ABSTRACT
This chapter explains why, after consuming billions of dollars in foreign aid over three decades, and hundreds of millions specifically for governance and democratization programs, not to mention billions for other programs, Haiti remains politically dysfunctional and impoverished. To understand aid failure, one needs look at Haiti's politics and US foreign policy over several decades. From 1957 to 1971, Francois Duvalier ruled Haiti under a highly repressive, internationally isolated dictatorship, where government institutions and the economy were chronically weak. Donors have tried to assist the Haitians in reforming their judicial system. The Community-Driven Development Project builds upon the successful implementation of a Community-Driven Development pilot project, which was executed in 2004 by the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) and financed by the World Bank's Post-Conflict Fund. The Haitian civil service has been perpetually a problem. Assessments revealed that about 30 percent of the civil service were 'phantom' employees, compensated about half of the public wage bill.
