Haiti’s Rule of Lawlessness | The Dialogue – Leadership for The Americas, March 14, 2023

Synopsis of Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti by Jake Johnston (Macmillan 2024) | Center for Economic & Policy Research

What does the international community owe to Haiti? 1A WAMU NPR February 3, 2024

About the Speakers

Monique Clesca is currently an international consultant after a career of more than 25 years specializing in high-level policy dialogue, human rights, youth and women programming, development, and crisis communication and writing. A feminist pro-democracy, pro-social justice activist, she is also a member of the civil society Commission to find a Haitian solution to the crisis and of Haiti Think Tank and a member of the Montana Agreement Monitoring Bureau. She is a Board member of EQUIPOP, an international NGO that promotes health and human rights for youth and women in the world, particularly in Africa.

Ms Clesca was appointed Representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Niger in 2012, after serving as its Regional Adviser for Africa in New York and Regional Advocacy and Communication Adviser for 22 Southern African countries. In Niger, she initiated and spearheaded a country-wide movement for the elimination of child marriage, a traditional practice entrenched in centuries-old ideas of protecting women, and “Illimin,” an adolescent girl empowerment initiative now adopted as a model for West African countries. She led her team to winning a WEBBY award for the series on Niger girls empowered against child marriage as well as to record resource mobilization for the implementation of the cooperation program. The President of Niger awarded her the country’s highest honor in the Niger Order of Merit, that of Commander in 2016. She has been a trusted adviser of Traditional Chiefs in Niger and Heath and Population Ministers in various African countries, and leveraged well-known artists and top influencers for girls’ and women’s rights.

Ms. Clesca was a founding member of MC Conseils, a communication and special event firm that provided services to government, civil society and international organizations in Haiti between 1996 and 2003. Previously, she served as Advocacy and Communication Officer for UNICEF Haiti from 1983 to 1996 and spearheaded the campaign on the Convention on the Rights of Children and a national network of media and journalists in favor of children.

She has been a speaker at the Yale Law School Human Rights Clinic, the Canada Parliement and a guest on Democracy Now, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, NPR, Black News.

Ms. Clesca’s writing has appeared in major national and international newspapers and magazines, including Foreign Affairs, Americas Quarterly, The New York Times, the Miami Herald, Huffington Post, Le Nouvelliste, Ayibopost. She has authored two books: a novel La Confession and a compilation of essays entitled Mosaiques and is currently writing her memoir Celebrating My Mysteries of her childhood under the Duvalier dictatorship. She was profiled by the French newspaper, L’Humanité, in 2015 and Le Nouvelliste in 2015 and 2016. She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from Howard University and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism of Northwestern University.

Learn more about Monique Clesca here.

Jake Johnston is the Director of International Research at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He has a B.A. in Economics from Boston University and an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University. At CEPR his research has focused predominantly on economic policy in Latin America, the International Monetary Fund and US foreign policy. He is the lead author for CEPR’s Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch blog and his articles and op-eds have been published in outlets such as The New York Times, The Nation, The Intercept, Le Monde Diplomatique, Boston Review, and Al Jazeera. His book, Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti, is now available from St. Martin’s Press.

Learn more about Jake Johnston here.

About the Moderator

Major General Mike Lehnert served in the Marine Corps for 37 years. During that time he held thirteen separate commands. In 1995 he deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba during Operation Sea Signal where he led the Joint Task Group responsible for the operation of the camps housing over 50,000 Cuban and Haitian migrants. He was the Chief of Staff of the U.S Southern Command in 2004 during the Haitian Coup d’etat. His last tour before leaving the Marine Corps was command of seven Marine Corps bases West of the Mississippi. Lehnert serves as co-chair on the International Affairs Forum Advisory Board.