Getting humanitarian relief right

The extent of the devastation in Port-au-Prince, the incapacity of the already weak Haitian government, and the degraded state of infrastructure throughout the country resist comparison to any disaster before this one. But post-recovery evaluations from the Asian tsunami, the Bam earthquake and other disasters suggest which practices allow relief efforts to work effectively and which result in waste and delays. My piece on Forbes.com puts the response to Haiti's earthquake in the context of previous disaster relief efforts. Read it here.