Leaders begin the New Year focused on scarred, limping Haiti
Published:Sunday | January 2, 2011 | 12:00 AM
CARICOM leaders will huddle over three days on what Haiti needs to propel its recovery agenda, which they will then pass on to a presidential commission whose job it is to set the work agenda.
The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, co-chaired by Haitian prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive and former US president Bill Clinton, has already laid out a one-year agenda to October 2011, at the same time that it signed off on 25 projects valued at US$430 million in mid-December - bringing projects approved in the body's eight-month life to 74.
The plan laid out at what was the interim commission's fourth board meeting, set the following targets:
1. Housing: 400,000 people to be relocated from camps;
2. Debris: 40 per cent to be removed;
3. Education: build and staff 250 temporary structures; build and staff 60 fundamental schools in communal sections where no public schools exist; equip up to 3000 public and private schools; feed 250,000 children; provide up to 500,000 children with an education kit - manuals and uniforms; provide up to 500,000 children with financial assistance in private schools; and train 5,000 teachers;
4. Energy: increase hours of service for 30,000 urban households by 20 per cent; expand electricity service to 10,000 rural households;
5. Health: improve service delivery through improvements to 40 hospitals, 75 clinics and an ambulance network; increase the health-care workforce through the reconstruction or reinforcement of four medical schools and four nursing schools, and training programmes to reach 4,000 allied health professionals;
6. Job creation: provide full-time employment to hundreds of thousands additional Haitians - agriculture and construction in rural areas, debris removal in capital Port-au-Prince, construction of two public and three private industrial parks;
7. Water and sanitation: increase access to controlled potable water from two per cent to 50 per cent; raise access to toilets from 10 per cent to at least 27 per cent;
8. Capacity building: assist ministries in developing strategies and investment plans.
The commission, which was created by presidential decree four months after the earthquake on April 21 last year, also outlined how some of the US$430 million would be spent:
US$174m: 150-hectare industrial park in the northern region, which in phase one, 2012-14, will employ 18,000 workers in the garment industry, growing to 65,000 permanent jobs once fully developed. The park will be government-owned but managed by a private company.
US$53.3m: contractor-built communities in the Cap-Haitien Development Corridor, 5,000 units, and Port-au-Prince Development Corridor, 10,000 units.
US$25m: building demolition and debris removal in specific Port-au-Prince neighbourhoods.
US$22m: creation of a guarantee fund and insurance system for agriculture.
US$10m: technical assistance to the GOH for combating the cholera epidemic.
US$10m: rehabilitation and reintegration of persons with disabilities.
US$2.5m educational campus project from ProDev in the Village Renaissance in Zoranje, incorporating kindergarten to fourth grade for up to 480 students, a middle school for 500 students, vocational school, cultural centre, community centre with a cyber café and library - and designed to be replicated in key locations of the country.
US$2m job creation project targeting up to 3,000 adolescent girls and young women, 15-24 years old.
The special CARICOM meeting on Haiti, which will include special representative to the earthquake-ravaged country, former Jamaican prime minister P.J. Patterson, kicks off Wednesday.
CARICOM is of the view that the presidential commission needs to focus more on capacity building in Haiti, and its discussions are expected to suggest a plan of action in that regard.
"The provision of technical support from CARICOM would expedite the removal of rubble and fast-track construction projects that accord with Haiti's immediate needs and priorities," said Patterson, quoted in a CARICOM statement.
Haiti is the most populous, and the poorest, of CARICOM's 15 members.