New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff writes about some of the problems vexing Haiti, including deforestation and debt, and misperceptions some people have about the country. According to Kristoff, "Far more than most other impoverished countries - particularly those in Africa - Haiti could plausibly turn itself around. It has an excellent geographic location, there are no regional wars, and it could boom if it could just export to the American market. ... So in the coming months as we help Haitians rebuild, let's dispatch not only aid workers, but also business investors. Haiti desperately needs new schools and hospitals, but also new factories. And let's challenge the myth that because Haiti has been poor, it always will be" (1/20).

Previous Humanitarian Efforts Can Improve World's Response to Haiti

Though "disaster response is tailored to the details of each emergency as it unfolds on the ground reports from previous relief efforts - like the response to the Asian tsunami that killed some 225,000 people in 12 countries in 2004 - give a picture of practices that allow relief efforts to work quickly and effectively, as well as those that result in waste and delays," Laura Freschi, of the Development Research Institute at New York University, writes in a Forbes opinion piece. In reflecting on Haiti, Freschi outlines the importance of coordination among government agencies, the U.N. and NGOs, as well as the need for organizations to work together to assess the needs of the people on the ground and communicate those needs to the rest of the world. "No one wants to hold up life-saving interventions to conduct a study, but making decisions based on political or media pressure, rather than on a comprehensive survey of needs - as donors admitted to doing in post-tsunami evaluations - leads to waste," she writes (1/18).

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