Five years have passed since a massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, leveling its capital and killing an estimated 230,000 people, but the country remains in a state of political and economic crisis. At 12:01 Tuesday morning, the Haitian Parliament dissolved, leaving controversial President Michel Martelly with the legal authority to rule the country by decree.
The Haiti Advocacy Working Group, a team of non-profit and non-governmental organizations which has advocated on behalf of Haitian communities since the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, held a discussion Tuesday to explore the stream of complications that continue to plague the country in the wake of reconstruction efforts.
Tom Adams, the State Department’s Special Coordinator for Haiti, said that he and his colleagues may have been “overly optimistic” in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, but have since come to better understand the number of challenges facing Haiti. Key among them, he said, is the nation’s political gridlock.