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Haiti rebuilding plan expected this week
Matthew Bigg
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Sun Mar 7, 2010 1:25pm EST
A boy looks at the ruins of his Fort National neighborhood in Port-au-Prince March 4, 2010. The neighborhood is one of the worst hit by the January 12 quake that killed 300,000 people, according to government estimates. Picture taken March 4, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Matthew Bigg
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Government planners and international experts are racing to produce a blueprint this week to reconstruct Haiti's economy after the earthquake that killed up to 300,000 people and devastated its infrastructure.
A team of 150 Haitian government officials and 90 international experts is to submit the plan to the government by Friday, said Doekle Wielinga, a World Bank disaster recovery specialist in charge of the effort.
The document will then be assessed at a meeting of international technical experts in the Dominican Republic on March 16 before a donor conference in New York on March 31.
"What we are working on is what the requirements will be in terms of recovery and reconstruction," Wielinga told Reuters.
"This is the first PDNA (post-disaster needs assessment) where we have almost the entire international community participating physically," Wielinga said, adding that Haitian communities outside the country were also being consulted.
An outstanding question remains the scope of recovery and whether to attempt to restore the economic status quo that existed prior to the January 12 quake, or go further.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Its society is divided among a tiny elite, many of whom dwell in sumptuous villas on hills overlooking the capital, a small middle class and a majority who earn just a few dollars a day.
At the same time, the fractured relationship between the government and people could undermine long-term recovery.
Wielinga stressed that a single recovery plan produced by international
actors and the Haitian government would likely produce more coherence, but he acknowledged the difficulties of restoring a country beset by long-term structural weaknesses.
"Doing this thing in a joint or coherent manner, the ordinary Haitian will see a uniformly managed reconstruction process and therefore get more bang for your buck," he said.
Full text at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62616P20100307
Matthew Bigg
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Sun Mar 7, 2010 1:25pm EST
A boy looks at the ruins of his Fort National neighborhood in Port-au-Prince March 4, 2010. The neighborhood is one of the worst hit by the January 12 quake that killed 300,000 people, according to government estimates. Picture taken March 4, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Matthew Bigg
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Government planners and international experts are racing to produce a blueprint this week to reconstruct Haiti's economy after the earthquake that killed up to 300,000 people and devastated its infrastructure.
A team of 150 Haitian government officials and 90 international experts is to submit the plan to the government by Friday, said Doekle Wielinga, a World Bank disaster recovery specialist in charge of the effort.
The document will then be assessed at a meeting of international technical experts in the Dominican Republic on March 16 before a donor conference in New York on March 31.
"What we are working on is what the requirements will be in terms of recovery and reconstruction," Wielinga told Reuters.
"This is the first PDNA (post-disaster needs assessment) where we have almost the entire international community participating physically," Wielinga said, adding that Haitian communities outside the country were also being consulted.
An outstanding question remains the scope of recovery and whether to attempt to restore the economic status quo that existed prior to the January 12 quake, or go further.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Its society is divided among a tiny elite, many of whom dwell in sumptuous villas on hills overlooking the capital, a small middle class and a majority who earn just a few dollars a day.
At the same time, the fractured relationship between the government and people could undermine long-term recovery.
Wielinga stressed that a single recovery plan produced by international
actors and the Haitian government would likely produce more coherence, but he acknowledged the difficulties of restoring a country beset by long-term structural weaknesses.
"Doing this thing in a joint or coherent manner, the ordinary Haitian will see a uniformly managed reconstruction process and therefore get more bang for your buck," he said.
Full text at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62616P20100307