Haitistory—reconstruction

http://haiticonference.org/Haiti_Action_Plan_ENG.pdf

Haiti Reconstruction: An Ambitious and Precarious Plato Republic

UNITED NATIONS – While scrambling to get a roof over their heads,

the people of Haiti are being presented with a medium and long-term
reconstruction plan that is intended to radically change the Caribbean
nation, beginning with decentralizing power to lessen pressures on the
teeming capital of Port-au-Prince.

Key donors and international banking experts meet on Wednesday at

the New York headquarters of the United Nations for a US-UN-led
conference on the future of the country, shattered in a 7.0 magnitude
earthquake on January 12, considered deadliest natural disaster in
modern times. Both Clintons will be on hand, with Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton serving as co-chair with UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon and the former president, Bill Clinton, as a UN envoy.

The donors are being asked to pledge $3.9 billion for the first 18
months of a reconstruction plan that is eventually expected to cost
$11.5 billion over the next decade. President Rene Preval is expected,
in presenting the action plan, is to explain Haiti’s financial needs to
construct homes, schools, government institutions and attempt to
resurrect agriculture and create jobs – and a justice and social system
that is responsive to the disposed.

"That is our challenge in New York -- not to rebuild but to 'build back better,' to create a
new Haiti," Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in an op-ed column in the Washington
Post on Monday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802352.html?sub=AR

No program is to be undertaken without the consent and input from the Haitian
government, according to Edmond Mulet, the acting chief UN representative in Haiti,
who told reporters that for years Mulet: now int community is demanding gov
accountable efficient. State institutions weak. Not find excuses to not work with the
government. Always worked around it. Otherwise pk int intervention for the next 200
years.

though emergency needs are not yet Large donors meet

Decentralization is the mantra when Haitian President René Préval will
unveil a $3.9 billion plan Wednesday to begin radically reshaping his
country's post-earthquake economy and infrastructure, according to a
Haitian reconstruction action plan.

The draft lays out specifics on what Haiti’s financial needs will be over the next three
years to rebuild the homes, schools, roads, government offices and businesses destroyed.
But it also lays out a vision for a new Haiti, which includes a stronger sense of
government and justice and a plan to decentralize power and economic opportunity to
lessen the pressures on Port-au-Prince

UNITED NATIONS -- Haitian President René Préval will unveil a $3.9 billion plan
Wednesday to begin radically reshaping his country's post-earthquake economy and
infrastructure, according to a Haitian reconstruction action plan.

The plan, which Préval will present to donors at a U.N. conference in New York, would
essentially redirect much of Haiti's economic development outside Port-au-Prince,
creating provisional economic hubs to compete with the capital.

"Rebuilding Haiti does not mean returning to the situation that prevailed before the
earthquake," according to the 56-page action plan, the first detailed account of how Haiti
and its international backers plan to spend their money over the next 18 months. "It
means addressing all these areas of vulnerability, so that the vagaries of nature or natural
disasters never again inflict such suffering or cause so much damage and loss."

Haiti's reconstruction action plan marks the first phase of a highly ambitious
reconstruction effort that could pour more than $11 billion in international aid into Haiti
over the next decade. It calls for refurbishing the airport and main port, building a new
airport and two new seaports, and laying 600 kilometers of road through the country to
promote trade, tourism and access to health-care centers.
The Haitian proposal is based on the findings of a needs assessment study that was
carried out by Haitian and international reconstruction specialists. It calls for the
establishment a "Multiple-Donor Fiduciary Fund," which would help oversee
international reconstruction funds.

"The situation that the country is facing is difficult but not desperate," the action plan
states. "In many ways it is an opportunity to unite Haitians of all classes and origins in a
shared project to rebuild the country on new foundations."

The Jan. 12 earthquake was Haiti's worst natural catastrophe in 200 years; the 7.3-
magnitude temblor killed more than 200,000 people, destroyed 105,000 homes, 50
hospitals and health centers, 1,300 school and university buildings and wiped out the
presidential palace, parliament and most other government buildings in the capital.

The overall cost of the damage and losses to economic productivity amounted to more
than $8 billion, according to the plan. More than 1.3 million people have been displaced
by the earthquake and are living in hundreds of settlements and makeshift camps.

"That is our challenge in New York -- not to rebuild but to 'build back better,' to create a
new Haiti," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon wrote Monday in an op-ed in The
Washington Post. "Under the plan, an Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission would
channel nearly $4 billion into specific projects and programs during the next 18 months.
Over the next 10 years, reconstruction needs will total an estimated $11.5 billion."

At the conference Wednesday, Ban is expected to announce that he will instruct Edmond
Mulet, who is serving as his temporary envoy in Haiti, to head the U.N. mission and help
support the reconstruction effort over the next year. Mulet told reporters in New York on
Monday that Haiti would have to play a central role in leading the relief and
reconstruction effort in Haiti.

Mulet acknowledged that the government's capacity to oversee such a massive rebuilding
effort was limited, noting that about a quarter of the country's civil servants were killed in
the earthquake. But he said that if the international community does not focus more
attention on supporting Haiti's capacity to rebuild and govern itself, the United Nations
may be required to keep peacekeepers in the country "for the next 200 years."