NNP

Four days into a new food distribution program from the United Nations that aims to repair a faltering aid effort, paper coupons that can be redeemed for 55 pounds of rice have become more valuable than Haitian money.

Women hide them away in their bosoms. Aid workers count them furtively in the back of S.U.V.’s. The government wants control over who gets them, while schemers have already created counterfeits.

The food coupons are akin to diamonds: they are precious because sustenance is scarce. For three weeks since the international effort to feed millions of Haitians has been dogged by confusion, transportation snags, security problems and a lack of coordination. Before the coupon program started on Saturday, food giveaways had become a Darwinian sport — with biscuits and bottles of canola oil or biscuits thrown like footballs from the backs of trucks to masses of men jockeying for position.

To read the complete article, see: Coupons Ease Chaos in Efforts to Feed Haitians (www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/world/americas/03haiti.html
?scp=1&sq=haiti%20food%20coupon&st=cse)