previous posts here.
