Lessons for Haiti from Honduras

A child washes at a temporary camp in Haiti (Agencia Brasil/ Marcello Casal Jr.)

Lots of cities and regions that have recovered robustly after major natural disasters have been cited as examples for Haiti reconstruction: Colombia, Mexico, etc.

But over at New America Media this weekend I wrote about a place that for some reason has not been widely cited as a place to seek lessons: Honduras. The Central American country, some may recall, was battered by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Honduras, like Haiti, was very poor, has a historically weak state, and was rendered into near paralysis by natural disaster.

For the Q&A I interviewed Ryan Alaniz, a Fulbright scholar in sociology who is studying post disaster communities in Honduras built after Mitch. Thousands of people now make their homes in such communities (planned and built by different relief organizations), in particular in the Valle de Amarateca north of Tegucigalpa. This makes Honduras a living laboratory for long-term post-disaster reconstruction, and a possible trove of lessons for Haiti.

Here’s an excerpt from my Q&A with Alaniz:

Q: How are Honduras and Haiti similar in terms of their preparation for natural disasters and their response?

A: Politically speaking, both nations had a weak state, Haiti had a coup de etat not long ago and Honduras had one last year. Both countries are poor, obviously. Haiti is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. And Honduras is the third poorest and second poorest, by some measures. Hurricane Mitch affected more than half of the people in Honduras in some way, and it’s a similar proportion in Haiti. The population size is relatively is similar. When Mitch happened there were 6 million people in the country. In Haiti, there are 10 million people.

Also geographically, Port au Prince is in a valley and it’s in a mountainous area, and so is Tegucigalpa. And [in Haiti] they’ll face the challenge of reconstruction in mountainous areas. Both countries have been subject to tremendous amounts of external influence both economically and politically speaking. What I’m sure we’ll see in Haiti is that NGOs will run the reconstruction process. The government will have a role, but the real decisions made will be made by those who have the funds. The government will be a side shadow-player in rubber-stamping what these NGOs do. That is what happened in Honduras.

More can be read at the New America Media website, where this story was published. New America Media also published, on the same day, a nice story about Haitian-American media’s involvement in post-quake community organizing.