Haiti is one of the countries with high-risk profiles (floods, earthquakes, etc.) and very low per capita income. In such a context the need for planning efforts to be truly strategic (i.e. concentrating on important choices, conserving limited resources, mobilising local dynamics, focussing on real needs, etc.) is all the more important.

In 2010 a major earthquake shook the capital Port‐au‐Prince and some westerly provinces, causing large number of victims, homeless, and major physical damage.

Major Donors and NGO’s flocked to Haiti pledging money. Although a large number of very ambitious reconstruction projects were developed in emergency phase, yet realistic development plans, giving clear directions, had to be made for the larger region of Port‐au‐Prince, the affected secondary cities and selected secondary poles of development.

One of the major challenges was / is to balance emergency (short‐term and largely funded) activities and longer‐term development in the backdrop of limited financial resources for the latter.

Prof. Han Verschure and Latitude pose the following overarching question in the lecture : how can strategic planning be relevant in an extremely complex, fragile, perpetually hazard stricken, context with an extraordinary amount of actors holding various agenda ?

Join us on forthcoming Monday 18th of March at 18h (AUDITORIUM C ‐ Celestijnenlaan C300).