Priority setting amid the rubble: Organisational approaches to post-disaster reconstruction in Haiti

This paper examines organisational priority setting with respect to post-disaster reconstruction through a case study of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Interviews were conducted with 52 organisations, across seven categories, working in Port-au-Prince. Results show that these organisations can be grouped as specialists or generalists in terms of priority setting. Specialists are more likely to be funders or well-resourced organisations. Generalists are smaller organisations that are typically beneficiaries of funding, including small international NGOs and Haitian NGOs. International funders acted on a relatively standard repertoire of global priorities, while the priorities of generalist organisations were more readily modified and were influenced by a need to secure resources from funders. These outcomes are those predicted by a population ecology understanding of organisations. The difference in priority setting approaches has important implications since specialist organisational types frequently rely on generalists to implement their projects. This may account for some of the tensions reported between international funders and local organisations in Haiti. The paper proposes avenues to address the priority setting mismatch observed around post-disaster reconstruction in Haiti.