RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
In the weeks and months immediately after Haiti's catastrophic earthquake, charities and aid groups helped save many lives. But two years after that disaster, it's become clear that helping Haitians rebuild their devastated country has been much less successful. As we heard yesterday, Americans donated billions to U.S. charities to aid to Haiti. This morning, NPR's Carrie Kahn reports it's difficult to get detailed information about just how organizations spend that money.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: NPR surveyed 12 of the largest and best known U.S. charities about their work in Haiti. The groups say they raised nearly $1.8 billion - they've spent more than two-thirds. Details can be seen at NPR.org. With all that money comes a lot of questions about how wisely and well those dollars were put to work.
GUY SERGE POMPILOUS: Satisfactory. Just plainly satisfactory.
KAHN: Guy Serge Pompilous is not impressed with the job non-governmental organizations or NGOs are doing. Serge heads a small community group called Haiti Aid Watchdog.
POMPILOUS: People have been helped, there have been some beneficiaries. But there is still work to do. You know, that would be, what - a D-plus, C-minus. I would rate them C-minus.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KAHN: He says it's been difficult to get NGOs to account for the money. Julie Sell of the American Red Cross disagrees. She says her organization has done a good job.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAMMERING)
KAHN: She's standing in a Port-au-Prince neighborhood where 100 homes are being repaired with 150,000 Red Cross dollars. Sell says it's difficult to show someone exactly where their $10 contribution has gone.
JULIE SELL: One way we can show that impact is by telling the stories of Haitians and the people that we've helped and saying, you know, here is a life that, you know, you helped to change.
KAHN: But as the pace of recovery in Haiti drags on, those whose lives have not changed are getting angry. Much of that anger is directed at the NGOs.
PIERRE JEAN NELSON: (Speaking foreign language) What are they going to do with us? 'Cause we can't suffer anymore, we can't take it anymore. It's too much.
KAHN: Pierre Jean Nelson has been living in a tent for two years and is out of patience.
(SOUNDBITE OF BONGO DRUMMING)
KAHN: He can't find a job and spends most of his days playing his rusted bongo. A small stream of foul smelling water runs beside him. He wants to know where all the money has gone. Nigel Fisher, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, says NGOs must do a better job accounting for their funds. He says other kinds of aid, like money given by foreign governments and international banks, is very closely tracked and monitored.
NIGEL FISHER: It's not so easy to track the NGO resources that were raised and we guess that there were may be up to two billion that were raised by NGOs around the world. That has been difficult to track.
KAHN: The only legal accountability U.S. charities must complete is an annual form with the IRS. Many, however, go beyond that requirement and post audited financial statements and other information on their websites. But those are complex documents with few details, especially about overhead costs in Haiti like housing, rental cars, security, and local staff salaries. A spokeswoman for the American Red Cross declined to provide a local overhead breakdown. World Vision did give NPR a local figure - on average nearly $1 million a month. That's 8 percent of the total amount the religious charity spent in Haiti. One of the other big issues facing aid groups is making sure enough resources go to long-term reconstruction as well as immediate relief. The U.N.'s Nigel Fisher says everyone must invest in the future of Haiti and make sure national institutions are strengthened or...
FISHER: We'll be here in 20 years' time and our successors will be having the same discussion, unless we change the approach.
KAHN: Without that greater accountability, many fear there will be more waste and duplication. Peter Bell of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a former CEO of CARE agrees. He says U.S. charities should adopt a model used in the United Kingdom where groups jointly ask for money when a major disaster hits.
PETER BELL: It would take out some of the competition among the NGOs for resources and allow them more to band together.
KAHN: And, he says, in the U.K. an independent third party evaluates the groups' finances and its effectiveness. Guy Serge Pompilous of the Haiti Aid Watchdog group would have welcomed such an approach. His group tried to do its own survey of NGOs but none responded to his inquiries. His organization is no longer trying to monitor their work. Serge doesn't want NGOs to leave Haiti, he just wants them to include more locals in their decision-making.
POMPILOUS: There's that proverb you know - they're giving a lot of fish but they never teach them how to fish.
KAHN: So he's going to teach Haitians to demand more answers about how money is being spent in their country. Carrie Kahn, NPR News.