QWhen we think about a development plan for Haiti, it is often difficult to identify the priority actions to be taken, so many major problems follow one another that have the capacity to destroy any effort and hope for national development: weakness of the public administration , problem of political instability, infrastructure, national security and education.
These are structural difficulties which have characterized the country’s underdevelopment for decades. The excessive centralization of powers, resources and capacities in Port-au-Prince is also one of the major problems that has been clearly identified, and which still persists, despite the various measures discussed since 1987.
In fact, concentrating all political and administrative efforts and most of all public services in Port-au-Prince only fueled the machine of rural exodus, which led to its shantytownization and facilitated the spread of banditry. The situation we are currently experiencing has nothing to do with fate; it is the result of poor governance of the national territory.
A retreating state
Today, we are faced with a situation where banditry, almost generalized, terrorizes and pushes the inhabitants of Port-au-Prince to forced migration. Many Haitians, children and old people from Martissant, Tabarre, Croix-des-Bouquets, Delmas, Cité Soleil, Thomassin, Laboule, etc., have been forced to leave their goods for which they have sacrificed for years.
Some have migrated out, often under illegal conditions. Others – the greatest number of them – have returned to live, perhaps permanently, in a city in the country where banditry is, for the moment, kept at bay by the local populations.
Despite the urgency of the situation, the State seems not to consider this new category of migrants, and even less to think about the development of these host cities which have almost no means or strategy to offer good to be with these unfortunate displaced persons.
The downgrading of Port-au-Prince
This situation must be approached not as an evil that gnaws at us, but as the moment for the State to put itself at the service of the country’s provincial towns. A voluntary policy of decentralization would make it possible to avoid the errors committed after the earthquake of January 12, 2010, where we were not able to plan the development of this country in any other way and to carry it out.
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