BSIA

Book on Haiti co-edited by Balsillie School faculty to be launched at in Washington and Ottawa

Fixing Haiti: MINUSTAH and Beyond (UNUP 2011), co-edited by Dr. Jorge Heine and Dr. Andrew S. Thompson, will be launched in Washington at an event co-sponsored by The Latin American Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Americas Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and in Ottawa at an event co-sponsored by the University of Ottawa and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

The launch in Washington will take place in the fifth floor conference room of the Wilson Centre on Wednesday, October 19 from 8:30 am to 11:00 am. It will be moderated by Johanna Mendelson Forman, Senior Associate, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies. Speakers include: Jorge Heine, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI); CIGI Chair in Global Governance, Balsillie School of International Affairs; Nancy Dorsinville, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of the UN Special Envoy to Haiti; Robert Fatton Jr., Julia A. Cooper Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia; Robert Maguire, Professor of Practice of International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University

The launch in Ottawa will take place in room 4101 in the Desmarais building at the University of Ottawa on Friday, October 21. Fixing Haiti will be launched along with Haïti aujourd’hui, Haïti demain, co-edited by Dr. Andrea Martinez, Dr. Pierre Beaudet et Dr. Stephen Baranyi of the University of Ottawa. Speakers include: Dr. Martinez, Dr. Heine, Dr. Baranyi and Dr. Thompson. The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Special Envoy to UNESCO for Haiti will give the keynote address.

About Fixing Haiti: MINUSTAH and Beyond

Haiti may well be the only country in the Americas with a last name. References to the land of the “black Jacobins” are almost always followed by the phrase “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere”. To that dubious distinction, on 12 January 2010 Haiti added another, when it was hit by the most devastating natural disaster in the Americas, a 7.0 Richter scale earthquake. More than 220,000 people lost their lives and much of its vibrant capital, Portau-Prince, was reduced to rubble. Since 2004, the United Nations has been in Haiti through MINUSTAH, in an ambitious attempt to help Haiti raise itself by its bootstraps. This effort has now acquired additional urgency. Is Haiti a failed state? Does it deserve a Marshall-plan-like programme? What will it take to address the Haitian predicament? In this book, some of the world’s leading experts on Haiti examine the challenges faced by the fi rst black republic, the tasks undertaken by the UN, and the new role of hemispheric players such as Argentina, Brazil and Chile, as well as that of Canada, France and the United States.