Reflecting on the scenes in Haiti Kyla Reid, a researcher with the Inside Disaster team, shared these thoughts on her blog:

Natural disasters are usually understood as acute environmental events caused by forces of nature. In the development world, they are distinguished from “complex emergencies”, with the latter generally involving a form of politically-induced conflict.

The distinction between these two kinds of crises is useful in understanding what types of humanitarian and political responses are appropriate to different kinds of emergencies; but it can also lead to an oversimplification of how natural disasters are presented and understood.

The 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti on January 12th was a geological phenomena that would have caused damage in any country.  But oversimplifying the events as a “natural disaster” alone conceals the complex political, social, demographic and economic conditions that contributed to the magnitude of destruction.

Her post gives a quick peak at the cluttered map of obstacles that have historically stood between Haiti and development: isolation, dictatorship, a lack of resources.

The question of how to best help Haitians during this crisis is being debated around the world. Michael Clemens, a research fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC, and an affiliated associate professor of public policy at Georgetown University, offered one extreme solution: mass exodus.

When I talk about leaving Haiti as a development strategy for Haitians, some thoughtful people argue that this “can’t be the solution for Haiti.” Compared to what we all wish for in Haiti—rapid emergence from poverty for everyone there, in their homeland—leaving Haiti is a terrible solution. But compared to what is actually likely to happen in Haiti, continued poverty for decades at least, leaving Haiti is the principal solution to poverty. This is the right comparison, not the comparison to a prosperous Haiti that must remain a fantasy for now.

In Haiti, web producer Nicolas Jolliet followed two students as they returned to their demolished school and reflected on their prospects without it.

Jolliet had previously visited a camp for survivors, where people clustered near the water supply in their make-shift homes and made do.