Istwa Nou

In 1947, while the United Nations was still working out of temporary offices at Lake Success, Haiti's delegate Ernest Chauvet persuaded Secretary General Trygve Lie that Haiti should be the organisation's demonstration case for technical aid to poor countries. Lie was pleased to have one and sent experts in health, agriculture, education, public administration and finance. They surveyed the country from Cap-Haitien to Les Cayes, sounded the coastal waters, visited schools, and found that French spoken with a Scandinavian accent conveyed little to coffee growers behind Grand-Goave. A year later they produced 327 pages. Malaria, yaws, tuberculosis and parasites were to be eliminated. Twenty-six recommendations covered agriculture. Mining was to be pressed despite Haiti having almost no minerals. There should be hydroelectric power and windmills, swamps should become fish ponds, and the schools should be reorganised. General Russell could have dictated most of that list during the occupation twenty years earlier. When the government asked about funding in late 1948, it learned that the United Nations had none, and that none of the banks named in its place would supply any either.