Ban urges world to stand by Haiti as generosity cools off

New York - The international community should stand by Haiti as it struggles to recover from the devastating earthquake in January while funds for the quake relief are disappearing, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday. Ban said he has asked Haitian President Rene Preval to attend the international donor conference at UN headquarters in New York on March 31 to present his country's priorities in quake relief and reconstruction.

Ban and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will preside over the conference, which will discuss long-term funding for relief and reconstruction in Haiti, which is estimated to cost more than 11 billion dollars.

"We are in a race against time," Ban told a press conference after he visited Port-au-Prince on Sunday. "Now is the time for the international community to stand by Haiti."

"The last thing the Haitian people need is a second humanitarian crisis on top of all they have suffered already," he said.

Ban said only 49 per cent of the 1.4 billion dollars being sought by the UN since last month to help Haiti's 3 million quake-affected people, including 1.3 million people without housing, had been funded.

The magnitude-7 earthquake on January 12 killed more than 230,000 Haitians and destroyed key public buildings as well as residential areas. About 700,000 of the 1.3 million displaced people have been housed in tent and tarpaulin cities, while the rest are under the threat of the coming rainy season in April and the hurricane season that starts in June.

The UN had formed a team of experts from the UN, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the European Commission to draw up a needs assessment project for Haiti's post-quake period. The team was meeting in Santo Domingo this week to go over its findings.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that estimates reached by the team amounted to 11.5 billion dollars for a three-year period for recovery and reconstruction. The amount includes 3.25 billion dollars to rebuild houses, 600 million dollars for schools, 294 million dollars for hospitals, 100 million dollars for city roads and 50 million dollars to rebuild Port-au-Prince.

The team estimated that the earthquake caused overall damage valued at 7.86 billion dollars, or equivalent to 120 per cent of Haiti's economic output last year.

There were an estimated 300,000 people injured by the quake and 8.5 per cent of workers lost their jobs. The quake destroyed 105,000 houses and damaged 208,000 others. A total of 1,300 schools and 50 hospitals collapsed or cannot be used.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/314405,ban-urges-world-to-stand-by-haiti-as-generosity-cools-off.html.