That rebuilding has been agonizingly slow and, critics say, shamefully inadequate.
During the first weeks, the international response to one of the deadliest natural disasters in history was stunning. Volunteers from around the globe descended on the small Caribbean nation. Shipments of food, medical supplies, generators, tents, and clean water accumulated at the airport and in the ports so quickly and in such massive quantities that it took weeks to make a dent in the stockpiles.
Private donors poured millions into the country through the 20,000 nonprofit and faith-based organizations already operating there and countless independent groups and individuals who formed ad hoc missions. Governments pledged billions more and vowed to coordinate their efforts.
Poverty and despair
Before the earthquake, Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, was already hobbled. Eighty percent of its 9.6 million people were living in poverty, half the population could neither read nor write, and the average life expectancy at birth was 29 years.
The dense capital, with 2.35 million people before the earthquake, had never had a sewage-treatment plant, and the public water system was limited and unreliable.
"We've seen some progress," said Anthony Coletta, chief medical officer of the Holy Redeemer Health System, one of numerous Philadelphia-area institutions that contributed generously to relief efforts last year.
Coletta and a group of colleagues made four trips to Haiti after the earthquake, working in a clinic near Port-au-Prince. Local Haitian doctors were hired to staff the clinic, he said, and volunteers helped neighbors plant vegetable gardens.
