News Information

• NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
• NEWS_POSTED_ON: May 28, 2015
• Views : 757
• Category : Haiti News
• Description : BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
  jcharles@MiamiHerald.com
  
  Photo: Signs of progress: A woman walks through the Caracol-EKAM housing development built by the U.S. Agency for International Development. PATRICK FARRELL - MIAMI HERALD STAFF
• Location : Haiti

Overview

• Ten months after Haiti’s devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, Thomas Adams was plucked out of retirement by then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and named special coordinator for Haiti. He came into the job with a 35-year career in the U.S. government, much of it focused on managing foreign assistance. In August, Adams, 66, will step down from the role and former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten will take the reins of overseeing U.S. government engagement.
  
  Last week, Adams stopped in Miami, at the invitation of Haitian Americans for Progress and the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce of Florida, to meet with members of the Haitian diaspora. He sat down with the Miami Herald to discuss Haiti’s post-quake progress, its upcoming legislative, local and presidential elections and the final year of President Michel Martelly’s five-year term.
  
  What was the purpose of this recent trip?
  
  My main reason for going down there was to have a meeting on Caracol Industrial Park, which I do quarterly. It’s doing well. There is more demand for space there than we have and there are plans to build more buildings and take advantage of that interest in investing in Haiti.
  
  Can you highlight some of the progress in Haiti since the quake?
  
  The tent camps that used to fill every available space are gone. The rubble’s gone. There are other [signs of] progress. In health, there are good outcomes. The police have grown in capacity and professionalism. Crime rates have gone down. There is a lot that’s been done there; at the same time, there is a lot that didn’t get done due primarily to political gridlock.
  
  What is the impact of the political gridlock?
  
  The political gridlock has been almost from day one of the Martelly administration. He and the parliament have not seen eye-to-eye on many things and that’s prevented lots of legislation that the country needs from getting through; things that would, say, deal with property rights, new criminal codes. A lot of things that Haiti needs to make it more business friendly, like electronic signatures, things like that have not gotten done. I think that this election will break some of that gridlock and allow some of this to occur.
  
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