Following the devastating January 2010 earthquake, billions of international philanthropic aid dollars

flooded Haiti, providing a glimmer of hope to a desperate nation. On a small island country where
poverty rates were already amongst the highest globally, Haiti was in dire need of foreign relief
efforts to help recover and rebuild after the disaster. However, this money was eventually placed into
the hands of competing NGOs, and a coalition of international political leaders, humanitarian
executives, and local Haitian officials oversaw the recovery efforts under the Interim Haiti Recovery
Commission (IHRC.) Despite widespread public knowledge of the generous fiscal response to the
2010 Haitian earthquake, many are unaware of the actual effects of the 13 billion dollars Haiti was
gifted. Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck details the disastrous ineffectiveness of these NGOs in
providing Haiti with any meaningful long term recovery, despite being loaded with a multi-billion
dollar budget.

Peck’s film integrates a wide range of perspectives through interviews, footage, and narration from
both an international aid worker and Peck himself. The diverse range of approaches to the recovery
project that Peck is able to capture in the documentary highlight the stark differences between
Haitians and internationals. While foreign NGOs were focused on building their brand name through
glamorous projects, many massive problems for Haitians went completely ignored. Upon their arrival,
Peck cites how NGOs refused to help with debris removal and instead started building schools and
houses miles away from their capital city. He continues by recalling an old proverb, “Give a man a
fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats forever,” and relates this to how NGOs refuse to
invest in Haiti’s future and instead just “hand out fish” until they deem their project completed.

Despite their omnipresent arrogance, Peck details how western representatives on the IHRC are not
actually interested in “fixing” Haiti’s centuries-old issues. He cites multiple examples of blatant
lapses in communication between NGOs that led to the same project being done ineffectively
numerous times. Furthermore, the corruption between NGOs, politicians, and lobbying firms
prevented money from being allocated to the most important project and removed all accountability
from philanthropic spending. On the IHRC, Peck comments on western leaders’ complete failure to
engage with Haitian leaders and consider their ideas before assuming total control on their island. His
fearlessness carries him to criticize several high profile Americans including President Bill Clinton
and his wife former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. The elitism of foreign IHRC board members was
manifested most egregiously when NGOs would simply take a plot of land and start building and
allocating houses. There was an overarching carefree attitude about almost anything that pertained to
Haitian culture and society that enabled western humanitarian groups to simply exert their financial
and believed social supremacy in many ways including land assumption.

The personnel deployed in Haiti were clearly well educated, but they were under experienced and
carried themselves rather egotistically. The documentary highlights a conference involving western
leaders who overexerted their education and never seemed to care about the differences in Haitian
culture that make this recovery unique. A young, well-educated humanitarian worker cites his
experience working in El Salvador as his reasoning for doing something in Haiti, effectively proving
that he, like many leaders, was employing a cookie cutter approach.

Importantly, Peck includes that many of the foreign leaders and workers involved with the IHRC were
well-intentioned and likely saw this as an opportunity to use their social, economic, or political
platform for good. Unfortunately, much of the issues arose from ulterior motives of NGOs that not
everyone involved with the IHRC possessed. While many foreign leaders graciously volunteered to
help Haiti in good faith, the Clinton Foundation and countless other humanitarian groups and leaders
completely failed in addressing real Haitian issues with philanthropic funds.

Peck subjectively presents a chronology of foreign relief efforts in Haiti, but maintains a tone more
frustrated and dissatisfied rather than accusatory and aggressive. His tone of the documentary is
evidenced by the story told by the foreign relief worker. She expresses her disappointment with the
management of her philanthropic organization and the overall lack of progress.

Perhaps the most compelling part of Peck’s film was the emotion included between both narrators into
an otherwise cold documentary. Towards the end of his story, Peck notes how he loves the other
narrator but they have no future together because she will eventually leave with her NGO, further
highlighting its lack of interest in helping Haiti in the long term. She then returns the favor by saying
she will dance with him and enjoy his presence while she can because she knows it will not last
forever. This lasting symbolism represents the desire for individual workers to help Haitians, but their
governing bodies prevent them from doing so. Peck will continue his life in Haiti, but he will be
without a woman he came to love which symbolizes first world aid being temporary not everlasting.

Ultimately, Peck’s film, in which he describes the disaster left by the wretched IHRC following the
2010 Haiti earthquake, presents an unfamiliar argument in a compelling way while integrating bits of
romantic emotion and primary source footage that intensify the film.

Works Cited

Kushner, Jacob. “Haiti and the Failed Promise of US Aid.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media,
11 Oct. 2019, www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/11/haiti-and-the-failed-promise-of-us-aid.

Peck, Raoul, director. Fatal Assistance. ARTE, 2013.