by Henri Astler
BBC News
Wednesday's UN conference in New York on co-ordinating assistance to eacthquake-hit Haiti raises an awkward question - what has foreign aid ever done for Haitians?
The country has received an estimated $5bn over the past decade.
Thousands of charities have been operating there - yet even before the quake devasted the capital, Haiti was a wretched place.
It is the poorest country in the Americas. About 80% of the population lives on less than $2 a day and nearly half is illiterate. Jobs are scarce, publis services woeful and corruption rife.
Haiti, says US political scientist Terry Buss, is largely run by "an army of NGo's and some international development organizations" whose programes "cost a lot of money and don't make any difference". To read more> http://www.tinyurl.com/2717bo3
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