Why the US Should Care about Haiti (Part 1)

Why should the US government and people have Haiti's back?

There are three main bodies of thought with regard to why the United States should pay attention to Haiti; first, is the humanitarian reason; second, the guilt or responsibility reason; and third the forethought and pragmatic reason. I will only briefly address each, as there has been great effort into researching these topics already.

The first reason, as I stated, is strictly in response to humanitarian need, of which Haiti has an abundance, and because it is the right thing to do. Haiti is the world’s second oldest republic after the US. They are also the first black republic and the only nation wrought from a successful slave revolution. Nevertheless, more than three quarters of the population lives off of less than $2 per day and more than half off of less than $1 per day. Haiti is this hemisphere’s poorest nation, and also has the highest infant mortality rate and the highest infection rate of HIV/AIDS.

(A small segue. While I lived in Ouanaminthe, Haiti, I once spoke with a hospital worker about HIV/AIDS. FYI: there is only one doctor in Haiti for about every 60,000 people. The conversation was about the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and how the border affected the transmission rate. The worker told me that a few months before I arrived, they completed a study of almost three hundred pregnant women. Without the mothers’ knowledge, they tested them individually for HIV/AIDS. 40% tested positive, and because the test was done without consent, they also did not reveal the results to the infected women.

So from a humanitarian standpoint, Haiti is quite easily the most obvious pick in the Western Hemisphere. To read further details, <a title="UN Development Programme Report on Haiti" href="/files/UNDP Haiti_0.pdf">click here</a>.</p>

To be continued...

Robert Miller
Haiti Innovation