Water quality as well as access worsened in December as free water distribution service was discontinued and NGOs continued shifting their operations out of IDP camps, according to a water assessment by DINEPA, the Haitian government's water and sanitation authority. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that:

The decline in water quality coincides with the end of free water distributions in camps through water trucking, in accordance with the national strategy developed by DINEPA. Only three per cent of households in camps are now receiving water provided by an NGO.

The DINEPA assessment found that “47% of the water tests conducted in households are of poor quality, compared to 29% in early December,” and that “[o]nly 55 per cent of households in camps drink chlorinated water.” This probably results in part from DINEPA’s finding that “Only three per cent of households in camps are now receiving water provided by an NGO.” A third of all camp residents’ primary access to water is from a remote source, far from their camp. According to DINEPA, nearly 40 percent of these remote sources are non-chlorinated.

Free water distribution was supposed to come to an end in December 2010, however, as the cholera epidemic had just begun at that time, the program was extended.  Although trucks were able to deliver free water to the camps, this did little to reinforce the work of DINEPA or to create sustainable access to quality water in the camps and neighborhoods. As the free water distribution came to a close, there was no effective alternative in place and DINEPA, which receives very little support from the national government, has been unable to fill in the gaps.

February 2012, Dean Baker

Dean Baker
Al Jazeera English, February 7, 2012

Mark WeisbrotEconomic Intelligence (U.S. News & World Report), February 6, 2012

Dean Baker
Truthout, February 6, 2012

The economists who predicted the housing crisis tend to be a gloomy bunch, as Adam Davidson notes in his latest New York Times Magazine column. Dean Baker is the rare exception. In the following guest post on NPR's Planet Money blog, he explains why he has parted ways with the economic pessimists.

For more than five years before the recession began in December of 2007, I was one of the leading economic pessimists, warning of the housing bubble and the damage that its collapse would do to the economy. I based this pessimism on my analysis of the housing market, not a genetic disposition to pessimism. Given the economy's current situation, I find the warnings of the pessimists – the double-dip gang – to be wrongheaded and seriously counterproductive.

First to the economy's near-term prospects: the economy is growing and will in all probability continue to grow. Economies do generally grow. We see new investment, leading to more employment and higher productivity, which leads to higher profits and higher wages.

In the past when the economy has fallen into a recession it has been the result of plunges in house sales and car sales. Neither possibility seems plausible at the moment, primarily because both remain at extraordinarily low levels that leave little room for them to fall further. Even if they did fall, it would have only a limited impact since current demand is already so depressed.

Mark WeisbrotNew Left Project, February 6, 2012