Stories about relief and reconstruction in Haiti after the earthquake have been overwhelmingly dominated by a simple narrative: "Haiti is failing and it is the fault of ___." Oxfam, for example, tell us that it is Bill Clinton who has "failed Haiti." But while many have been quick to point fingers and assign blame for the slow speed of recovery in Haiti, this can dangerously lead to a poorly-informed public and a skewed set of incentives for donors and NGOs.
Recently, a favorite version of the Haiti blame-game points out that much of the money donated to recovery efforts has not been spent. While at first glance this claim may seem to offer reasonable grounds for outrage, there is a central problem in how such accounts fail to clearly distinguish between emergency rescue, relief, and long term recovery with a standard time frame of seven days, three months and five years respectively.Read More
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