The Sad State of Haiti

Even before the earthquake, progress in Haiti was not going so great. It has the dubious distinction of being one of only a handful of countries (six total?) to actually see its real per capita income decline between 1960 and 2007 (the only data available from the Penn World Tables). But as Denis O'Brien writes in the latest Innovations (pdf):

Analysis of where Haiti goes from here inevitably turns around the problems, over and over again. Haiti’s past is picked over, its failures held up to the light, each new dawn that didn’t deliver examined under the microscope as to find out what went wrong. And it is important that lessons are learned. But not enough attention is paid to the positives. Let’s for a change not get stuck in the detail and let’s look at what is right with Haiti.

That is the goal of the latest issue, released at the Clinton Global Initiative, 2010. Check it out.