When an eartquake hit Haiti in January 2010 and caused one of the largest catastrophies in recent years, it resulted in a large number of casualties and homeless people. Due to the magnitude of the event, a large number of INGOs (International Non-Governmental Organizations) arrived and made the old problem of coordination an immediate one. Many different actors with a range of goals, methods and systems of planning thus came to operate in a very small area, the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The United Nations put to use a system of clusters with different responsibilities to execute the relief plans and to coordinate the many different INGOs. To analyze INGOs is a way to further the knoweldge about international relations as well as the challenges of modern relief work.

The purpose of this paper is to thus to analyze which factors that are the most significant in determining the outcome of the relief efforts provided by international non-governmental organizations, following the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. To analyze the empirical findings of this paper, a model proposed by Blaikie et. al. (2004) to analyze the effects of natural disasters on society has been used, as well as a framework by Milligan & Fyfe (2004) to understand the relationship between the volontary sector and the state.

This paper concludes that the two main factors that determine the outcome of INGO-related work in Haiti are: 1) the country’s history, which has created a socio-economical situation which is characterized by a huge foreign debt, unstable politcal climate and massive poverty, 2) the ability of INGOs to cooperate. The coodination mechanism used in Haiti, the cluster system, is a complex system that faces many challenges - including the question of responsibility. The work of INGOs have been found to have a major importance to Haiti, because of the lack of financial resources of the state to provide the people with services such as health care and education. The question remains though if INGOs have become too instrumental; if foreign organizations such as these are best capable of delivering the basic services to the haitian people?