The world's bill for the Haitian earthquake is large and growing, now $US2.2 billion ($A2.44 billion), and so is the criticism about how the money is being spent.
As half a million homeless people received tarps and tents, far more are still waiting under soggy bed sheets in camps that reek of human waste. More than 4.3 million people got emergency food rations; few will be able to feed themselves anytime soon. Medical aid went to thousands, but long-term care isn't even on the horizon.
International aid groups and officials readily acknowledge they are overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster. Haitian leaders, frustrated that billions are bypassing them in favour of UN agencies and American and other non-governmental organisations, are whipping up sentiment against foreign aid groups they say have gone out of control.
In the past few days, someone scrawled graffiti declaring 'Down with NGO thieves' along the cracked walls that line the road between Port-au-Prince's international airport, the temporary government headquarters, and a UN base.
Ahead of a crucial March 31 post-quake donors conference in New York, many are taking a hard look at the money that's flowed in so far.
First the good news: Assistance has indeed been pouring into Haiti, sometimes from unexpected places.
Donations from Americans for earthquake relief in Haiti have surpassed $US1 billion ($A1.11 billion), with about one-third going to the American Red Cross, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University said on Friday. Other major recipients include Catholic Relief Services, the US Fund for UNICEF and the US wing of Doctors Without Borders, the centre said.
An analysis of UN data shows that private donations make up the bulk of the total, accounting for more than $US980 million ($A1.09 billion) of what has already been delivered or that donors have promised.
The United States leads all countries with its commitments of $US713 million ($A791.61 million) - with Canada, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan and the European Union among other top donors. Saudi Arabia poured $US50 million ($A55.51 million) of its oil wealth into the UN Emergency Response Relief Fund. Even countries with their own troubles rushed to Haiti's aid: Afghanistan provided $US200,000. ($A222,049.52).
But leaders including Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive are not happy with the way the aid money is being delivered.
'The NGOs don't tell us ... where the money's coming from or how they're spending it,' he told The Associated Press. 'Too many people are raising money without any controls, and don't explain what they're doing with it.'
Haiti wanted aid organisations to register with the government long before the quake, a goal identified as a priority by former US President Bill Clinton when he was named UN special envoy in 2009.
But it was never completed.
UN and US officials said there is close monitoring of NGOs who receive funds. The US Agency for International Development requires recipient groups to file reports every two weeks on how their activities are lining up with their planned programs, said Julie Leonard, leader of the agency's Disaster Assistance Response Team.
Governments tend to give funds to agencies from their own countries.
Tens of millions of US dollars went to US-based aid groups. While much of that bought food and other necessities for Haitians, it often did so from US companies - including highly subsidised rice growers whose products are undercutting local producers, driving them out of business.
One cent of every dollar has gone to the Haitian government.
But distrustful of leaders they said were corrupt, some Haitians have gone so far as to say they hoped the US would annex the country.
But the top UN official in Haiti said the country's leaders are right: For half a century, the international community has kept Haiti's government weak and unable to deal with disaster by ignoring officials and working with outside organisations.
'We complain because the government is not able to (lead), but we are partly responsible for that,' said UN Assistant Secretary-General of Peacekeeping Operations Edmond Mulet.
Worse, the patchwork of roughly 900 foreign and thousands more Haiti-based NGOs do not coordinate, take on too many roles and swarm well-known neighbourhoods while leaving others untouched - doing what Mulet called 'little things with little impact'.
He said the individual organisations should identify specific roles, such as road construction, and stick to them to make it easier for the Haitian government to coordinate the overall response.
The government estimates the quake killed 230,000 people - though without a civil registry or accurate means of counting, nobody really knows how many died. More than 1.2 million lost their homes, about half of those fleeing the capital to the even harder-to-track-and-reach countryside.


