# What Happened to Haiti?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-haiti/600551>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 23, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-haiti/600551 "2011-10-23T17:01:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-haiti/600551/1 "2011-10-23T17:01:02Z")

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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?

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**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-haiti/600551/2 "2011-10-23T20:13:18Z")

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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](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/408/island-time), 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.