Partners In Health believes that all foreign governments and NGOs working in Haiti are obliged to adhere to rights-based principles* as they work to help the country rebuild. Adherence to these standards is more important now than ever before. As aid and rebuilding strategies unfold, these principles guide our efforts to both direct the international community’s attention to the voices of the Haitian people and strengthen the Haitian government’s ability to secure the human rights of their citizens.
Along with our direct response on the ground in Haiti, PIH is advocating in governmental, legal, and policy arenas for the rights of the Haitian people and government. We are working to secure an improved implementation of emergency aid, and long-term development support in Haiti. In each of these forums, PIH has advocated for maximum relief funds from the US government.
In addition to funding from the US government, PIH has also been working to actively raise money for Haiti from other sources. Former President Bill Clinton, currently serving as the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy to Haiti, PIH co-founder Dr. Paul Farmer, currently serving as the UN Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti, UN staff, and PIH staff participated in preparatory meetings for the Haiti Donors’ Conference in New York City on March 31, 2010. PIH staff relayed critical information and data from our teams in Haiti and contributed to redevelopment plans. Just as critically, we proposed a framework for transparency and accountability to meeting organizers and attendees, which included international donors, implementers, and NGOs.
This rights-based framework was developed in collaboration with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. Working with these partners, PIH provided testimony on aid and human rights in Haiti, and coauthored recommendations (endorsed by 300 NGOs) presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on March 23, 2010.
PIH has also maintained a consistent presence on Capitol Hill and within the Obama Administration through individual meetings with Members of Congress and their staff, USAID, and the State Department. PIH staff has participated in briefings and on panels hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, the Global Health Council, and others in Washington, DC. In January, Paul Farmer testified at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to advocate that the US government aid Haiti in the aftermath of the devastation brought about by the earthquake.
While the US earthquake relief package is expected to be finalized by August, the House and Senate bills currently include funding for the new Multilateral Donor Trust Fund. This fund, administered by the World Bank, will allow for direct support to public and private institutions in Haiti. And the draft language in the US House of Representatives Supplemental Appropriations Bill breaks dramatically from typical aid language by encouraging the strengthening of Haitian institutions through direct budget support to the Haitian government—a provision PIH strongly supports.
Prior to the earthquake, Partners In Health consistently advocated for debt relief for Haiti, something we continued to do with renewed urgency after January 12. In April 2010, President Obama signed debt relief legislation into law. All Haitian debt owed directly to the United States has been effectively cancelled. The US government is now working with multinational lenders to eliminate Haiti’s debts to these institutions. (The US contribution to debt relief is $252 million.) The law also requests these banks to provide only grants, not loans, as aid to Haiti until 2015.
As with our service work in Haiti, PIH’s advocacy work will be long-term. Continued discussion and pressure will be necessary to compel bilateral and multilateral donors to actually disburse the nearly $10 billion committed at the 2010 Donor Conference. (Disbursement is already far behind schedule; as of July, 2010, less than ten percent has been released.) Along with the UN Office of the Special Envoy, PIH will work with our advocacy partners to channel more aid through the Haitian government, and press for better implementation of this aid.
* A rights-based approach to development is a conceptual framework that is based on international human rights law and methodology. It integrates the norms, standards and principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into the plans, policies and processes of development.
