Quote

Haiti is in desperate poverty.

Most poor people live in the poorest countries.

Countries should think of Haiti not as a place where to do charity but a place where to invest and do business. And doing business in Haiti means poverty reduction.

For the better part of two centuries, outsiders have been offering explanations that range from racist to learned-sounding - the supposed inferiority of blacks, the heritage of slavery, overpopulation - for why Haiti remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Haiti is 10.4-million people, of whom 35 per cent are children under 15. The country has always had great potential - and this is still the case. Our ill fortune has long been a matter of bad governance. And now things have changed.

I think Haiti is a place that suffers so much from neglect that people only want to hear about it when It's at its extreme. And that's what they end up knowing about it.

Poor countries are poor because they are wasting their resources.

Haiti was founded by African slaves who rose against their European masters, had a revolution, and created a new state. There is no other such event in Western history.

Poverty is not the simple result of bad geography, bad culture, bad history. It's the result of us: of the ways that people choose to organize their societies.

It is the destiny of the people of Haiti to suffer.