Haiti: aid pledged and aid paid

Dirk Niebel, Germany's aid czar. Image by Liberale via Flickr

In one of the translations I am working on, this UN report on the percentage of aid actually paid out (compared to the amount pledged) to Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake is referenced.

Typically, while the United States is probably very proud of its overall pledged volume to Haiti, which is second in the world behind Venezuela, only 23.9 percent of that money has actually been made available two years after the earthquake. If I read those two columns for "dispersed" correctly, it seems that the 40 million people in Spain have out-donated more than 300 million Americans.

Along with Finland, Japan actually delivered on more than 100 percent of its pledge.

Disappointingly, the German government (representing some 80 million people) has only made good on 36 percent of its pledge, which was meager to begin with at less than half of what the 5 million people of Norway promised.

Chancellor Merkel appointed a man named Niebel as the Development Cooperation Minister when she took office a few years ago. Although his Wikipedia site in English does not mention it, Niebel (like the US's John Bolton, who was appointed ambassador to the UN after calling for the dissolution of that organization) is uniquely qualified for that position as he called for the BMZ (Germany's Development Cooperation Ministry) to be abolished and subsumed under the Foreign Affairs Office so that the emphasis could be on promoting German exports.

Since becoming head of German aid, Niebel has not only failed to make good on his word in Haiti, but he also reneged on his promise to get rid of the ministry he now heads. Instead, he has chosen to fill it up with members of his own political party. The German Bundestag is currently looking into the matter.