| Long-term help for Haiti |
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| Sunday, 31 January 2010 22:05 | |||
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At special meeting of the “Group of Friends of Haiti” in Montreal, Canada on Monday, UN officials and foreign ministers discussed relief efforts and the massive reconstruction of Port-au-Prince and other towns damaged by the 7.0 earthquake that impacted Haiti on January 12. The group, which included 19 foreign ministers and international organizations, U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and Haitian Prime Minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, agreed to a 10-year effort to rebuild Haiti and implement long-term development that has eluded that country for decades. However, Bellerive was more concerned with Haiti’s immediate needs. He made an urgent plea for 200,000 tents to shelter displaced victims, and prosthetics for those who lost limbs in the catastrophe. He said it was very difficult for him to talk reconstruction, while the immediate needs of Haitians were not taken into account. The prime minister said it would take four or five years just to rebuild Port-au-Prince, and cautioned that because of the disaster, the entire country may have to be rebuilt, as thousands have fled the capital city to other regions that will need developmental assistance. He said, “The redistribution of people has changed the whole country.” Some 150,000 Haitians have taken advantage of the government’s offer of free transportation to regions in the north and southwest of the country. There are estimates that over one million residents of Port-au-Prince could relocate in rural communities, which would place severe social and economic pressure on these communities. At the meeting, Edmund Mulet, the United Nation’s acting Special Representative to Haiti, proposed a plan to coordinate and integrate the political, humanitarian and military international response to the quake which killed well over 100,000 thousand and left approximately 500,000 homeless. Effective coordination has been complicated by the number of people working on the ground, many new to the country, who have different backgrounds, priorities and perspectives. The plan envisaged by Mulet is “outcome driven” rather than focused on structures and processes for the relief effort. The consensus of the meeting was that any future redevelopment plans must be led by the Haitian government, not the international community. Secretary Clinton said, “It’s important that we see ourselves as partners with Haiti, not patrons.” UN Officials said that relief and reconstruction efforts can only work if the Haitian government takes a leading role, supported by a coordinated international community. Caroline Atkinson, Director, External Relations Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told the Meeting that the fund’s managing director has proposed that the international community strive for a Marshall Plan-type reconstruction effort – an international effort that supports the Haitian authorities as they rebuild their country, and that reinforces their democratic institutions. The meeting did not determine a definitive plan for reconstruction or the amount of funding that would be needed to undertake the reconstruction. Secretary Clinton announced plans to host a more comprehensive conference of donor countries in March at the UN headquarters in New York. By then, Clinton said, the UN should have completed a review of all the needs in Port-au-Prince and the rest of the Haitian provinces, and their estimated costs. With emergency relief and rubble rescues still ongoing in the Haitian capital, a larger picture of the devastation and its long-term effects has yet to emerge. An update of international relief efforts was given at the meeting. This included: A joint operation and tasking centre, comprised of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), MINUSTAH (the UN representational office in Haiti), the US and Canadian militaries that began their coordinated efforts on Tuesday. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) launched a cash-for-work program in Carrefour, south of Port-au-Prince, that is providing residents with an independent source of income for rubble removal or street repairs. According to UNDP, some 6,000 Haitians are already benefiting and could be escalated to include 220,000 people earning up to $5 per day. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has assigned $40 million for the program’s development, saying it would provide a sense of hope to those involved, and contribute to public safety.
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