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Clearly, safe housing is an urgent need for quake survivors in Haiti. But in the long run — what many Haitians want is jobs. According to a survey funded by the aid group Oxfam, Haitians believe jobs should be the country’s number one priority for reconstruction. We speak with Alison Hayes, Oxfam’s Policy Manager for Haiti, she is in New York.

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JEB SHARP:  Alison Hayes is Oxfam’s Policy Manager for Haiti.  She is in New York.  Alison, first before we talk about this survey of Haitians needs that Oxfam has been doing, just your reaction to that story.

ALISON HAYES:  I think the story sums up the desperation quite well.  Although the rain is due to start in April, the last few days when I left they had already started and the golf club camp that your colleague referenced is one of the worst examples of what can happen.  They built on a steep slope without adequate drainage and sanitation in the camp.  Everything runs downhill.  People at the bottom of that hill are in the worst situation and it is an area that has had landslides before, so this is one of the top priority sites for us to relocate to safer sites.

SHARP: Now Oxfam has been really pushing Haitians on what they need.  You’ve done a survey.  What are the most urgent needs now that Haitians are voicing?

HAYES: One of the most urgent needs is for shelter, for homes as your colleague referenced.  And the number one priority was for employment.  Jobs, jobs, jobs.  We know that before the earthquake there were one million unemployed in Port au Prince alone.  In the recovery effort coming up there will be lots of opportunities for employment whether it’s cash for work projects such as Oxfam and others are doing, paying people to help clear the rubble which will also help to create more space in the temporary camps.  And also, importantly, in the agricultural sector.  It’s been historically underfunded and under supported by the government and yet it accounts for 60 to 75 percent of the employment opportunities.  So we really need to support employment opportunities in the countryside because it will provide the employment, it will also reduce the dependency on food aid, which has been crippling to Haiti.

SHARP: And related to this, one striking thing from the poll was that it showed how little trust Haitians had in their own government and how much they feel NGOs are in a better position to help them.  But what are the implications of that going forward?

HAYES: I think it can be taken a couple of ways.  The way that Oxfam would like to explain it is that this is now a moment where we can change that lack of confidence.  If we can work with the government to facilitate them, to take more of a leadership role, and to be providing basic services to their people in place of international agencies, that would help Haitians to have more confidence in their government.  If the government were coming forward sooner and louder with their plans for the recovery, for example saying where the relocation sites are, that would help give more confidence to the people.  We want to take this as an opportunity to change that negative perception that some of the Haitians we interviewed felt.  The government can do that.  They have to be as transparent and accountable as possible.  And at the same time we, the international community here, are calling for that need to hold ourselves up to the same standards that we’re demanding of the government.

SHARP: Alison Hayes, there is a very important conference coming up.  What needs to happen there for Haiti?

HAYES: At the conference tomorrow, there needs to be a long term donor commitment to the future of Haiti.  The government need to be empowered to lead that program. If something is imposed from the outside, whether it’s a multi-donor trust fund or any recovery program that is not Haitian led and owned, it will not take root in the country.  Haiti is rightly a very proud country and very sensitive to perceived external interference.  So they really need to be leading it.  The donors need to give long term commitments so that the government can plan and budget wisely.  It needs to be the start of a process of dialogue with Haitian civil society groups who have been neglected in this process so far.  One of the reasons we did the survey is because the government has not been consulting it’s own people adequately.  So our survey and other things that we have done have been trying to be a small microphone for the Haitian voices into the donor conference tomorrow.

SHARP: Alison Hayes is Oxfam’s Policy Manager for Haiti.  She spoke to us from New York.  Thank you very much.

HAYES: Thank you.

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