It’s rare that I find a David Brooks column that I enjoy, but the New York Times’ faux conservative recently took a well-informed look at understanding why Haiti is poor and just what development aid can do different to help.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services. On Thursday, President Obama told the people of Haiti: “You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” If he is going to remain faithful to that vow then he is going to have to use this tragedy as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. He’s going to have to acknowledge a few difficult truths.

The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.

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The rest is worth reading.

For some possible answers, I’d recommend Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid and Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capital.

As news reports continue to show just how grim the situation is in Haiti, American marines are landing to help the shaken nation.  While the world has responded with an outpouring of support and donations, the earthquake and its aftermath raises important questions about just what moral obligations exist to provide support for disaster-stricken locations, as well as how much and for how long.

From a moral standpoint, Haiti is – at least for the moment – a simple case.  We should provide timely supplies and labor to help free victims, offer medical assistance and protect the population from anarchy.  This appears to be what we are doing.  But from a policy standpoint the questions raised by such disasters can be trickier.

Haiti is also an extreme case, and I think most will agree that the moral aspect outweighs other considerations.  But what about disasters that are a bit less severe, in nations that are a bit less poor?  By responding forcefully to disasters like this one in Haiti, do we raise an expectation in other cases that we will provide similar aid?  Being the world’s savior seems like it should make you popular, but no one blames other countries for not helping the way they blame us.  That’s because we have given them reason to expect our help, so if it’s ever not provided, we’re bad guys for withholding it.

We also have to figure out just what it is we are obliged, or ought, to do for Haiti.  If we get them just back to where they were, then they are still the poorest country in the world.  Do we rebuild them to better than they were before?  What about the political and social problems that have hampered their development?  Do we establish some sort of government to handle things since theirs, such that it was, has been virtually wiped out?  How do we distinguish that from occupation, and all the problems that go along with it?

These are not easy questions, and I do not have all – or really any – of the answers.  I can only hope that someone, somewhere is at least considering these questions.