Peace Corps Volunteers rapidly learn the difficulties of making a simple phone call. As late as 2000, this usually meant going to the local chapter of the state-owned telephone monopoly known as Teleco. Provided that the station worked, and it would often be down for months, one would walk in and call an operator in Port au Prince. The operator would then patch you through collect or you could punch in a phone card. Sounds simple but the process could take the better part of an afternoon in some rural locations. The cost for making a simple call could be sky high. Read more »

If the kidnappings in Haiti have proven nothing else, it shows that no one is safe and that left unaddressed, stability and ultimately development will not take place.

Gangs have brazenly announced they would be targeting women and children. True to their word, there has been an upsurge - culminating in the abduction of a bus of school children as well as a temporary abduction of a Senator that was resolved fairly quickly. Read more »

According to a recent news report, at the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police at Amaryllis Beach Resort on Tuesday of last week, Haitian Nation Read more »

Here is an interesting link to a World Bank Library of indicators on governance. This retrospective study focused on the period from 1996 - 2005. Read more »

I've been reading with great interest the efforts of the international community to encourage gang members in the slums of Port au Prince to disarm. To my knowledge, there has never been as concerted an attempt to provide gang members with incentives to disarm. At present, gang members who disarm are provided with cards that entitle them to food and other benefits for a set period of time. Read more »

In less than a week’s time, the once cautiously optimistic decision by Haitian gangs to disarm has been abandoned. Read more »

Read more »Port-au-Prince, Haiti - Today, Haitian Government Officials released former-Prime Minister Yvon Neptune after a strange and tragic course of events. Here is a link to the Miami Herald aricle.

The importance of dialogue is a topic that recently sworn in President Rene Preval has raised repeatedly. Haitians are masters of the gift of gab....talking, joking, arguing, debating. But what is the difference between a conversation and a dialogue? Both are ongoing...perhaps a dialogue is a conversation in search of a resolution. Read more »

I'm just coming in from visiting numerous voting polls in Port-au-Prince where UN sources tell me the numbers are as low as 8 to 15% voter turnout. Not a line to wait in at any polling station and election workers with their heads down on the voting tables. By 11 am it seemed as if everyone and anyone who intended to vote had done so and now people were just mulling around. Some deputy and senator ballot boxes were nearly empty.

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Having completed its presidential elections, Haiti moved toward local elections. Soon, it will be be time to assemble a government. Assembling a coalition government is easy, maintaining it is another story. It is our hope that the most qualified individuals, regardless of past affiliations, will be able to play a role. Career diplomats who have the ability to work with the international community are very much needed now. Read more »