That was an excellent informative article. You indentified the problems facing infrastructure reconstruction in Haiti.

May I add the following information on selection of project management structures, the selection of personnel and project control and accountability.

If your neighbor Haiti, would institute the use of senior project staff who are (US) PMI or (UK) MAPM qualified and in addition institute standard international project management procedures (FIDIC contracts, etc.), this would go a long way toward success.

The other requirement should be a transparent control and tracking system such as the Earned Value Management System (EVM) for all construction and engineering projects greater than $2 million.

This system allows tracking and prediction in real time, of all materials procurement, equipment use and labour aspects of a project. The whole is web-based, standard practice for large complicated and multiple projects.

If combined with say the Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project Scheduling / Project Management systems, it is the best of all worlds. It is also the best approach for large organizations such as the UN to track and predict progress, inclusive of a TQM standard such as ISO9001:2008. Needless to say, corruption and waste would be minimal.