Rebecca High Senior Research Dr. Jenista 24

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Rebecca HighSenior ResearchDr. Jenista24 April 2009Hispaniola: Disparity, Devastation and the Innovative Breakthrough of MicrofinancePlanes flying to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, also fly on to Port au Prince, Haiti before third-legging it back to Miami, Florida, the original point of origin. Dr. Dennis Sullivan,now a professor at Cedarville University, practiced medicine in Haiti for almost four years in the1980s, but 20 years later nothing much has changed in the country.“Let me tell you a little bit about that trip from Miami to Santo Domingo to Port auPrince,” he says, sitting back in his chair and keeping an eye on the audio recorder in front of him. “[You’re flying in] low altitude planes. As you fly from Santo Domingo to Port au Princeyou’re flying right over the center of Hispaniola and so you’ll see this beautiful lush greenmountainous country below you, which is Dominican Republic, and as you approach the countryof Haiti you can see, at the frontier, this abrupt border as the green completely gives way to brown. It’s one of the most incredible sights from air that you can imagine. As you look from theair you will see that the terrain below is nothing but desert-covered mountains. Furthermore, if you look at the waters around the Caribbean Ocean around Haiti, you will see the rivers, whichare very, very muddy—brown muddy rivers—you can see the rivers washing out to the oceanand you can see the dark brown eddies . . .”Sullivan is not the first to call Haiti an ecological disaster. Blamed primarily ongovernment mismanagement, the country is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere and has morethan once been brushed off as being beyond hope. Noted anthropologist Jared Diamond noted

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Everyone familiar with Haiti whom I asked about its prospects use the words “no hope” in their answer. Most of them answered simply that they saw no hope (Collapse 354). Sullivan himself left Haiti after several years of seeing very little progress. Across the border, however, theDominican Republic, while certainly no Caribbean Dubai, is slowly improving in infrastructureand boasts increasing tourism revenue.Ever since Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for microfinance self-sustainability research in 2006, microfinance has taken off in the international arena. Some areseeing the possibilities for these pragmatic economics to alleviate poverty in both DominicanRepublic and Haiti. Hundreds of MFIs, or Microfinance Institutions, which make small loans toimpoverished entrepreneurs, have sprouted up world wide since the 1970s. Many publicationsand studies are touting microfinance as the solution to alleviating world poverty. Even the United Nations named 2005 the International Year of Microcredit, saying,Microcredit and microfinance have changed the lives of people and revitalizedcommunities in the world's poorest and also the richest countries. We have seenthe enormous power that access to even modest financial services can bring people. With access to a range of financial tools, families can invest according totheir own priorities — school fees, health care, business, nutrition or housing.The International Year of Microcredit also stated that of four billion people who live on less than$1400 a year, only a fraction have access to basic financial services. “With this huge unmetdemand, the Year of Microcredit 2005 called “To build inclusive financial sectors and strengthenthe powerful, but often untapped, entrepreneurial spirit existing in impoverished communities.”(www.yearofmicrocredit.org)

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However, studies show that despite massive global poverty, often microfinance cannoteven be implemented until structural and institutional changes are made within the country toensure a stable and self-sustainable environment. Studies in the Caribbean have shown that often programs do not work on Hispaniola because of the typically paltry loan sizes or becausecountries do not want to work to implement structure after depending so long on aid handouts.

Additionally, cultural insensitivity and poor strategy have contributed to untargeted relief waste.

In fact, according to

Haiti in the Balance

, and analysis of aid in Haiti, the reason aid has oftenfailed in Haiti is because t aid programs often target it as if it were a better-off Latin Americancountry, and ignore the socioeconomic, racial and historical differences:“Donors seemed to goon to adopt an assistance model more appropriate to Latin America. Such a model assumedeconomic, social, and political stability. In reality, Haiti was more like a least-developed, fragile, post-conflict sub-Saharan African country” (6). Once again we are reminded of the parallels between Haiti and Africa, where anti-democratic, oppressive, self-serving leadership arecommon. (Harrison 32)Among other problems, borrowers who cannot make enough profit to ever repay theloans fully and expand their businesses maintain the cycle of poverty. This is especially problematic in Haiti but is also stagnating in development and progress in the DominicanRepublic. However, the DR is years ahead in terms of progress and so is able to better tackle problems and build self sustainability on top of subsistence. In determining whether microfinance has been a noticeably effective deterrent to poverty and alternative to traditionalaid in alleviating poverty on the Caribbean island and whether there is home for economic progress in Hispaniola, it is important to examine the two nations of Hispaniola and analyseshistorical and current trends that compare and contrast aid, relief, and infrastructure in the two