I just read that the committee (chaired by Bill Clinton) to oversee reconstruction is ready to wrap it up-and according to a RC priest I know (who goes to Haiti), nothing substantial has been done.
The city (Port au Prince) is still choked with rubble, the water and sewer systems are non-existent, and disease is rampant.
Yet there are plenty of NGO “experts” there…drawing up plans for stuff…that most likely will not be built.
What went wrong?
Entrenched poverty and byzantine bureaucracy, made worse by a crappy infrastructure that makes even getting around anywhere from a pain in the rear end to nearly impossible. I suggest checking at least Act 1 of this episode of This American Life, where they describe the sheer amount of effort, paperwork, and insane hassle that one farmer had to go through just to get plastic crates for getting her mangoes to market.