Medium-sized Haitian cities after the earthquake of 12 January 2010: an analysis of the urban governance from the perspective given by the Governance Analytical Framework GAF

The concept of governance is generally understood to be the creation of a structure or an order that results from the interaction of a multiplicity of governing mechanisms and actors influencing each other. The notion is increasingly criticized mainly because governance perspective often applies a simplifying lens to a complex reality. The post 2015 Agenda, in particular two of the five big transformative shifts “Put Sustainable Development at the Core” and “Build Peace and Effective, Open and Accountable Institutions for All”, calls for a renewal of the concept from a more scientific approach rather than as a sole tool for political transformation. The Governance Analytical Framework (GAF) driven hypothesis states that using a clarified, non-normative governance perspective can contribute to a better understanding of political processes ranging from institutional to informal, small to large and vertical to horizontal. As well as being realistic, interdisciplinary, comparative and operational, the GAF should also take into account the scientist’s standpoint. It should furthermore be replicable in similar contexts. Consisting of five coherently linked analytical tools, the methodology focuses on problems, social norms, actors, nodal points, and processes. This paper presents the application of the GAF to the cases of medium-sized Haitian cities hit by the 2010 earthquake. The objective is to analyze the evolution of the urban governance of said cities in the wake of this huge asymmetric shock and examine the extent to which local governance, urban planning and ongoing decentralization are effective or not, in order to determine the feasibility of improvement.