increasingly frustrated and most camps are on private lands. we cannot allow forced evictions, putting people from harsh into even more harsh conditions. so we must show a change of pace to landowners. according to the most recent iom report on displacement, the number of internally displaced persons is still at 810,000, which includes 750,000 people still living in camps. people still living in idp camps are doing so because they have no alternative. no one wants to live in an idp camp longer than necessary but we have to allow them to return to communities that are safe, secure and stable. the people of haiti deserve a haiti that is better than it was before and it will take time. funning and resources.

if forced evictions and relocations are condoned by the international community and the haitian government, we will see camps move from private lands into the streets of port-au-prince which i think is something we can all agree is a worse circumstance. the time for action is now because haiti cannot wait any longer. we cannot let the sense of optimism and belief that haiti can recover and transform into a self-sustaining nation fade out of impatience, frustration or complacency. we can do this right and we owe the people of haiti to do so. now one of the other issues that we -- that i have observed is that there are competing cultures of sustainable

development and emergency relief. so i think that notwithstanding a haitian perspective, or an answer that would be easily pick up on by the media from a haitian spokesperson in the relief community, one has to -- we ourselves, as american citizens, have to ask ourselves, when we say that for children of a certain age that nutrition that applies to brain function, meaning permanent, long-lasting brain function capacity, when it's not just about how much food but what food, as that would apply in haiti, this is an emergency. so we're not past an emergency phase. this is one among many emergencies.

shelter. chole cholera. emergency and sustainable development should not be competing cultures of aid. they have to work interlinked and long-term. once upon a time the united states was known for its capacity to take on complete visionary projects, the hoover dam, and with canada the st. lawrence seaway with its dividend linking the great lakes to the atlantic. there was an fdr's tennessee valley authority bringing electricity to the south. it was a rogue fashion that demonstrated who we are as a people. when our first lady, michelle obama, experienced widespread criticism in exclaiming first-time pride in our country. the criticism was wildly opportunistic, because as beneficiaries of those great generations with their bold

american endeavors, we all share the hunger and need for the return of our nation's dignity. not only internally, but globally. winston churchill said of the marshal plan that it was the most unsorted act in world history. and it is just such an act that is the opportunity we have in haiti today. a reborn haiti will spark a new generation of american might through dignity. haiti is our most impoverished neighbor and it is a one-hour and a half flight from miami beach. thank you. >> afternoon. thanks for this opportunity

today. it is obviously an appropriate time to do a stock taking of what's been going on in haiti in the last year. think about the events over the last year and the relief efforts. from usaid side, we'd also like to think about the year going forward. i think haiti is obviously at a pivotal moment, as sean penn said, right now. sometime this year we hope to have a new government. i'll talk a little bit about the elections in a second. we've had the cholera epidemic has been all-consuming for the last few months and epidemiologists tell us the curve of that is that it will lessen over this year. there's also been an enormous analytical effort to undertake designs of new reconstruction programs so 2011 should see reconstruction start to begin a pace in haiti. we have to get through some significant challenges but we are at a pivotal moment. i think some of the groundwork for that pivotal moment has been laid with some of the successes that we've seen over the last year. as a development agency we know that success ultimately depends upon the capacity of the local

government and local people. we can respond to immediate issues but sustaining them, carrying them forward, is ultimately an issue of local capacity. you need a government that's committed. you need a government that's committed to make difficult decisions and trade-offs that it takes to pro tell development. you need strong institutions of government that can deliver services, respond to citizen needs, and you need markets that function so that they can allocate resources and people can invest and jobs can be created. if you think about haiti at 9:00 in the morning on january 12th, 2010, they would score low on any of those criteria. so the challenge is that haiti faces pre-earthquake were overwhelming challenges. obviously at 4:53 on january 12th those challenges were made considerably more severe in terms of having institutions of government that were strong, even having the people, as sean penn said, to respond to those issues. nonetheless, i do think it is important to recognize some of the challenges. the last year of haiti has been a tragedy upon a tragedy upon a

tragedy but there have been some things that -- where we can look back and think that some things did go right. you think again immediately after the earthquake with large numbers of people displaced, the largest urban displacement in history. initially 1.8 million people. the number has moved over time but the international community's immediate fear was widespread disease, malaria, all sorts of diseases. there was a tremendous international effort to vaccinate 1 million people, to distribute 800,000 mosquito nets. and that effort has largely been success. . we have not seen an outbreak of any of those diseases in haiti. we were also tremendously worried about the hurricanes. when you've had the largest displaced people ever in an urban setting in an island that's subject to natural disasters and hurricanes, that was an overwhelming fear. there was again an enormous international effort of tens and tens of millions of dollars to

mitigate, put in mitigation efforts to prepare for the hurricane. that included things like clearing nine kilometers of canals that were filled with debris that every year flood and kill thousands and thousands of haitians. included stabilizing slopes around camps and building drainage difference and retaining walls and sandbags and all sorts of engineering fixes. there were 21 people who died when hurricane tomas went through and that obviously 21 deaths too many. when you think about 2008 when haiti was subject to a series of tropical storms, not even a hurricane, several in a two-week period, they had over 1,000 deaths so there is some success to talk about. we've seen the haitian government take leadership in those areas. it was the department of of civil protection that did pry and -- that had over 100 people out on the streets after hurricane tomas leading the effort to assess the damage and coordinate international relief. the resilience of the haitian people is just extraordinary.

many of you i'm sure have traveled to haiti. their ability to suffer all of these tragedies and continue going on. we talk a lot about the search and rescue effort that the international community led which again was the largest search and rescue effort in history. haiti, unfortunately, gives us a lot of firsts, none of which are positive. but most of the people who were saved in haiti are saved by haitians. haitians dug their own family and friends and countrymen out of the rubble and they've continued to show tremendous resilience in the face of extraordinary challenges. challenges going forward are numerous. you have to have a government partner that coordinate lead development and work up to sustainability. even before the elections were finished, the opposition claimed fraud. some of the ngos that were involved in it pointed to serious irregularities right away. the united states was very supportive of the international effort to send in teams to

assess this the president ultimately requested a mission from the oas to look at this. they sent in an international team that included people from the hemisphere as well as europeans. the goal is obviously to have an election that reflects the will of the haitian people so our focus is always on the process. what is a process that reflects the will of the haitian people and can confer legitimacy on a new government. we did support the mission that went in to do a statistic analysis. there are lots of media reports today about what the report says. none of us have seen the official report. we understand that it does point to irregularities. it is expected to be given to the president and the electoral council today, we believe. some time in the coming week it is expected to be given to the council of the oas. we'll look at with a kind of recommendations we can support again focused on the issue of an

election that reflects the will of the haitian people and results in a government that has legitimacy of the haitian people. the result is obviously in part a political process. whatever happens has to be agreed to by the parties moving forward so we don't see instability and disruption in haiti. we know instability is never something good for development. our primary concern is moving forward in a way that deals with the underlying problems with the poverty in haiti. other challenges, sean penn has mentioned a number of them. rubble removal. rubble has been the thorn around everyone's neck. 80% of the area of the country is a slope. simply finding places to dispose of the rubble. people who's traveled there know that after most of the -- much of the rubble was taken from the main roads, the back roads that are winding and narrow and are not easily accessible to large-scale equipment, it is just an overwhelming enormous challenge but we have to move forward on that. i mean we know through our

efforts that we've removed 1.3 million cubic meters of rubble but we don't even know how much rubble there is. estimates are all over. army corp of engineers said early on 19 million. subsequent engineeri ining estis say 25 million cuber meters of rubble which would be trucks filled bummer ebumper to bumpe going half-way around the globe. in haiti we know finding precise data is always a challenge. regardless of the total figure, we have to move forward with efforts to remove the rubble. that will be a significant impediment to anything. housing which is obviously related to the rubble. you have to clear the rubble to erect housing. it is priority number one to resettle people into a dignified life. that's our focus. for usaid, for the u.s.

government, more for much of the international community. it is difficult but we have to get people to where they can live with dignity. our numbers are a little bit different. as we can count through the international community there have been 26,000 temporary shelters constructed which would be sufficient to house over 200,000 people. we do know that since june, the number of displaced in the camps has dropped from about 1.3 million to under 1 million. that's a significant accomplishment. it is not enough. obviously 800,000 or 1 million or whatever the number is, people living in those kinds of conditions, is untenable and unacceptable for the international community. in any other disaster, if you removed -- if you resettled 200,000, 300,000 people, it would be an extraordinary achievement. where you have more than 1 million people displaced you can hardly see that if you're at ground level in the visual so there is a lot of work to be done. cholera is another enormous challenge. it's consumed efforts.

it started in the north central valley. unfortunately it didn't start in the camps which was one of the fears. we do think the efforts to distribute clean water were successful in preventing those kinds of diseases in the camps but cholera is, as medical people know better than i, it is the deadliest form of diarrhe a diseases and in an environment without proper infrastructure for water it spreads like wildfire. haiti is unfortunately a terrible place if you add cholera into the mix. so the international community's thrown lots and lots of resources at it. we still have over 3,600 deaths since october 22nd. the disease on its own will start to decline but we need to continue filling the pipeline for commodities as much as we can. cholera again is a tragedy for the deaths, it is a tragedy because gaus diverit diverts re from other things to try to make lasting improvements in people's lives. we will continue to focus on both prevention, which is

providing clean water, providing hygiene messages, providing commodities so people can engage in normal hygiene activities and that will reduce the number of cases obviously intended to reduce the number of cases. and treatment through the various treatment options of oral rehydration therapy and intravenous therapy for more severe cases to reduce the number of deaths. but that will be a challenge going forward. overcoming the challenges is going to be difficult in haiti given the conditions there. what can we do about it? one of the things we know that you have to do is you have to shift as quickly as you can to using local resources, using private resources. so we started in the early days with general food distribution and we tried to shift as quickly as possible to rather than giving out food, handing out cash vouchers and buying food locally. you hand out cash vouchers so people can buy it locally and that stimulates the local economy. you keep flooding poor countries with food, farmers don't have an incentive to grow so we tried to shift early on to supporting those local solutions.

same thing with water provision. haiti has a private sector system of water provision in the cities that function so we tried to build into that system instead of providing water because you want to strengthen local systems. innovation is another thing that we have to continue to look at. the extent of the challenges in haiti requires new thinking to overcome them. there's no question. we don't have all the answers. the types of things we've look at are providing mobile money. we're doing a joint program with the bill and melinda gates foundation where we've set aside cash prices to cell phone operators and banks who can provide a functioning mobile money system. haiti is a country where over 80% of the people have never had access to a bank account. if you're in that kind of situation, it is almost impossible get out of poverty so providing access to financial services through new technologies is something critical and we're hopeful to announce today the giving of the prize for setting up a mobile money system.

agriculture as well. 66% of the haitian population are engaged in agriculture. if you spend your time in port-au-prince you don't necessarily see it but it is fundamentally an agricultural economy. poverty there is fundamentally agriculturally based. how do you get people out of poverty in agriculture? you have to look at new technologies, new seeds, new fertilizers. since the earthquake we've had some programs where we've seen with targeted technical assistance and new seed varieties, productivity can be increased by 75 taurus % to 100. in the lives of poor people it makes an enormous difference to double their income. we need to look at those kinds of solutions and expand them. ultimately we'll have to continue building local capacity. we'll have to work with a new government that will reflect the world of people and generate investment. foreign investment, but there's domestic investment. there are wealthy haitians. one key challenge we find in development, you can go anywhere

in the world and find people who have money, even in haiti. but where do they invest their money? wealthy haitians ten to invest their money in miami or france so we need to help the government create the conditions where the wealthy haitians feel that it is a good investment to invest in their own country. if that happens, then you're really rocking and rolling. you're really doing something to stimulate forward investment and help haiti pro tell its own future. i know we're going to have a question and answer period but thank you very much for this opportunity. >> we're going to do a quick question and answer and just take a moment for our panelists to be miked. i wanted to pose a question. we can open it up for further questions. which is a general sense of time line here. i mean this is one of the really difficult questions but one that might give both donors and the

american population an haitians some sense of what are we talking about in terms of time? we're dealing with an unprecedented situation in terms of rubble removal, for example. what do you see from the ground level as -- are we talking about three to five years, something where we might be able to think of haiti as in a situation where it is out of this emergency place and into a more sustainable development phase? but before you answer that, let's open the floor to other questions. this gentleman in the middle right here. yes. >> wait for a microphone and please identify yourself. >> yes. my name is mark bossford of bossford global. since day one of the earthquake, the debate about economic sustainability or emergency care has been on everybody's mind. we have started a group called my town. it provides community planning

and development. we're partnering with the korean government, talking to the u.s. government, trying to get the idp out of port-au-prince into -- return back to their communities and we think we've got everything pretty much sewed up. we're rolling out the ngos. and -- >> you have a question? >> yeah. the question is, what do you think about the icrh's mandate, supposed to be for 18 months? do you think it will go out for another year? >> let's take a couple more before we come back to sean and paul. this gentleman in front here. >> good afternoon. my name is danny yates. i'm a william and mary student and i was in haiti on january 12th, 2010 at the time of the earthquake. ever since i return to the u.s. i've been trying to help some of my haitian friends which are college students over there and my question is, based i guess on higher education, 95% of the

university sector is knocked out and i know all the world's attention has been on things like food and medical and shelter but i'm trying to work with a group that's going to bring some students to a college here in the u.s. of course funding issues are a big problem. do you any thoughts on higher education and sort of the next generation of haitian leaders. that's my question. thank you. >> let me take one more right here in the front. >> hi, i'm adam kunz from international relief and development. since the early days of the disaster, there's been a lot of discussion and rhetoric about the need for decentralization. because port-au-prince was much too overpopulated. the discussion continues about the need for that, but i'd like to hear a little bit about the mechanisms. how we'll actually accomplish that, rather than just hope it happens. >> great. why don't we -- you all are miked up. turn back to paul and sean for some responses.

time line, both general and specific on ihrc and higher education, this last question. >> the ihrc mandate was initially for 18 months. a lot of people have assumed that it is going to be extended beyond 18 months but there's no decision yet. it was created by an act of parliament of the government of haiti with the agreement of the international community. obviously the elections are something that having a functioning government in place is key to so many things moving forward. we need some sort of act of parliament. it is not just the presidential election that's held up, it is the parliamentary elections that are also subject to some dispute. that's something that has to be dealt with before we can do that. my guess is that we would expect to see its mandate extended but i can't commit to that. in terms of university education, education is critical. i can't see who asked the question but, the higher education unit institutions were

considerably damaged. from our side we're committing to help recon instruct the mid wivry school and medical school. but like anything else in haiti it is going to be an effort of many years. one of the things we need to do is bring more haitians to the united states while those institutions are being built up. we have a commitment to bring a couple of dozen a year for higher education in the u.s. and we need to look at ways to increase that because you're right, that's critical. >> i mean i think that my impression of the ihrc is that it is a highly functioning group of economic academics and well-intended force of people with an entirely unrealistic structure of -- i think the meetings are about once a month for two hours focusing on all proposals and thousands of pages of them to enact any kind of project plan or action plan.

so at this moment, i think there could be many reasons for that. that could change and it may well be subject to what has been perceived since even before the earthquake as a lame duck administration and with some intention to wait until after. at the moment it is those kinds of projects and major reconstruction projects that have made, for example, the camp management things that i was talking about remain with the appearance of being static. the options are not there. on the education level, one of the things that comes to mind immediately when that's talk about, i think as a constitutional issue in the haitian constitution having to do with the ability of die as practice to participate in haiti and with a constitutional amendment on that issue will come more incentives. then there is the issue of

decentralization which we see in a very tangible way in haiti, in port-au-prince, every day. just how necessary it is and again, this is one of the things where, whether it be through the ministries and idb or through the ihrc project planning, the encouragement of private business, for example, an international airport which is a ready-made business opportunity for so many which has i think about 200-room capacity in hotels and is a beautiful tourist destination. a hotel and airport there i think would be the beginning of the kind of complementary situation to international relief organization work that would start to stimulate, you know, the potential that haiti has. >> what i'd like to do is actually give our panelists a chance to begin their remarks and so i'm going to ask i believe sam, you're our first

up. you can speak from the chair. >> oh, sure. i returned from haiti this past saturday after spending a week visiting some interaction members on the ground. we have about 100 u.s. non-profits operating there. many of them have been in haiti for 20, 30 years beforehand and at the time of the earthquake, some 3,400 staff of u.s. non-profits were on the ground. unfortunately, like many organizations, their lives were lost. i'm starting with the non-profits in a sense, because it is important to recognize that all this effort is done by people. there's a sense of -- i wouldn't call it burnout but these are very tired people. there is a tremendous burden, 12, 16-hour days, day after day for the last year. many organizations have rotated their infrastructure through haiti and in many ways what we see here -- i'm talking just about the u.s. non-profit community, a disaster of a magnitude that is far larger

than our capacity to respond. because the world has not built the infrastructure, whether it is in the u.n. system or within the ngo community around the world, to handle disasters to the magnitude of haiti or pakistan all happening at once. it is a gap between our capacity and what can be done. but ultimately, haiti is about the haitian people, it is about a people trying to pull their lives together, it is about the ability of a family to rebiuild themselves. where non-profits and ngos start, just like sean penn's effort, is the ability to help a family pull themselves up. you start that family by family. one of the accusations that is often made of the non-profit communities is we can't get the scale. to me, haiti is an example of our community at scale. not only did the american government give, but the american public gave. our members received $1.3 billion from the american public. roughly half of those resources have been spent to date in haiti

by the end of october. an the reality is actually we're tight on resources. because wisely, the community divided its resources between short-term relief, and long-term development, and in many ways those short-term relief resources are drying up ways th relief resources are drying up and you're forced to a quandary. and that's dilemma, these choices, that are being made on the ground that i would like to highlight today. they'd been lots of -- preamble sort of on the challenging of the environment, the reality of the number of people in the camps, but it comes down to small little changes. is getting a tent up to provide education. it's seeing that, say, the children are sent in a tent, learning that 90% of the people who were in education system before, are now back in -- at

school. their school in tent and you see the children trying to build 54 schools going forward. at the same time before the earthquake, we had half the population not going to school. so returning to preearthquake levels is what the difference here it is not rebuilding a haiti, it is building a haiti for the first time. it's seeing a rather ingenious rubble removal project run by catholic relief services. spent time in the areas where there's no truck could, go as all wheel barrels, it's walking through rubble with wheel barrels, bringing it to a site where a $6,000 grinder is being operate by a group of men and it's all being run by a business, a business woman who had a business before the earthquake is now running this. there are 30 or so people involved. they are gathering the rubble from the neighborhoods. running it through this crank. turning it into small pieces of rock and sand.

bagging it. and selling that to the organizations that are rebuilding houses and temporary shelters per all of the people that enterprise are paid for by the proceeds of that sale. so you see these types of exercises replicated throughout the city. but an ability to get this many people out of camps as everyone has said is going to take time, most of the resources that the american people gave to nonprofits is being spent on a tremendous burn rate of simply keeping people alive, of ensuring that water and sanitation facilities exist in camps, are ensuring that drainage is available when the rains come, that there is some degree of hope. but the challenge is, and this is the dilemma that sean penn pointed out. the challenge is that you have to ultimately move your attention to communities around

the camp tent. the ability to have a clinic at the edge of a camp providing health services that is also now being -- providing services to 80% of its clients, being people from neighborhoods, because there's actually now less demand in this one camp from within the camp than in the outside. but tensions are real, and this is where coholera. you need to staff it 24/7. you had case coming in the night. eight people died in this clinic. there simply wasn't the staff to be able to take trained personnel to enable that cocol . you got it up and running and now that cholera is up and running. clinic at edge of the camp up and running again.

it's these trade-offs that are tremendously difficult for us to deal with. one of our member organizations, you know, sort of talked about haiti as sort an onion. the more you peel it, the more, in essence, each crisis makes the population cry a little bit harder and the challenge has been, not only was there is an earthquake but there are series of emergencies after the earthquake. and my guess is there will be service of emergencies going forward. we don't know what the political situation will bring. we do not know whether another slew of hurricanes will come through again next year. we do know and one thing that's pretty clear is that the resilience of the haitian people, the ability of the haitian people to rebuild is real. when people talk about building transitional shelters, this is not someone coming in to build shelters. these are haitian people cranking out every single day, frames of wood, floors, roofs

out of tin that can be bolted down so that they're safe from hurricane winds, just three different ngos it was roughly about 500 shelters of the shelters being built every week. you see a cranking up of a capacity to produce. what slows things down is there's no land. there's hardly any space. every piece of land, there's no clear tenure system. you have two or three landowners claiming that same piece of land, claiming the house on that land. the only way to sort that out is to have a dialogue with the community because you don't want to rush to rebuild in the wrong way. you want to rebuild where you can rebuild effectively over time. cash for work, and this is the cash that has, for hundreds and thousands of haitians, is providing removal of rubble eventually will run out. over time, we'll see clinics moving out of camps and i think sean penn put his finger on it accurately. if you move too fast, you in

essence, are stopping services for very needy people right now. there's a reality that individuals who are left in the camps, if we're down to about 750,000, we're down maybe about half of what they were at the peak of the earthquake. the individuals left in the camps are not the easy ones to solve. most of the people in camps were renters. they're multidwelling buildings. those multidwelling buildings collapsed. there is simply no land to build those buildings again, it will take time. efforts to build outside of the city have proved somewhat problematic. the challenge is that there is a clear frame under the interim commission of a general direction for the country but there is no clear operational direction. the ngo community is committed to partner of the government with haiti, in many ways having done an evaluation of the tsunami for president clinton, we see better coordination in this disaster than during the tsunami, for example, but we

need a clear vision and direction, not as simply the high direction at policy, but at the operational level. what do you do with these 50,000 people in this neighborhood? what if only a quarter of them with move back to their previous where they used to live? how do you handle, enabling populations that have moved out of the city, have some access to jobs when there's a poll of international aid bringing people back to the city? and these dilemmas are at the heart of what has slowed down the reconstruction. it is the ability of an organization like provision. building 167 temporary shelters. about 6,000 people have sheltered that n that area. concerned worldwide a similar effort, do then build a school, and you'd negotiate for the department of education, to build that school? when you build the school, what happens when the government doesn't have the resources for the teachers? does the ngo then step in and pay for teachers?

and it is this vacuum that we're trying to feel in some ways. but at the same time it is not our role to fill. the international aid community, in particular the international nonprofit community, is not the government of haiti. we can't go in and pay for teachers over time. ultimately, it requires a partnership. and it requires the ability of the haitian people themselves to stand up and that will take time. there will be people in camps a year from now and over the next ten years, many of the organizations that are part of interaction will be there. and i think the best way to get a sense of the diversity and direction of our community is we've recently prepared a map, it's called the haiti aid map. you can see it on our website at interaction.org. it lifts where, i think it's about 67 different ngos and 500 projects around the country. it gives you a sense of who is doing what, where.

that is just our piece. and will take many other pieces to make this all come together. thank you. >> thank you, sam. before we turn to our other panelists. i know, sean, you have to leave. i want to thank you again for being here. >> thank you. >> and good luck with all of your work. we really honor it. >> thank you very much. >> see you, sean. >> okay. we're going to continue and next hear from beth ferris. beth? >> thanks a lot. listen, every speaker so far has mentioned internally displaced persons and so i'd like to do in about five minutes is to deepen the analysis a little bit. and look at some of the particular challenges of working with idps in haiti and some of the challenge that haitian displacement poses for the humanitarian community generally.

displacement in haiti is massive. you know whether the numbers are 800,000 or down from 1.8 million, when last summer, this is a large percentage of the population. over a thousand idp sites or camps in port-au-prince alone. every street corner, every empty lot is filled with makeshift tents -- actually it's filled with pretty tattered tarps a s rather than tents themselves. the numbers are soft. we really don't know a lot about displace in the haiti. i om has done a magnificent job of trying to track the numbers, but it's hard, in part, because this is a dynamic, complicated situation. not everybody living in these idp camps lost a home in the earthquake. you know desperately poor people do desperate things. when there's rumors that assistance is being distributed, to idps, suddenly it becomes popular, attractive to be an idp. and certainly people have moved

into the camps from poor urban communities in hopes of accessing some kind of assistance. it's hard to imagine these camps as being a draw, but at least people have a bit of shelter. usually they have water. and 1 out of 5 sites they have some access to health care. but it's a dynamic population. people move in and out. a month after the earthquake, reportedly half a million people moved to the countryside. we don't know what happened to those people. anecdotally, we hear that a lot of people have come back to the capital because they didn't receive sufficient assistance, but no one is keeping track of these movements of people. reportedly some families keep some members in the camp in case better assistance develops there while sending kids or relatives to live elsewhere in the communities. it's been mentioned with the number of idps reportedly

dropped by about about half in recent months. that's a good thing but it's also a troubling thing. why would people leave and go back to homes that have probably not been reconstructed in a safe way? perhaps because they saw the damages of hurricane thomas and the flooding, and made the judgment that maybe it was better to take a chance back in those damaged buildings than to suffer another hurricane season or threats of flooding given the tarps and the tents under which they were living. there is a fear, i think, as well that cholera might hit the camps and although the evidence so far has been the it's camps have been less hit than the other areas. simply because of the congestion of the people. or perhaps it was the election violence. it's been a truism and work with idps for years, but in order to work with displaced people, you have to work with host communities. but it's all mixed up in haiti. host community, urban poor, displaced people, other people

affected by hurricanes, by the earthquake. while are there some displacement's specific needs in such a setting the vulnerabilities and the needs are so widespread that perhaps it doesn't make sense to single out assistance to idps, but rather to work with larger vulnerable communities. but our humanitarian system isn't set up that way. our wonderful humanitarian relief actors are set up to provide life-saving assistance, not to deal with structural, urban, longterm, chronic poverty. and this has always been a thing that several of the speakers have mentioned, this -- this difference between humanitarian response, long-term development. we haven't got ten right anywhere in the world. but i think it comes in stark relief in the case of haiti. solutions for displacement are needed urgently. estimates are that about 20% of these thousands or so idp sites

in port-au-prince around the country are facing the threat of forced evictions. a lot of these camps are built on private land. of course landowners want their land back. it's been a year. land is a very valuable asset in haiti. the negotiations with landlords. can you get them stay a little longer while we look for solutions? they're labor intensive but they're vital with coming up with solutions. when i think about the magnitude of things to be done, number one, as we need a strong haitian government. there are decisions that need to be made whether it's operational plans, sites for dumping rubble, decisions on which camps will become part of the new urban landscape of port-au-prince, decisions need to be made by the haitian government. but the political situation is such that a lot the government energy is directed towards the elections ands politics around that.

ngos and u.n. staff dealing with the government, wonder, oh, i'm talking with this minister. he probably isn't going to be here in a few months. so some of the uncertainty and the fear that if the clear decisions aren't made, there will be a political vacuum which will last longer, means decisions won't be made and so on. last comment i'll make is that i think that what we're seeing in haiti is the humanitarian scenario of the future. the urban nature of the disaster. the juxtaposition with a devastating natural disastwer chronic poverty, underdevelopment, poor governance, conflict, and a politically mobilized population is different. it's very different than working even with displacement refugee situations in rural africa. requires different skills, different kinds of coordination, and most of all, much better work between long-term

development actors and long-term response. >> great, thank you very much, beth. now -- >> good afternoon and thank you for inviting me. as a haitian born in haiti raised in haiti and i was a survivor of the earthquake. allow me to just take a minute to say thank you to those who organized this meeting this afternoon. and thanks to you who take part of your time for assistance. for me a sign, a grit sign of support to a country that really needs this support. i am not to be here today with you, my fellow panelists, guests

and members of the media. i wish to take interaction and the brooking institution for inviting me to sit on this panel to share my perspective of the -- process in my country and to provide my thoughts as a citizen of haiti and i represent it -- for humanity. an organization that has walked in haiti for more than 26 years. providing thousands of families with decent, safe and affordable housing. committed to haiti for the long-term and engaging with local communities and its partners to address current and long-term shelter needs. i also come to you today as a survivor of the earthquake. to leave as in wars as the

former offices came down on me. for me my fellow haitians and all who were impacted by the earthquake, this is not an easy time. the one-year anniversary connotes something to celebrate. we're not celebrating the earthquake. we are marking this occurrence one year later and taking note of what is going to work and what has not since that dreadful day. for me and millions more, this past year has offered little time to pose, reflect, and cry. we have not moved beyond the emotional impact, and i suspect we may never. whereby the grace of god the

support of the local and the international community. the haitian people, we will move ahead and make haiti a better and safer place to live. my assessments of the work construction process in haiti is a very mixed one. the challenges for humanity and ngos over the past year have been well documented. from the weaknesses on the current outbreak, the lack of infrastructure, the international support in the economic systems. unrest and rubble removal. to name some of the biggest challenges. that being said, there has been progress. interaction members are

prepared. 1.6 million people build tens of thousands of tents for families. and activities into shelter construction in the mobile of our projects. the emergency response immediately after the earthquake including the distribution of 800,000 tops, 100,000 tents was both mixed humanitarian effort and note work the the successes. humanity and its partners including the american red cross, the catholic services, brother-in-law, care usa have shared the children. [ unintelligible ] conducted 2,000 damage

assessments. and constructed more it has on the shelters. we're going to complete many more in the coming weeks and months. also trend more than 500 haitians in seismic. and hired more than 200 local workers to help in construction activities. in the nation rate and employment rate of 60%, job opportunities are crucial, part of rebuilding. placing experts from the haitian -- to provide community focus, technical support to help the haitian government make critical decisi decision. on their program funded by the

u.s. agency for international development through its office of foreign disaster. progress has been made but it's clear to me today that in national comprehensive urban strategy including settlement and shelter is desperately needed. shelter is a busy human neerksd critical to good health, stabile employment and effective education. a failure to prioritize decent shelter in haitian efforts will not only affect the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of haitian, but also diminish the returns of order, long-term allotment investments the delaying or founding of haiti.

must be the call of this plan. the lack of clear land right system today are slowed, the ability for the shelter of the agency to be responsible as possible. landownership was a complicated manner in haiti before the earthquake and is more complicated now because of the loss of life in the tragedy. much of the poverty in haiti lacks clear issue. many deaths during the earthquake have not been formally documented, making claims on land by earth's complicated, if not impossible. it is very difficult within the current system to have easy and clear access to land building permanent homes is not possible if shelter agencies do not own the land or have a long-term

deal rights on the property on which to build. putting haitians back into homes without the security of tenure will put them under the same risk for evictions. that existed before the earthquake as most people who lost their homes during the earthquake while renters. it gives a reason to invest in their homes. their investments will create gross domestic product and contribute to the economy as a whole. successful plan under the context of a broader urban strategy depends upon the work of the haitian government and the international community to empower locale communities and citizens to walk together to solve land disputes and security

of tenure. comprehensive urban strategy about which i speak must be led by the government and people of haiti. improved haiti of tenure. environmental issues. the improvement delivery of business services including water, sanitation, air services and transportation, national community appointment and job creation appointments. import from those who have lost their homes and communities and the needs of renters will make up the majority of the populati population. the plan must include incentives, implementation plans

and realistic timetable to transition families from their camps. to support shelter settlement, policemakers should focus on a community in neighborhood -- families to fix homes that can be repaired and that are practical plans for the integration of haitians into their original neighborhoods. policymakers also address shelter needs, are farmer renters, when return to -- units is impossible. policies of urban inclusion and -- with establishing fair neness underground. priorities should also be given to building the capacity of the haitian government of the international looker on many

levels. it is now frequent as the ngo capital of the world. this is both the recommendation of the incredible -- of support of the united states and the international community. and a warning on the amount of work to be done in developing local haitian capacity in all sectors. not just shelter. international organizations. vibrant, stabile and prosperous long after the recovery effort. all the international ngos must work to increase the capacity of local and municipal governments. local ngos, community base

organizations and the private sector to address the daily needs and aspiration of the haitian people. while i firmly believe in an urgent advocate for a comprehensive urban strategy, we do not have the luxury to make it a prerequisite for current project to continue or new ones to launch. we cannot wait for a plan to be develop developed but must continue to move ahead, cooperating with local capacities, communities, partners and donors to provide logical and effective support needed, to give millions of haitians a better life today and a brighter future tomorrow. let today be the first day of a new opportunity to rethink of our policies, to be flexible and creative in our response and to

find new ways to help haiti recover and rebuild. today when i visit refugees, i see families coming together, singing and playing, i see signs of hope. habitat for humanity following the earthquake say, "when you know someone cares about you, you feel less pain." because of the global support that we've received over the past year, people like -- let us join together once again to bring hope to many more families. i thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. i am humble every day by the outpouring of prayers, support. i'm thankful to be alive. and i am personally committed

along with habitat for humanity to be part of haiti today and in the weeks and months and years to come. thank you again. >> well, i thank you really for those very moving and personal words of both thanks and looking forward to very practical solutions and your comment in particular about how a sense of caring helps alleviate pain i think is one that we can all take home and inspire us in the months and years ahead. let's take some questions. and i did want to pose two thoughts and then before coming back to the panel, we'll also go back to the room, but there are two subjects that we really haven't touched on very much which i know are of pressing concern. one is sanitation. and, beth, in particular thinking about some notes that you sent me yesterday about this. you know it's such a difficult

and practical problem and it involves land use, of course. help us think about that problem. and, secondly, the issue of sexual violence business particularly in the camps. you know, what's being done more generally about security around the camps. do we have enough international presence to deal with that? is there enough training going on of local police? i'd like to hear a little bit more about that as well. let's take a couple of questions from the floor. i see someone in the way back and then we'll move -- try to move forward. i see a gentleman also. >> thank you very much. my name is amy, i'm with the pan-american development foundation and i did want to say something about the sexual violence, gender-based violence peace in the camps. my organization had been implementing a human rights project over the past three years, and one of the things that was done immediately following the earthquake was to immediately work with our

40-plus haitian partners, organizations, to set up monitoring committees in the camps. specifically to address the issue of protection and sexual and gender-based violence. so there are efforts going on that are spearheaded by camp leaders, camp, community-based organizations to -- to report, monitor, and try to work with local authorities on that issue, although the issue is overwhelming and a lot more work needs to be done. so one piece i wanted to ask is, what usaid strategy going forward might be related to that issue? some those projects are closing down. and the need remains very, have been great. the only other thing i wanted to mention, sorry, my original comment was to pick up on what the colleague from habitat was discussing with regard to one of the achievements, i think, one of the positive notes is this damage assessment piece.

working with the ministry of public works, unops the pan-american foundation with the funding from usaid and the world bank over 400,000 structures in port-au-prince were assessed with damage assessments that are quite detailed. and the outcome of that is now a prepa repair strategy. meaning, homes that have received limited untreat yellow tags that can be repaired at a relatively low cost. not only that, it creates jobs in the neighborhoods, it gets people back into their homes, and also works with haitian engineers, mason, contractors, et cetera, as well as the ministry of public works. so my second piece was to get additional comments on what some people call the neighborhood approach, the neighborhood strategy, and, sam, maybe any

comments you may have from your recent trip about that repair-based work? i know that are there plans moving forward to increase that, in fact we're holding a training that -- >> thank you, we have a couple of other people who want to jump in in. >> sorry. >> thanks very much. i appreciate that. >> yes, this gentleman in the back and then biehl move forward. >> good afternoon, how are you? i thank the entire period. my name is dominique. the reason that most of the ngo organizations are in haiti is because there was a vacuum of leadership that existed right after the earthquake. people donating massive amounts because they wanted that vacuum to be filled. they thought the solutions would come. they're still not there. what i would want to ask specific to emergency preparedness, the rainy season is coming a few weeks. what is being done to prepare people for that time frame? and a couple of weeks later

we'll be start of the hurricane season. so what is being done and that's based there? the final comment is, instead of focusing so much on the difficulties that exist, which is clear. you know we've been seeing the reports for the past year, let us try to focus more on the possibilities and the solutions that can be found. thank you. >> thank you. let's take one more. over here, this gentleman in the middle. >> my name is johnny young, i'm with the u.s. conference of catholic bishops. and we have been in haiti through catholic relief services for over 50 years and of course we'll continue to be there. we helped in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and hope -- and will be there for the longer term. we've talked about no quick fixes, and we certainly agree with that. but there are -- there remains

some items that still need to be done and i would like to ask that the u.s. government look into what more can be done in four areas. one would be in delaying the deportation of persons back to haiti for criminal offenses. the second would be, family reunification for persons who are brought to the united states and the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and now are separated from their family members who are still in haiti. we have one case for example -- >> we have little time left. >> well, family reunification. >> give me your two more. >> okay, fine. the other would be in temporary protective status for persons who came to the united states after the earthquake. and the other would be

expeditious approval for those haitians who have already been approved to immigrate to the u.s. moving them up in the queue. so those are the four areas. >> thank you very much for those very specific. go back to the panel for some final comments, and please respond as much as you can to these questions. >> starting with me. >> thanks. yes, please, paul. >> i guess i will start with the sexual violence question, which i think you know -- we know that if you have a situation of large displacements, it's predictable that there are worries about sexual violence. we have, as the person who asked the question answered, we've programmed some resources to try and deal with that issue in a number of the camps. if the money's running out, as long as the camps are there, it's something that we need to seriously consider, continuing to program resources for. the long-term solutions have to be with strengthening the local capacity of the social -- of the welfare ministry to deal with these issues, as well as the

security option. we don't -- on usaid we don't work directly with the police but obviously a security dimening to this, the haitian national police are the organization primarily responsible. i think it's also one of the successes over the last year. i think we've seen multiple polls that show that if haitians are asked, where do you get your -- where do you want to get your security services from, they choose the haitian national police over the international community which -- and there's been a lot of work over the last several years, not by us but by the international community but by the state department principally on strengthening the police. so we need to continue do that to make sure that the security option is there and working. emergency preparedness, there's been an ongoing effort for years. it was accelerated last year before the onset of the hurricane season to strengthen it at the national level, private and civil protection, as well as the municipal levels. it's not just port-au-prince. there are lots of areas where we're working with local government to strengthen their capacity to prepare for and to

respond to hurricanes and storms. we'll also have to take another look at the hurricane mitigation efforts that were done before the last season and to see what needs strengthening. on the range of immigration issues, i know that the department of state, the department of homeland security have been in a dialogue with elements of the haitian dias per, the haitian got those issues and i know that there's a lot of under consideration. i can't speak to the specifics of those four issues. >> great. beth, we'll just come down. >> on the sexual violence. it is horrific. it is horrific, widespread. the police are barely present, sorry. when i met with the u.n. protection class are talking about this, and i said what about the police? and they said, we're trying to get phone numbers of local police stations. we're trying to get phone numbers. you know county's a big success. policing arm is now patrolling the most vulnerable camps but that's 1/10 of the total camps and by patrolling it, it means

driving around once or twice a month. the violence is horrific. and much more needs to be done on it. sanitation is very much related to the temporary nature of some of these camps. it doesn't make sense or it isn't possible to construct permanent latrines or other ways, disposable that is temporary. and so these portable toilets are being used which are very expensive to bring in, out, clean, so forth. and so long-term solutions for sanitation depends in part on coming up with a governmental policy for development. >> sam and then claude. >> there is a clear gender i mentioned to haiti. the average haitian household is run by a woman. it has to be a recognition of the role of gender in the haitian context. and i won't say more than the reality is a rough one. people don't go into the camps at night. there's a degree of security in the daytime, it's at night when we have a problem.

on sanitation, it's a long way to go. i'll give one very positive example. it's an interesting role for ngo, worldvision, every single sludge truck that drops human wastes in one place that leaves that site is cleaned with chlorine to not spread cholera and other diseases. you've got sites where you could begin to do this. but ultimately it is not an attendable situation. the efforts on sanitation have to be in each village which gets me to the neighborhood approach and this was an interesting effort that we saw of the catholic relief services. it is an effort in a community. it is that neighborhood rebuilding itself. it is providing the materials to build a house. it is looking at the drain of water in the center of that community, and can you clean it over time, so when the rain falls, that there's significant place for that water to go. we are not ready for another hurricane in haiti. if there is a direct hit, it

would be a real mess. an enormous amount has been done to dredge, to move resources, but ultimately we're going to need some more secure shelters. and it comes down to this ability of haitian institutions and haitian neighborhoods to take some degree of control over their lives. that transition from international nonprofit to a local institution is a transition that is taking time. it is a transition that needs to take place, and i think it will happen neighborhood by neighborhood. neighborhood development will not happen overnight. we'll be at it for years but it is ultimately the core of any success in this effort. >> claude? >> i would like to make two quick comments about -- to sam's questions. for the rainy season, as an organization habitat for humanity keeps building secure and safe building for the families affected. so we -- we not only build more

than 1,000 but bear planning to build almost 2,000 in the next coming months. it's a way to take people out of camps and to place them in a more safe place -- in a safer place. besides of that, we are working closely with municipalities and civil protection department where we are building -- we are putting in place some local communities to identify the risky areas. if something happened, if there's a flood, for example, where to go? so we have six local communities all over the country. they clearly know where to go if something happens. it's the best way that we can support the civil department the municipalities wheel we are building a safer place for them. in terms of, let's focus -- let's be focused on solutions instead of problems. as i mention before, the best

way to do it is to empower haitians to take them in charge instead of coming and acting on behalf -- to do some mistakes. give us the possibility to work besides international community. because there could not be in haiti forever. so a certain momentum, we need to be able to take charge. so the best way to bring solutions is to empower, to trust me, the knowledge the competency we don't have now. we have so many organization working down there, lack of leadership, as you mentioned, lack of capacity. so how long can we actually act organization. let build the capacity. maybe if something happened in the near future, we'll be able to welcome any helper, but we have less because we got the

capacity to respond directly to our problems. >> well, i think that's an appropriate note to end on. we've run out of time. thank you all for coming and please join me in thanking the panelists.o to our

web site. >> "washington journal" continues. host: at the table, founder and editor of "the weekly standard." >> "washington journal" continues. >> "washington journal" continues. -- william kristol, what is your take away here? guest: this is a terrible thing. i wish her and her family the best, i know her well. host: many have been going after sarah palin and those that speak in certain terms about certain politicians and parts of

the country. what do you think of that dialogue? guest: a disgrace. sarah palin. even if he had been a follower of first, what would that prove? of what if he was a follower of some left-wing politician? the man does not even mention her. the way this is being done is mccarthyism, honestly. on the other hand, it is a reliable and people should be ashamed of themselves. some people are ideologically motivated and even then is not fair to blame conservatism.

in general we tried to tamp down and not use crazy rhetoric. at times these metaphors are used. people use war metaphors for politics. sarah palin is not the only person that ever put a target of a congressional district. everyone has done that. liberals, conservatives. i take the attempts to politicize this and use this as a disgrace and says there is a current state that leads from one to the other. take that a step back. guest: first of all, do we think this would have changed if we have a calmer debate over health care? gabrielle giffords is a moderate

democrat and a defender of the second amendment. vitriolic attacks from the left of conservatives. did they cause this? i do not think so. i think that responsible people should encourage others to use less of the inflammatory rhetoric. those of us who went through the last 10 years and the last attack on george bush, who alleges that -- allegedly consciously lied to get young men and women killed. but this goes both ways. the idea that it began two years ago is ridiculous. host: they ask this question over the weekend -- will congress ever be the same? guest: i think so. this is a terrible thing. virginia tech was a horrible thing.

this is a big in the open society. with a high murder rate and to many disturbed people where terrible things happen. but college and university is going on despite the killings of virginia tech. congress will go on and gabrielle giffords is the first to say that it should. i do not think that they will declare the necessity for a huge apparatus to be in place to protect officials. i think that people are overreacting to this. it is generally a mistake to pick one incident and try to write legislation or predict events days later. a terrible thing that happens and i do not think it will change congress. host: the public mind, good

morning. caller: i wanted to make a couple of quick points to illustrate why people on the right to not trust the mainstream media. first of all, i do not blame politicians for this guy. they are all pointing at sarah palin. president obama said -- they bring a knife to a fight, we bring a gun. during the fort hood shootings everyone said not to rush and i do not think that that is what he was thinking of when he used this, and metaphor. i really think that people should not jump to condemn

politicians or activists on either side. i would say that the same is true of movements on the left in america. millions of citizens organizing themselves with very little violence over the last few years. shouting and heckling. movements, are these movements run by an same individuals? they can be. does that mean that the environmental movement is illegitimate? or that anyone who supports the legislation should be scrutinized? and though. should we be careful about our rhetoric? yes.

comparing politics to war? perhaps. this guy was not reading political web sites. caller: good morning. let me take a step back here. something that has happened in this country is -- number one, we have discovered that barack obama is a disaster. he has no idea what leadership is. he likes the flow around. he will not lead. he had an obligation one year ago to come out to protect our country against the charge of racism.

he failed us. he said nothing. he still says nothing. just a risky way of doing things has failed. he had an obligation to come out and take a stand against and the this is in the past. this is a beautiful country. your comment? guest: i did notice that in his weekly address a few weeks ago

he commented on other than what the president said in the past and it is hard to tell and he overdid everything with health care. nancy pelosi, harry reid, they were not controlled very well. leading to electoral repudiation in november. i wish that on the issues that i care about, like afghanistan -- where i support his policies and

he talks more about other issues that i think are important. guest: i think they have said the right things. i happen to be in touch with a couple of republican congressmen and they were very shaken up by this. it is a terrible thing. i think that all americans. i think that most people have that appropriately and will continue to do so.

host: back to the question of the debate, the lead editorial from "the new york times." i think paul krugman is much anger than any other politician. he attacked sarah palin this weekend with no evidence before he knew anything about the shooting. he said on saturday, on their website, it is likely he is a conservative. it was conservative rhetoric that caused this, but of course, that turned out not to be true. that is mccarthyism. we do not have any evidence that

this guy is a communist, but how can you separate him from people that might have liberal point of view with the communist agenda? host: next phone call.: caller caller: if anybody has spread that kind of vitriol, bill kristol is one of them. he brought his sweeper in today to get rid of all of it. he is also accusing the democrats of doing the same thing, but i do not know of any example of that. it is disgusting to have to listen to this guy, and i am a retired naval officer. this is disgusting to listen to this man.

host: well, he has been listening. guest: then turn off the tv. host: fullerton, california. caller: on the shooting in tucson -- it stands not so much from people's belief in the tea party, sarah palin, but what i think it is is the right wing movement being a scapegoat. what is significant about this is it reflects the political and economic instability, and i think the real cause of this divisiveness in our nation, people are feeling they are not in control. we have been fighting a war for 10 years that does the seem to

be resolving itself. i think people feel like government is losing control of the situation. nothing seems to be improving. i know mr. kristol referenced mccarthyism. when people sense their own world is changing, they tend to become hysterical and overreact. pointing the finger at the tea party, sarah palin, screaming racism, is all symptoms of this hysteria. it reminds me of the salem witch trials. host: political economic instability. guest: one of the worst things that could happen out of this would be the further heating of political rhetoric.

certainly, i was on tv yesterday and tried to say inappropriate things. to their credit, the president, speaker brainer, nancy pelosi have set appropriate things. i believe it was the left that job on this thing -- but what if a republican congressman was shot? maybe he was just looking for is local politician and was not motivated by any political thought. lee harvey oswald was a communist. that does not mean people who are socialists, people who are sympathetic to the palestinian cause our responsible for all actions. maybe you could plausibly tie

something together their but here there is no ideology at all. it would be terrible if our political discourse gets further poisoned by talks about this assassination. we can have a reasonable debate about security, policy issues, like gun-control. i would not do it the day after. it would be better to reflect on a sensible legislation, but it is not ridiculous for someone to say, let's look at why he got so many shots off quickly. maybe we should look at the assault weapons ban. that is the kind of reasonable response. but to be demonizing, not just a few americans, but 30 million people who voted on the republican side, or on the democratic side, left-wing democrats, or for that matter,

from the left -- it would be very bad. it would be bad to exploit this tragedy even more by those who have an interest in demonizing, which hunting opponents on either side of the spectrum. host: earlier, you said a that these events will increase the distance between constituents and their congressional representatives. guest: i think we have an open society. there are a lot of things one can do.

the next time a congressperson has a town hall, police may show up with local force. you hate the idea of copycat doing something. there are mass murderers at workplaces, universities, military bases, unfortunately. i don't think we want to become some sort of garrison fate where people are sheltered from each other. host: wilmington, north carolina. kent is on the line. caller: i could not agree more with mr. kristol. i think we are probably from the same peer group. i grew up in the 1960's. my fear is this country has

neglected the mental health of its citizens for so long, these kinds of occurrences come up far too frequently. the fifth rail, to me, politically, is some sort of component of public health care that includes our mental health. the cost of deepen -- keeping people in jail is just a band- aid on the titanic of the generals public mental health -- of the general public mental health. it baffles me that there is no political representation for the ingrained violence that i see in america. i am sure mr. kristol lived

through all of the assassination attempts. every time this stuff clickers, -- occurs, talk is abundant, but any plan for the general mental health of our citizenry is soon forgotten and we wait until the next bend. -- thing. we have to take a step back from what we say publicly. i do not believe our terrorism is nearly as to visit as our public interchanges are right now. host: bill kristol? guest: i am no expert in mental health policy.

there was a debate about 10 years ago about whether or not mental health would be required most insurancein both menta plans. this man was mentally unstable. his community college actually asked him to leave. i do not know if they referred him to a clinic. it is hard to force people to seek help. i guess this guy had not been reported to be a clear threat until he took those terrible actions on saturday. it is hard to know how a better mental health system -- maybe it would have -- but it is not clear from the facts of this case that a different mental

health policy would have made a difference. host: mount airy, maryland. richard. democrat. call, i am a 77-year-old korean war veteran, fairly well- educated, and i think you are being a disingenuous apologist. no democrat could run for office. did not bring up gun control because it is political suicide. no democrat is going to reference guns, talk about killing the other party, and be successful. the republicans, on the other hand, they see the second amendment that way. i am a hunter but i do not need a glock 9 that shoots 30 rounds. it is ridiculous.

there is not one instance where democrats are talking about guns. there was an awful lot of bitter references about arizona, and it is just not true. no democrat is going to use that symbol because it is political suicide within their own political party. guest: both parties have used the cross hairs to target certain districts. the use of the word "targeting" is pretty common. that does not mean that you should go around murdering. honestly, it is not the case. it is also not the case that many democrats are not interested in gun-control laws. carol mccarthy, the democrat

from long island, is about to introduce a bill in the next few days. there are gun control republicans, there are second amendment democrats. gabbie gifford was a pretty strong supporter of gun rights. she may have been supported by the nra. i do not think she was doing this for political reasons. other democrats have differed with her. people are entitled to different views on gun control. it does not mean that they are being insincere. al gore ran with strong gun- control positions, i recall.

host: take us back to arizona, talking about the story. the share spoke over the weekend. -- sheriff spoke over the weekend. the governor will be making her state of the state address today. a previously scheduled event. what is the tone for her to strike today? guest: she will strike the proper tone -- unity, deplore this terrible act, of violence of all kind, extremism of all sorts. i have not been to arizona much in the past few years. i cannot judge how he did the politics are. j.d. hayworth was targeted by

some democratic opponents, advertisements targeting him as a vulnerable republican, and he lost. there is not much evidence i know of that murder had anything to do with this debate. i do not even know what his views are. having this conversation shows how ridiculous it is. there are ideological assassins. even in those cases, it is often illegitimate to plan an entire point of view because one fringe guy takes -- uses of violence when he should not. nut.ust seems to be a knoc

host: burke, virginia. caller: it is surprising that mr. kristol is all this sudden ambivalent about gun-control. guest: that is not true. i have always been ambivalent about gun-control. not every conservative agrees on every issue and not every liberal. go ahead, i am sorry. caller: i would have a disagreement with that, but this is turning into a witch hunt with guns. whenever i hear democrats claiming a martial language in the political arena, i find them just as guilty. i would like to point out something that no one has brought up. there was a movie called "the assassination of george bush."

as far as i'm concerned, it is an attempt to incite such an act. when i looked for it this morning, it is missing from the internet database but i did find a story about it. i do not recall any of the liberal politicians saying what a horrible thing it was to release a movie called "the assassination of george bush." web sites would use the word bushhitler as a single word all the time. we do not need to be on the defensive here. guest: i do not think anybody should be calling for the assassination of politicians or calling an american hitler. i agree. there has been individual

efforts to take advantage of this terrible tragedy and somehow discredit conservatives or the tea party. that is why i began this morning by saying it was somewhat outrageous, mccarthyism. "the weekly standard" is not going around demonizing people over this. we take a look at mental health policies, gun policies, something that is sensible. have a policy debate. the attempt to exploit tragedy is really troubling. people talk about political rhetoric. i would rather focus on this. host: naples, florida.

jean. caller: nobody knows if this was political. anyone who commits mass murder has a mental problem but mr. kristol seems to be backpedaling now. i have never seen such hate since president obama was elected from beck, hannity, limbaugh, and when you have people telling their audience to pick up their guns and fight, the sort of thing is bound to happen. there are so many wonderful republicans and democrats. it is time for them to do what mr. kristol said and turn off the television. stop giving people like him ratings. stop giving them money. we do not need legislation to come down the rhetoric. we just need the american people to say we have different

views. that is what makes this country a great country. guest: that is what most politicians say. it is not fair to say that this has nothing to do with sarah palin or michelle bachman. the fact that they could somehow be responsible for this is unfair. i just criticized michelle bachman about 10 days ago for not raising the debt ceiling. she is involved in political debate. she is not inciting people to violence. host: we have about 10 minutes left with our guest bill kristol who was booked before the shooting over the weekend. "the weekly standard" -- happy

days. you write about the debt. you are writing about the but they are going to take on the debt ceiling? guest: we are looking at the new republican majority, looking at how we can get government under control without doing things that we think would be substantively or politically foolish. this debt has been accumulated over a long time. i do not think using the debt ceiling is a good way to go about this. when they pass the debt ceiling increase, that is fine, but it should not be held hostage to legislation.

host: what do you make of promises about open government, open process in the house? the gop is going to put this on the floor without any amendments, votes to repeal. what do you think? guest: i have been a strong supporter of appeal and we should have an up or down vote. there will be time to debate every aspect of health care. republicans will move to show what they might replaced obamacare with with a couple pieces of legislation, and there will be time to debate and offer amendments. i think the republicans are move for repeal. i think obamacare was a terrible mistake.

host: that was going to happen on wednesday, but they have adjusted the schedule. the couple of things, before we wrap up with phone calls. a shake-up of staff at the white house. what do you make of the changes that are happening? guest: bill bailey is a good choice. he is a moderate democrat. we will see if he can really influence president obama's policies. he is a strong leader internally and he chooses the policies he wants to pursue. i think the tax deal will help the economy over the next few years, if we can get spending restraint. then the question is the regulatory burden. agencies have been out of control. particularly, in the bush administration. bill daley knows a lot about the

private sector. at the moment, private businesses are nervous about using capital. there is capital on the sidelines. one reason is because there are decisions that need to be made in government. host: back to your party, the rnc. you vote for a new chairman this week. what do you think about michael steele, and who gets your vote this weekend? guest: i do not get a vote this weekend. i did not think michael steele was a particularly good leader. he said some pretty foolish things. i know slightly the people who

are running. i think the two candidates are ryan priebus. who was formerly general counsel. i know there is a michigan committee man who is also looking at this. he is a good man. i know him the best. if i was a member, i would vote for him, but i do not get a vote. host: last call for bill kristol. middlebury, connecticut. going: gun-control ain't to go nowhere because anybody can get a gun. if i want a gun, i can build one in my basement. you just talked about oil companies. aren't they one of the biggest industries we have?

but we only have so much oil in the ground. if we suck up all of that oil from the ground today, what happens in 10 years when china needs more oil? going baby, and drildrill ain't to work. natural-gas has a lot of potential but we are dropping so much chemical into the ground. well, what happened when i cannot even drink water out of my spigot any more? guest: i am no expert on the details of energy policy. there are huge natural-gas finds in pennsylvania, which are promising, and would help to improve our energy problem. i am actually optimistic about

that. we have oil, coal, natural gas, solar, wind -- you are right. we need lots of different kinds of energy to keep this going. and we need jobs. host: next phone call. texas. republican caller. caller: i am afraid we are missing the focus on this shooting. this guy was hoping to kill someone and he was arrested for drugs. how was he able to buy a gun? it reminds me of this virginia tech situation where this guy underwent some mental detainment but was still able to buy a gun. the focus should be on making sure our legal systems are

functioning to the extent we are able to bar people who are unstable from getting a gun. guest: i think that is a reasonable public policy question. it occurred to me, too. we do not know how he got this done legally. there should be things that gun sellers are supposed to look at. some of this reporting is second-hand but he seemed to have been a regular drug and alcohol abuser, a young man in high school. why were illegal drugs so readily available in his high school, but affected that have on his mental state? host: "the wall street journal" control ut guestthe gun

situation -- birmingham, alabama. c.j., independent. you are on with mr kristol. caller: i am concerned about what we are teaching to our young people. it seems we teach young kids to deal with difficult matters in different ways. people get very defensive when they are on the wrong side. there is a thing called responsible media.

if you take any media culture class, it shows you we can have civil discussions but we have to start from the foundation of an even scale. the inconsistencies about knowledge, like death panels when you are talking about health care. when you do not call out your own group as well as the others , then we all have a responsibility to make sure that we do our part. we can point out problems of the other guy but we need to be true to our own as well. guest: we need to be judged by what we say and write. i am happy to be judged and for criticized by what i write in

"the weekly standard." i have said alicia things and you are right, personal responsibility is a key component of a civilized society. it is also important not to blame people who are vaguely not on their side. we have tried to criticize extremism on both sides when appropriate but we do not spend 40 pages every week calling out responsible things have to say e to say and we say what we is so much focus on this killer. he is not representative of american young people. thank god there are relatively few murders like this in america. i really think we should not

generalize too much from one terrible event. . we have incredibly vigors discourse. -- we have incredibly big tourist discourse. -- vigorous discourse. 99% of the debate has been healthy and appropriate. millions of citizens had participated in the pol

job creation, reducing urban violence and other issues facing the commonwealth. >> my friends, thank you very much. all right. settle down. i have a few points i want to make. thank you all so much. to the lieutenant governor, fellow constitutional officers, members of the governor's council and of the administration, madam president, thank you for the generous

introduction and your partnership and in that same spirit to mr. speaker and the members of the legislature, mr. chief justice and members of the judiciary, to the many mayors and local officials who are here, reverend clergy, distinguished guests and friends and first and above all to the people of the commonwealth of massachusetts. four years ago i challenged you to take a chance on your own aspirations, on hope for an economy based on innovation and opportunity, on hope for better schools and universal health care on hope for better politics. four years ago hope was in short supply. young people and families were leaving our state, roads and bridges were crumbling. health care reform had passed but had not yet been implemented. stem cell research was restricted.

our clean energy potential was undermind by refusal to joint regional green house gas initiative or to support cape wind. and we had too many years of leadership, more interested in having the job than in doing the job. together, we set out on a journey to change that. and along the way, the global economy collapsed. thousands of people lost jobs, lost savings, lost homes. many, maybe some of you lost confidence. people all over the commonwealth began to wonder whether the american dream itself was up for grabs. times like these are more than a test of policy. they're a test of character. so when the going got tough, we didn't look for a scapegoat or run for cover. we didn't lose our temper or our

way. growing up in rough times and in rough circumstances taught me not to just curl up and wait for better times. no. what i learned was that optimism and effort, hope and hard work is the way to climb out of a hole. so just like families across the commonwealth, we took a fresh look at our plan, stiffened our resolve and made choices. we chose to invest in education, in health care, and in job creation because we all know that educating our kids, being able to count on good health care and having a job is the path to a better future. and that's why today massachusetts leads the nation in student achievement and health care coverage for our

residence. that's why we are creating jobs faster than most other states, why our unemployment rate is well below the national average, why we're coming out of recession faster than the rest of the country and why cnbc has moved our state up to fifth best place in america to do business today. that's why. [ applause ] that's why we'll be home to america's first off shore wind farm. that's also why the corey system finally got fixed and why veterans -- and why veterans serving in iraq, afghanistan, and all around the world know that we will look after their families when they are away and help them

when they come home. and that is why today for the first time in 20 years young people and families are moving into the commonwealth faster than they're moving in. none of this is happening by accident. it's happening because of the choices we made, the investments, you, the legislature and the people of the commonwealth have supported. this and more is happening because we didn't just sit around and wait for better times. we are building a better future for all of us by making better choices. now not everyone supports every choice we make. some of those choices have made even some of our political allies uncomfortable. but this job and these times

demand more than making each other comfortable. the times demand that we face the hard choices before us with candor and courage and that we act. because doing so today will make us stronger tomorrow. and we need to keep an eye on tomorrow. i read a newspaper article some while ago that compared the so-called greatest generation to my generation, the baby boom generation. the article described the greatest generation in the way you all heard it described, the generation that fought and won the second world war and then rebuilt europe. the generation that then came home and built great public institutions and universities and the federal highway system, that created the social safety net we so worry about today, that launched the modern civil rights movement. and then the article described my generation as the grasshopper generation. because we've been feeding off of that all our lives.

look around you. think about it. university of massachusetts and mit, the mass pike, the park or rink in your neighborhood, the t, the good school and the distinguished old building down the block, the world class hospital, tanglewood, logan airport, the police and fire stations and the people who serve in them, none of it sprang fully formed from thin air. each is the result of our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, asking themselves what they must do in their time to leave things better for the generation to come. and then sacrificing for it. they saw their state not just in themselves, but in their neighbors, not just in their times, but in tomorrow. they boer their generational

responsibility. and now so must we. we must demand more of ourselves than rhetoric that divides us in leadership that kicks every tough decision down the road. we must demand more not just of our public leaders, but also of our private ones. and of ourselves as individual citizens. generational responsibility belongs to all of us, every one of us owes a debt to the future, payable only by making the kinds of choices today that build a better and stronger commonwealth for tomorrow. and so the work of the second term looms before us. that means jobs to create, schools to strengthen, health care costs to reduce, and urban violence to end.

working together we have made progress on many fronts. but this is no time to be satisfied. we can't be satisfied until every single resident who seeks work can find it. that means we must invest in education, in the innovation industries that are expanding opportunity all over the commonwealth. in the small businesses that are the backbone of our economy and in the infrastructure that supports it all. we must reduce the costs of doing business here and make it easier for companies to hire people, by removing unwarranted barriers be they outdated regulations, escalating premiums or limits on capital access for small businesses. and as more and more

massachusetts companies compete nationally and internationally for sales, jobs, investors and talent, we must answer their call by helping to promote the attractions of doing business and creating jobs right here in the commonwealth. and so xpekd me to lead more trade missions here in the states and abroad, to lobby hard for our interests in washington and elsewhere. to be your jobs advocate. we have the tools to compete. we have the talent, the tradition of innovation, the venture capital, the ideas. and so we will compete. for every job, in every industry, in every corner of the commonwealth and of the world.

we can't be satisfied until a great school is within reach of every young person in the commonwealth. and that means -- and that means we must find ways to invest in public schools, from early education right up through public universities. because young people get their chance right now and don't have the option to sit out their education until the recession is over. and it is critical -- it is critical that we use the tools we have and the landmark achievement gap act which the legislature passed and i signed only last year to support the imagination and creativity of great teachers, principles, parent groups and business partners. to reach the poor children and children with special needs and

children who speak english as a second language, the children on whose preparation and optimism, our future economy and quality of life depend. we will close the achievement gap in massachusetts and continue to show leadership in public education for the nation. but being first in the nation is a good start. being first in the world is where we're headed. we can't be satisfied until health care is as affordable as it is accessible. and that means -- that means creating incentives for all providers to work together to

deliver better care at lower cost. it means improving transparency in the charges for services. it means reforming the medical malpractice system. it means getting excessive paperwork out of the way of the relationship between doctor and patient. it means a new emphasis on wellness and on prevention. and it means that we must change the way we pay for health care. so we will file legislation in the coming weeks to address health care costs including significant payment reform and simplification. this will be a challenge. there will be great debate and resistance to change. but working families, small and large businesses alike and governments, too, need a solution. and they need it now. some steps we can take immediately without waiting for

new laws. and my direction mass health, the health care connector and the group insurance commission will implement pilot programs to demonstrate new more cost effective ways to buy health care. to get different results, we need to start trying different things. we need to start now. we will work on these and other plans with our partners in the health care industry and in washington as well as with patient advocates, everyone, insurers, hospitals, physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals and especially patients need to be a part of this solution. but let me be absolutely clear, let me be clear, the time for talk is over. the time for action has arrived.

we can't be satisfied until children stop killing other children, until we have developed an implemented a comprehensive strategy for preventing youth violence. one that ends the despair felt by too many young people and the fear felt by everybody else. it's time to move beyond ideas and programs that may once have worked but don't today and stay on alliances to individual budget line items. i don't have all the answersment and that us from straits me to no end. but i know that the answers are out there. so we will engage this full spectrum of people who work with young people, educators and law enforcement, street workers and clergy, human services providers and business leaders, victim advocates and survivors, whoever is willing to help support and

love a young person on to a positive future. the cycle of violence and poverty in any community is a threat to every community. it threatens our fundamental belief in opportunity for all. and it must stop. more jobs, stronger schools for all our children, affordable health care, safer neighborhoods. that's the work of our second term. we cannot be satisfied and i will not be satisfied until we have done all we can in each of these areas. only in this way will we bear our responsibility to leave this place better than we found it for our sake and for the sake of a generation yet to come.

that is my commitment and the commitment of my administration to the people of the commonwealth of massachusetts. and that also means continuing to improve the way our government serves our people. we have a pension system that needs further reform. cities and towns that need more tools to cut their costs. a re-entry system both in probation and parole that needs to regain the public's confidence. sentencing laws that need coherence, a tax code that needs simplicity and fairness. none of this is simple. all of it is challenging. but we're fortunate, too. because we also have a legislature and leaders who have shown their willingness to take tough votes, public employee unions willing to work with us

in respectful partnership, appointees who understand that the public's interest comes first. and attentive and engaged electorate and a governor who has shown you that i will stand up to anybody if that's what it takes to bear our generational responsibility. we have -- we have, even we here, so much of what we need right now to do what's right. now it's time to fix what's broken. to meet these responsibilities, i challenge us all to turn to each other, not on each other. let us bring our passion not to scoring political points but to

finding real solutions. let us bear our generational responsibility together. because there are real needs in real people's lives at stake. nothing we say or do here today will long be remembered. what will be remembered, what will last, is the light we shine in our neighbor's lives and in our commonwealth. and in some fundamental way that is all about service and sacrifice, the service and sacrifice of the soldiers or police officers or firefighters who put themselves in harm's way abroad and at home for all the rest of us. the service and sacrifice of the teachers who come in early and stay well past the class day to help a child master her reading. the service and sacrifice of the immigrant who works three jobs

to provide the signature american opportunity he once lay awake dreaming about in a distant homeland. the service and sacrifice of our parents and grandparents, of our aunts and uncles and cousins and old ladies in my old neighborhood and neighborhoods all across the commonwealth who chose through some gesture, great or small, to make a better way for each one of us. what is at stake today is the american dream. and i'm here to tell you it is worth fighting for. it is worth serving and sacrificing for. and i say that not just as your governor, but also as someone who has lived it. make no mistake, for that reason, i will give everything i have to move this agenda

forward. on saturday through something we call project 351, we will gather eighth graders from every single city and town in the commonwealth for a day of service. they are remarkable young people who are already contributing in their own extraordinary ways to making a better community. they are young people like angelina from lawrence who serves with children with severe disabilities. kids like stephen berkaloni who has one of 11 children led a school drive to create holiday packages for our troops in afghanistan where his older brother is currently stationed. the point of project 351 is to lift up their examples, to encourage the substance and the spirit of their work and the parents, teachers, and communities that inspire them and then to send them back, back

to their communities as a beacon and also as a challenge for the rest of us. service for them is not just about what they do. it's also about who they are. and surely if these eighth graders can find a way to serve, a way to bear their generational responsibility, then the rest of us can also. in that same spirit of service and sacrifice, we embark on the journey of this second administration. how ma humbled about it public trust, invigorated by the task, confident in our plans, committed to our responsibility to build a better commonwealth, and in the sure and certain faith that with optimism and effort and the grace of god, our best days lie ahead.

thank you all. gl god bless you all and god bless the commonwealth of massachusetts.

brookingsre in d.c. >> my name is ted picone, senior fellow and deputy director of the foreign policy program. we're very honored to have with us an incredible panel to talk about the tragic earthquake in haiti that took place almost exactly one year ago. we are here today really at a momentous time to step back and reflect on the challenges that haiti faces, the terrible tragedy and to take a moment to

take stock of the circumstances there and how to move forward in the best possible way for all concerned. we're going to have a full discussion and it will proceed in the following way. we're first going to hear from our honored guest, sean penn, who's the founder of the j.p. haitian relief organization and you'll hear lots more about that as we go through. and we will then also hear from paul wechlt wisenfeld. they will each speak from the podium for about ten minutes, then we'll take some questions and answers. we will then turn to our panelists and i lint deuce them in a moment and we will take a very brief break when mr. penn

needs to leave around 3:00 but we will then continue with the discussion until 3: 30. let me formally introduce our panelists. mr. penn is a two-time academy award winner and you have their bios. i won't recount them in detail and it is an incredibly impressive career in film, writing as a journalist, and increasingly as humanitarian. his work in haiti has been particularly remarkable. he's also done some work in new orleans after the hurricane katrina. but recently he's been spending all of his time when he's not on a film set, it seems, in haiti, in port-au-prince working side by side with the victims of the earthquake. his organization runs the largest camp in port-au-prince and established the first

emergency relocation in the country. he's worked quite closely with u.s. military. it will be interesting to hear his thoughts on that. he's been commended with many different awards from the u.s. military and we're very honored to have him here. we will then hear from paul weisenfeld. he's had over 18 years of experience at usaid and served as the coordinator of usaid haiti's task force in the aftermath of the earthquake, has a lot of field experience in countries like per rur, zimbabwe and egypt and he will give us a sense of how things look from a usaid perspective. we'll take some q and a, we'll go back to the panel and hear from samuel worthington, president and ceo of interaction which is a partner in hosting this event. interaction is the largest alliance of u.s.-based

international non-governmental organizations with 190 members. he's also very involved in interagency standing committee at the united nations and i will come back and make an announcement about their work in a moment. we also have the privilege of hearing from two other speakers. beth ferris is the director of the brookings project on internal displacement and also senior fellow here at foreign policy. she's an expert on force migration, human rights, humanitarian action, the role of civil society, she's just returned, as many of our speakers have, from haiti. she's spent many years in geneva working for the world council of churches, teaches and writes extensively on these topics. and then we will hear from claude jedat, director of

habitat for humanitarian haiti and he's been running that position since 2004. habitat for humanity has been in haiti for 27 years so they have a long-term perspective on the issues of shelter and housing on the island. he's also a member of the interim haiti reconstruction commission which is the body that is co-chaired by prime minister of haiti and former president bill clinton that will also be hearing about in the course of the discussion. as you know from the press attention on this anniversary, a lot of people are asking what's going on, why aren't we seeing more progress on reconstruction. i think the job here is to really with these experts explore some of the complexities of the situation, both of the happenings on the ground and overall international response to it. one question that we'll want to focus on is more than the immediate response and logistics

but also the rights and dignity of the haitian people involved in this disaster. and in that spirit, there is a new document that we have been here at brookings very involved with in particular, a project on internal displacement, which is the guidelines, the operational guidelines, on human rights and natural disasters. we have copies for you out front. this document was adopted by the interagency standing committee which is a body affiliated with the united nations and is the highest humanitarian coordination body that we have in the world. and these principles, i think, put front and center the whole range of rights that are implicated in natural disasters and how to think about them in an intelligent way. as you know from the statistics, the earthquake killed over 200,000 people, displaced 1 1/2 million people, the infrastructure is ruined in

port-au-prince, the capital city. you'll hear a lot more statistics. i will not go through them all. i think it is clear that there's very strong political will on the part of governments and the general public to help haiti. the outpouring has been tremendous, but we're now in this window where the immediate crisis is past us and there needs to be action on reconstruction. this is where it really takes a long time to get moving. it's in a planning phase. you don't see as much of the progress as you'd like to see on the ground. and that situation, how long does that situation last and where can things go wrong, what are the trade-offs to really show tangible progress for the haitian people, is one of the key questions i think we'll be talking about today. so with no further ado, let me ask sean penn to come to the podium. >> thank you. well, in the last days,

beginning yesterday and today, we understand that the office of the american states is going to make a recommendation that the candidates supported by the president of haiti, jude sillstein, drop out of the race and the run-off be between martelli and manigot. whether the president will accept this proposition remains to be seen. the assumption is that an official announcement and cep response will follow the anniversary an the attendant media. in either case, just to frame the circumstances that we're talking about today and that you'll hear a lot of various perspectives on, to go back to the beginning, we had a country with a rather broken

infrastructure and void of infrastructure in many ways prior to the earthquake. government offices, close at 4:00 on the afternoon. an earthquake that happened at 5:00 in the afternoon and 60% of government buildings collapsing on those committed enough to stay after hours and killing so many of the valuable resources, human resources and human beings in haiti. this is to say that while so much of the attention is going to be at the slow pace of things, that the interconnectedness of a human population so severely traumatized with such a chaotic disaster as an earthquake where infrastructure, building codes, mixed so poorly and created so much damage, this, in the best of circumstances, would be a

venture that took some enormous patience and a kind of, i think, re-education of cultural interpretation and media coverage. patience that would be more human than commercial and one that we should be pushing very hard to see in the coming year. when the international donors conference toward a new future for haiti was held in march of last year, $9.9 billion was pledged over the next three years. of this amount, more than $5 billion was pledged for 2010-2011. pledges that range from the offer to build a senegal-based haitian consulate to an imf pledge of concession on loan and debt relief. so here we are, january 10th, 2011. while the world media will focus

on haitian election fraud and call for re-elections and recounts, it would be worth our considering our own closet. how would it be if we were to do a redo of the donors conference with caveats -- no nation may diminish the value of their initial pledge and no nation may pledge in-kind donation or diversified pledges. this translates into a conference which would allow the haitian government and the haitian people to hold donor nations' feet to the fire by requiring not cash but tangible components of reconstruction. this would look like france, stating that it would rebuild eight hospitals that were destroyed, repair and pay out debt on the 22 that were severely damaged. as a coalition, all donor nations would commit that every haitian have access to potable water and drilled wells with

filtration or decellenization units so every haitian would have access to clean water by 2012. with each nation responsible for a city and outlying area, including the mountainous and remote areas who are attic lar risk of mortality as they suffer cholera with a lack of clean water accessible. 2012 is a year for visionaries. with an already-severely malnourished infrastructure, haiti faced a devastating earthquake that killed nearly 300,000 people. 300,000 human beings in ten seconds one year ago. not to mention the nearly 400,000 with largely devastating injuries. since that time, tens of thousands have been killed from flood and mudslides, hurricane tomas put port-au-prince in the crosshairs of catastrophe. for nearly a week and a near-miss, sending aid organizations into a virtual

lockdown and panicking an already-vulnerable population. then the recent elections and the doubts in their legitimacy showed that, though a resolutely civil society, this recent and passionate expression is synonymous with a traumatized culture finding its first voice since the most devastating disaster in human history occurred just one year ago. this is where it gets tricky. because as we have seen, the media will report on chaos, death and destruction, and with our haitian partners burgeoning emotional readiness and make no mistake, there is still mourning to do. the alchemy that is our culture's lack of patience, their country's immediate needs are going to be at odds. because what will potentially be

newsworthy tragedy in the upcoming months of social struggle surrounding elections will be the perception of a chaotic and unsolvable set of problems at the most solvable moment. if the media and if we in the international relief community, and our donors, stand beside this expression of the people, and stand beside the current government and whatever future government they may choose, 2012 will be the beginning of a triumph that has never been seen so tangibly on a small island nation of 10 million an hour and a half from our shores. how did we do it. how did we change the failed dynamic of relief work of the last several decades. we can start by looking at the common thread of failure. i've been in haiti since mid-january, 2010. i came with a fresh eye, but not

without experience. as you might be surprised to know that creating and sustaining an effective ngo is not at all unlike producing a film. as i've said several times before, the stakes are immeasurably higher but the process is nearly identical. in our ngo, jphro, today our burn rate is approximately $1 million a month. in film our burn rate is about $120,000 a day which adds up to about three times the burn rate of my ngo. the number of staff is approximately the same. cash-for-work programs pay far less to the equivalent for fees of crowd scenes, comprised of members of an extras union. we break it down to department heads and areas of operations. in one case, money adds up to

entertainment and given a little care, perhaps a few provocative thoughts gifted to the culture. and the other case, in the ngo case, it adds up to the preservation of lives, of men, women and children, and with a little luck, human hope and independence. this brings me back to the thread of failed aid in haiti and the front row seat that i have had had in this past year. in film, if we fail to provoke an audience, we fail a medium that is obliged to more than entertainment. with its power to be big cultural medicine. and when we fail that, it is due to our reliance on cliche. so here is a cliche that you often hear in the ngo community. here's a cliche that, as much as any, is as hollywood as anything

i've ever seen and should be given its final coffin now. don't give them fish, teach them to fish. what fish? what school? what building inspector? what building code? what materials? of course, we have to support haiti with training, parallel training. but that can also be the smokescreen that teach them to fish, the smokescreen that leaves hundreds of thousands of vulnerable and unsanitary camps through next year's hurricane season. we've got to put the fish there. the time for action is now. one year after the earthquake we're facing challenges with donors on issues like camp management. i'm hearing every day that more and more ngos are relieving themselves of the role of camp

manager because the funding is drying up for those activities or because the job's just too hard and they no longer want to be in such a difficult position. camp management f, for the reco, is not about keeping people in the camps but about helping people return to viable secure communities or to reach their chosen durable solution. those who left the camps up until now were among the easier to help. there were host family opportunities. for example, we have a rubble removal outfit, a heavy equipment wing. you identify an area of operations with the population of your camp. you go, you remove the rubble. get other ngo partners, find transitional or permanent shelters, or repair shelters. and then offer opportunities for those families in camp to move

back into those neighborhoods. those options have been largely exercised. and what remains in the camps today are those in the most desperate of circumstances. those who have no alternative. there's no shortcut in haiti. i will give an example. to date in port-au-prince, temporary shelters erected number about 7,000. that's in a year. what is needed to get all of these families back in to -- minimally -- hurricane-resistant structures, homes that are not on tarps on mud banks, on top and flood zones on top of each other where one match could light the whole camp on fire. where disease, infections, can spread like lightning.

so where you had as many as 1.8 million at one point, coming down dramatically to 1.2, and now at about 750,000, but now going to be the slow part. now it's going to be the tough part. 7,000 shelters were erected, 400,000 is what would be needed. given that the shelters themselves are all single level, they will not spread in the areas available, and so this goes back to decentralization which is going to be mandatory to make this country work again. so all of the things, whatever happens in port-au-prince, and what have happens with the international community, is going to have to be complemented by business interests and aid diversifying into other areas supporting the cities outside of

port-au-prince and the remote areas and of course, agricultural interests. there's got to be more rubble removed. more shelter an housing solutions. more water and toy lets, roads, hospitals, schools, jobs. we've got to offer them a way out of the camps. landowners are getting increasingly frustrated and most camps are on private lands. we cannot allow forced evictions, putting people from harsh into even more harsh conditions. so we must show a change of pace to landowners. according to the most recent iom report on displacement, the number of internally displaced persons is still at 810,000, which includes 750,000 people still living in camps.

people still living in idp camps are doing so because they have no alternative. no one wants to live in an idp camp longer than necessary but we have to allow them to return to communities that are safe, secure and stable. the people of haiti deserve a haiti that is better than it was before and it will take time. funning and resources. if forced evictions and relocations are condoned by the international community and the haitian government, we will see camps move from private lands into the streets of port-au-prince which i think is something we can all agree is a worse circumstance. the time for action is now because haiti cannot wait any longer. we cannot let the sense of optimism and belief that haiti can recover and transform into a self-sustaining nation fade out

of impatience, frustration or complacency. we can do this right and we owe the people of haiti to do so. now one of the other issues that we -- that i have observed is that there are competing cultures of sustainable development and emergency relief. so i think that notwithstanding a haitian perspective, or an answer that would be easily pick up on by the media from a haitian spokesperson in the relief community, one has to -- we ourselves, as american citizens, have to ask ourselves, when we say that for children of a certain age that nutrition

that applies to brain function, meaning permanent, long-lasting brain function capacity, when it's not just about how much food but what food, as that would apply in haiti, this is an emergency. so we're not past an emergency phase. this is one among many emergencies. shelter. chole cholera. emergency and sustainable development should not be competing cultures of aid. they have to work interlinked and long-term. once upon a time the united states was known for its capacity to take on complete visionary projects, the hoover dam, and with canada the st. lawrence seaway with its dividend linking the great lakes to the atlantic. there was an fdr's tennessee valley authority bringing electricity to the south.

it was a rogue fashion that demonstrated who we are as a people. when our first lady, michelle obama, experienced widespread criticism in exclaiming first-time pride in our country. the criticism was wildly opportunistic, because as beneficiaries of those great generations with their bold american endeavors, we all share the hunger and need for the return of our nation's dignity. not only internally, but globally. winston churchill said of the marshal plan that it was the most unsorted act in world history. and it is just such an act that is the opportunity we have in haiti today. a reborn haiti will spark a new generation of american might through dignity.

haiti is our most impoverished neighbor and it is a one-hour and a half flight from miami beach. thank you. >> afternoon. thanks for this opportunity today. it is obviously an appropriate time to do a stock taking of what's been going on in haiti in the last year. think about the events over the last year and the relief efforts. from usaid side, we'd also like to think about the year going forward. i think haiti is obviously at a pivotal moment, as sean penn said, right now. sometime this year we hope to have a new government. i'll talk a little bit about the elections in a second. we've had the cholera epidemic has been all-consuming for the last few months and epidemiologists tell us the curve of that is that it will lessen over this year. there's also been an enormous

analytical effort to undertake designs of new reconstruction programs so 2011 should see reconstruction start to begin a pace in haiti. we have to get through some significant challenges but we are at a pivotal moment. i think some of the groundwork for that pivotal moment has been laid with some of the successes that we've seen over the last year. as a development agency we know that success ultimately depends upon the capacity of the local government and local people. we can respond to immediate issues but sustaining them, carrying them forward, is ultimately an issue of local capacity. you need a government that's committed. you need a government that's committed to make difficult decisions and trade-offs that it takes to pro tell development. you need strong institutions of government that can deliver services, respond to citizen needs, and you need markets that function so that they can allocate resources and people can invest and jobs can be created. if you think about haiti at 9:00 in the morning on january 12th, 2010, they would score low on any of those criteria.

so the challenge is that haiti faces pre-earthquake were overwhelming challenges. obviously at 4:53 on january 12th those challenges were made considerably more severe in terms of having institutions of government that were strong, even having the people, as sean penn said, to respond to those issues. nonetheless, i do think it is important to recognize some of the challenges. the last year of haiti has been a tragedy upon a tragedy upon a tragedy but there have been some things that -- where we can look back and think that some things did go right. you think again immediately after the earthquake with large numbers of people displaced, the largest urban displacement in history. initially 1.8 million people. the number has moved over time but the international community's immediate fear was widespread disease, malaria, all sorts of diseases. there was a tremendous international effort to vaccinate 1 million people, to distribute 800,000 mosquito nets. and that effort has largely been

success. . we have not seen an outbreak of any of those diseases in haiti. we were also tremendously worried about the hurricanes. when you've had the largest displaced people ever in an urban setting in an island that's subject to natural disasters and hurricanes, that was an overwhelming fear. there was again an enormous international effort of tens and tens of millions of dollars to mitigate, put in mitigation efforts to prepare for the hurricane. that included things like clearing nine kilometers of canals that were filled with debris that every year flood and kill thousands and thousands of haitians. included stabilizing slopes around camps and building drainage difference and retaining walls and sandbags and all sorts of engineering fixes. there were 21 people who died when hurricane tomas went through and that obviously 21 deaths too many. when you think about 2008 when haiti was subject to a series of tropical storms, not even a hurricane, several in a two-week

period, they had over 1,000 deaths so there is some success to talk about. we've seen the haitian government take leadership in those areas. it was the department of of civil protection that did pry and -- that had over 100 people out on the streets after hurricane tomas leading the effort to assess the damage and coordinate international relief. the resilience of the haitian people is just extraordinary. many of you i'm sure have traveled to haiti. their ability to suffer all of these tragedies and continue going on. we talk a lot about the search and rescue effort that the international community led which again was the largest search and rescue effort in history. haiti, unfortunately, gives us a lot of firsts, none of which are positive. but most of the people who were saved in haiti are saved by haitians. haitians dug their own family and friends and countrymen out of the rubble and they've continued to show tremendous resilience in the face of extraordinary challenges.

challenges going forward are numerous. you have to have a government partner that coordinate lead development and work up to sustainability. even before the elections were finished, the opposition claimed fraud. some of the ngos that were involved in it pointed to serious irregularities right away. the united states was very supportive of the international effort to send in teams to assess this the president ultimately requested a mission from the oas to look at this. they sent in an international team that included people from the hemisphere as well as europeans. the goal is obviously to have an election that reflects the will of the haitian people so our focus is always on the process. what is a process that reflects the will of the haitian people and can confer legitimacy on a new government. we did support the mission that went in to do a statistic analysis. there are lots of media reports today about what the report says. none of us have seen the

official report. we understand that it does point to irregularities. it is expected to be given to the president and the electoral council today, we believe. some time in the coming week it is expected to be given to the council of the oas. we'll look at with a kind of recommendations we can support again focused on the issue of an election that reflects the will of the haitian people and results in a government that has legitimacy of the haitian people. the result is obviously in part a political process. whatever happens has to be agreed to by the parties moving forward so we don't see instability and disruption in haiti. we know instability is never something good for development. our primary concern is moving forward in a way that deals with the underlying problems with the poverty in haiti. other challenges, sean penn has mentioned a number of them. rubble removal. rubble has been the thorn around

everyone's neck. 80% of the area of the country is a slope. simply finding places to dispose of the rubble. people who's traveled there know that after most of the -- much of the rubble was taken from the main roads, the back roads that are winding and narrow and are not easily accessible to large-scale equipment, it is just an overwhelming enormous challenge but we have to move forward on that. i mean we know through our efforts that we've removed 1.3 million cubic meters of rubble but we don't even know how much rubble there is. estimates are all over. army corp of engineers said early on 19 million. subsequent engineeri ining estis say 25 million cuber meters of rubble which would be trucks filled bummer ebumper to bumpe going half-way around the globe. in haiti we know finding precise data is always a challenge. regardless of the total figure, we have to move forward with efforts to remove the rubble.

that will be a significant impediment to anything. housing which is obviously related to the rubble. you have to clear the rubble to erect housing. it is priority number one to resettle people into a dignified life. that's our focus. for usaid, for the u.s. government, more for much of the international community. it is difficult but we have to get people to where they can live with dignity. our numbers are a little bit different. as we can count through the international community there have been 26,000 temporary shelters constructed which would be sufficient to house over 200,000 people. we do know that since june, the number of displaced in the camps has dropped from about 1.3 million to under 1 million. that's a significant accomplishment. it is not enough. obviously 800,000 or 1 million or whatever the number is, people living in those kinds of conditions, is untenable and

unacceptable for the international community. in any other disaster, if you removed -- if you resettled 200,000, 300,000 people, it would be an extraordinary achievement. where you have more than 1 million people displaced you can hardly see that if you're at ground level in the visual so there is a lot of work to be done. cholera is another enormous challenge. it's consumed efforts. it started in the north central valley. unfortunately it didn't start in the camps which was one of the fears. we do think the efforts to distribute clean water were successful in preventing those kinds of diseases in the camps but cholera is, as medical people know better than i, it is the deadliest form of diarrhe a diseases and in an environment without proper infrastructure for water it spreads like wildfire. haiti is unfortunately a terrible place if you add cholera into the mix. so the international community's thrown lots and lots of resources at it. we still have over 3,600 deaths

since october 22nd. the disease on its own will start to decline but we need to continue filling the pipeline for commodities as much as we can. cholera again is a tragedy for the deaths, it is a tragedy because gaus diverit diverts re from other things to try to make lasting improvements in people's lives. we will continue to focus on both prevention, which is providing clean water, providing hygiene messages, providing commodities so people can engage in normal hygiene activities and that will reduce the number of cases obviously intended to reduce the number of cases. and treatment through the various treatment options of oral rehydration therapy and intravenous therapy for more severe cases to reduce the number of deaths. but that will be a challenge going forward. overcoming the challenges is going to be difficult in haiti given the conditions there. what can we do about it? one of the things we know that you have to do is you have to shift as quickly as you can to using local resources, using private resources. so we started in the early days

with general food distribution and we tried to shift as quickly as possible to rather than giving out food, handing out cash vouchers and buying food locally. you hand out cash vouchers so people can buy it locally and that stimulates the local economy. you keep flooding poor countries with food, farmers don't have an incentive to grow so we tried to shift early on to supporting those local solutions. same thing with water provision. haiti has a private sector system of water provision in the cities that function so we tried to build into that system instead of providing water because you want to strengthen local systems. innovation is another thing that we have to continue to look at. the extent of the challenges in haiti requires new thinking to overcome them. there's no question. we don't have all the answers. the types of things we've look at are providing mobile money. we're doing a joint program with the bill and melinda gates foundation where we've set aside cash prices to cell phone

operators and banks who can provide a functioning mobile money system. haiti is a country where over 80% of the people have never had access to a bank account. if you're in that kind of situation, it is almost impossible get out of poverty so providing access to financial services through new technologies is something critical and we're hopeful to announce today the giving of the prize for setting up a mobile money system. agriculture as well. 66% of the haitian population are engaged in agriculture. if you spend your time in port-au-prince you don't necessarily see it but it is fundamentally an agricultural economy. poverty there is fundamentally agriculturally based. how do you get people out of poverty in agriculture? you have to look at new technologies, new seeds, new fertilizers. since the earthquake we've had some programs where we've seen with targeted technical assistance and new seed varieties, productivity can be increased by 75 taurus % to 100. in the lives of poor people it makes an enormous difference to

double their income. we need to look at those kinds of solutions and expand them. ultimately we'll have to continue building local capacity. we'll have to work with a new government that will reflect the world of people and generate investment. foreign investment, but there's domestic investment. there are wealthy haitians. one key challenge we find in development, you can go anywhere in the world and find people who have money, even in haiti. but where do they invest their money? wealthy haitians ten to invest their money in miami or france so we need to help the government create the conditions where the wealthy haitians feel that it is a good investment to invest in their own country. if that happens, then you're really rocking and rolling. you're really doing something to stimulate forward investment and help haiti pro tell its own future. i know we're going to have a question and answer period but thank you very much for this opportunity.

>> we're going to do a quick question and answer and just take a moment for our panelists to be miked. i wanted to pose a question. we can open it up for further questions. which is a general sense of time line here. i mean this is one of the really difficult questions but one that might give both donors and the american population an haitians some sense of what are we talking about in terms of time? we're dealing with an unprecedented situation in terms of rubble removal, for example. what do you see from the ground level as -- are we talking about three to five years, something where we might be able to think of haiti as in a situation where it is out of this emergency place and into a more sustainable development phase? but before you answer that, let's open the floor to other questions. this gentleman in the middle right here. yes. >> wait for a microphone and please identify yourself.

>> yes. my name is mark bossford of bossford global. since day one of the earthquake, the debate about economic sustainability or emergency care has been on everybody's mind. we have started a group called my town. it provides community planning and development. we're partnering with the korean government, talking to the u.s. government, trying to get the idp out of port-au-prince into -- return back to their communities and we think we've got everything pretty much sewed up. we're rolling out the ngos. and -- >> you have a question? >> yeah. the question is, what do you think about the icrh's mandate, supposed to be for 18 months? do you think it will go out for another year? >> let's take a couple more before we come back to sean and

paul. this gentleman in front here. >> good afternoon. my name is danny yates. i'm a william and mary student and i was in haiti on january 12th, 2010 at the time of the earthquake. ever since i return to the u.s. i've been trying to help some of my haitian friends which are college students over there and my question is, based i guess on higher education, 95% of the university sector is knocked out and i know all the world's attention has been on things like food and medical and shelter but i'm trying to work with a group that's going to bring some students to a college here in the u.s. of course funding issues are a big problem. do you any thoughts on higher education and sort of the next generation of haitian leaders. that's my question. thank you. >> let me take one more right here in the front. >> hi, i'm adam kunz from international relief and development. since the early days of the disaster, there's been a lot of discussion and rhetoric about

the need for decentralization. because port-au-prince was much too overpopulated. the discussion continues about the need for that, but i'd like to hear a little bit about the mechanisms. how we'll actually accomplish that, rather than just hope it happens. >> great. why don't we -- you all are miked up. turn back to paul and sean for some responses. time line, both general and specific on ihrc and higher education, this last question. >> the ihrc mandate was initially for 18 months. a lot of people have assumed that it is going to be extended beyond 18 months but there's no decision yet. it was created by an act of parliament of the government of haiti with the agreement of the international community. obviously the elections are something that having a functioning government in place is key to so many things moving forward. we need some sort of act of parliament. it is not just the presidential election that's held up, it is

the parliamentary elections that are also subject to some dispute. that's something that has to be dealt with before we can do that. my guess is that we would expect to see its mandate extended but i can't commit to that. in terms of university education, education is critical. i can't see who asked the question but, the higher education unit institutions were considerably damaged. from our side we're committing to help recon instruct the mid wivry school and medical school. but like anything else in haiti it is going to be an effort of many years. one of the things we need to do is bring more haitians to the united states while those institutions are being built up. we have a commitment to bring a couple of dozen a year for higher education in the u.s. and we need to look at ways to increase that because you're right, that's critical. >> i mean i think that my impression of the ihrc is that it is a highly functioning group

of economic academics and well-intended force of people with an entirely unrealistic structure of -- i think the meetings are about once a month for two hours focusing on all proposals and thousands of pages of them to enact any kind of project plan or action plan. so at this moment, i think there could be many reasons for that. that could change and it may well be subject to what has been perceived since even before the earthquake as a lame duck administration and with some intention to wait until after. at the moment it is those kinds of projects and major reconstruction projects that have made, for example, the camp management things that i was talking about remain with the appearance of being static. the options are not there. on the education level, one of the things that comes to mind

immediately when that's talk about, i think as a constitutional issue in the haitian constitution having to do with the ability of die as practice to participate in haiti and with a constitutional amendment on that issue will come more incentives. then there is the issue of decentralization which we see in a very tangible way in haiti, in port-au-prince, every day. just how necessary it is and again, this is one of the things where, whether it be through the ministries and idb or through the ihrc project planning, the encouragement of private business, for example, an international airport which is a ready-made business opportunity for so many which has i think about 200-room capacity in hotels and is a beautiful tourist destination. a hotel and airport there i

think would be the beginning of the kind of complementary situation to international relief organization work that would start to stimulate, you know, the potential that haiti has. >> what i'd like to do is actually give our panelists a chance to begin their remarks and so i'm going to ask i believe sam, you're our first up. you can speak from the chair. >> oh, sure. i returned from haiti this past saturday after spending a week visiting some interaction members on the ground. we have about 100 u.s. non-profits operating there. many of them have been in haiti for 20, 30 years beforehand and at the time of the earthquake, some 3,400 staff of u.s. non-profits were on the ground. unfortunately, like many organizations, their lives were lost. i'm starting with the non-profits in a sense, because it is important to recognize that all this effort is done by

people. there's a sense of -- i wouldn't call it burnout but these are very tired people. there is a tremendous burden, 12, 16-hour days, day after day for the last year. many organizations have rotated their infrastructure through haiti and in many ways what we see here -- i'm talking just about the u.s. non-profit community, a disaster of a magnitude that is far larger than our capacity to respond. because the world has not built the infrastructure, whether it is in the u.n. system or within the ngo community around the world, to handle disasters to the magnitude of haiti or pakistan all happening at once. it is a gap between our capacity and what can be done. but ultimately, haiti is about the haitian people, it is about a people trying to pull their lives together, it is about the ability of a family to rebiuild themselves. where non-profits and ngos start, just like sean penn's effort, is the ability to help a

family pull themselves up. you start that family by family. one of the accusations that is often made of the non-profit communities is we can't get the scale. to me, haiti is an example of our community at scale. not only did the american government give, but the american public gave. our members received $1.3 billion from the american public. roughly half of those resources have been spent to date in haiti by the end of october. an the reality is actually we're tight on resources. because wisely, the community divided its resources between short-term relief, and long-term development, and in many ways those short-term relief resources are drying up ways th