ABOUT THE HAITI REPOSITORY
“The appropriate use of research saves lives, reduces poverty and improves the quality of life for people living in developing countries.”
Alistair Scott, Institute of Development Studies
The Haiti Repository is a crowd-sourcing internet site with the goal of consolidating the past 40 years of development reports, evaluations and survey databases many of which are not publicly available, are buried in drawers, closets, private libraries of NGOs and government donors. Many are also available on the internet but often in diffuse or obscure archives making research into development topics, compilations of data and lessons learned cumbersome for researchers, and thus impeding the learning process and betterment of development initiatives.
The project also has a team of five Haitian university student interns sourcing reports online and from the archives of the 100s of development agencies that have worked in Haiti over the past four decades, as well as donors such as the UN, USG, EU, and Canada.
The final product will be a website with 25,000 plus development reports and evaluations extending back to the US Marine Corps occupation of Haiti, all full-text searchable as well as organized in a comprehensive index system with a highly friendly visitor interface that allows for reviews and ratings (similar to Amazon.com) and an easily managed backend architecture. Future possibilities for the site will include interactive/uploadable photo archives, chat room, crowd-driven online newspaper specific to development and Haiti, project aid map with option for visitor ratings and commentary.