Haiti: Relief and Recovery

Secretary Clinton praised the resilience of the Haitian people but said they need effective international assistance to recover.By Stephen KaufmanStaff Writer Washington — International assistance for Haiti is essential not only for its long-term recovery from the January 12 earthquake, but also to address cross-border challenges, such as economic migration, human and drug trafficking, and drug-resistant disease, resulting from the country’s continued impoverishment, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. In remarks at the opening of an international donor’s conference for Haiti in New York March 31, Clinton announced a $1.15 billion pledge of U.S. assistance for the country. Haitian President René Préval has set a target of $3.8 billion to meet his country’s needs for the next 18 months. “This money will go toward supporting the government of Haiti’s plan to strengthen agriculture, energy, health, security and governance,” Clinton said, as well as for cooperation with civil-society groups, private businesses, nongovernmental organizations and Haitian citizens. She added that U.S. assistance will also seek to empower Haitian women, which “will fuel the long-term economic recovery and progress not only for them but for their families.” Clinton said the earthquake had wiped out the results of recent reform efforts that had caused Haiti’s economy to grow 3 percent in 2009 and generated new job opportunities. But “the people of Haiti never gave up,” she said. Clinton expressed her confidence in their continued resilience and Haiti’s leadership. Haiti cannot recover on its own, and the international community now faces a choice of helping the country become “an engine for progress and prosperity,” or watching its economic, health and infrastructure challenges continue to create misery that will affect not only the Haitian people, but also the global community, she said. “The lack of sanitation services could cause outbreaks of lethal illnesses, and the lack of reliable medical services could give rise to new drug-resistant strains of disease that will soon cross borders,” she said. Drug trafficking and human trafficking, already thriving in tenuous security conditions, will “indirectly affect us all.” Although Haiti has received international assistance in the past, “we cannot do what we’ve done before,” Clinton said. Haiti’s government must guide a “strong, accountable and transparent recovery,” and donors must “offer our support in a smarter way” through long-term investments in partnership with the government, which will be more effective than “a scattered array of well-meaning projects.” “Let us say here with one voice: We will pass this test,” Clinton told fellow donors. President Préval thanked the conference for the rapidly mobilized assistance that materialized from all over the world following the disaster. He said the Haitian people had been deeply touched “by this movement of solidarity and compassion.” He also called for a United Nations emergency force that could quickly deploy in response to natural disasters anywhere in the world. Préval made a special appeal for assistance in the area of education, which he said is “the prerequisite for development.” He said 38 percent of Haitians above the age of 15 are illiterate, 25 percent of school-age children are not enrolled, and those who are in school do not have the resources available to develop genuine life skills. This left the country unprepared to adequately respond to the disaster, he said. “The earthquake clearly demonstrated this social fracture,” he said, and Haitian society “can no longer tolerate” the situation and must repair it “as rapidly as possible.” He envisioned a renewed country as a center of knowledge that celebrates its cultural and linguistic diversity, stemming from its French, English and African past, where all Haitians can provide for their own welfare and receive assistance from qualified individuals. “Let us dream of a new Haiti whose fate lies in a new society without exclusion, that has overcome hunger, in which all have access to decent shelter, health provided according to their needs, quality education,” where its people can contribute toward the good of all mankind, Préval said. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the conference by welcoming a “concrete, specific and ambitious” plan developed by Haitian and international officials to build a “new Haiti” with better schools and health services, and better options for its people than choosing between unemployment and migration. The plan calls for a trust fund to determine how to spend aid money and a commission to oversee reconstruction work, such as rebuilding schools, hospitals and government offices, as well as returning farms to production and other job creation efforts. Along with continued emergency assistance, especially for shelter as Haiti copes with its rainy season, Ban estimated that the country will need $11.5 billion over the next 10 years.