Agreement on Effort to Help Haiti Rebuild
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Children at a tent city in Port-au-Prince. Haiti's president issued a plea for immediate aid, asking for 200,000 sturdy, family-size tents and 1.5 million food rations. More Photos >
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By MARC LACEY and GINGER THOMPSON
Published: January 25, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Concerned about corruption and wobbly Haitian leadership, international donors agreed Monday during a meeting in Montreal on a 10-year rebuilding effort for earthquake-damaged Haiti, one that would create an even better capital city and that the government said would cost $3 billion.
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Given Haiti's long history of mismanagement of funds, international donors were hesitant to write a blank check. And foreign governments had concerns as well about the government's ability to direct a large reconstruction project after most government buildings were flattened or severely damaged in the Jan. 12 quake.
Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, addressing representatives from 14 countries and the European Union, tried to head off such fears. "The Haitian government is working in precarious conditions," he said at the opening of the conference, "but it can provide the leadership that people expect."
To show he was still running the country, President René Préval, whose office at the National Palace was destroyed, sent aides to the palace grounds to begin the process of building temporary offices and lodging for him there. His private home was also destroyed in the quake, and he has been running the government out of a police station, with his ministers addressing the news media under a mango tree.
Mr. Préval, who has yet to formally address the country since the earthquake, also issued a written plea for immediate aid on Monday, asking for 200,000 sturdy, family-size tents and 1.5 million food rations.
Patrick Delatour, a presidential aide, said the $3 billion that the government needs to remake the country would be used to house 200,000 people left homeless in 200 model communities complete with schools and health care centers, as well as to rebuild government ministries and national infrastructure.
But the government's figure was not immediately embraced by the countries being called on to pick up the tab. A United States State Department official called it premature. And Mr. Bellerive said that Haiti had made no specific requests for money or other assistance in Montreal because it was still assessing its needs.
"We're trying to do this in the correct order," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters in Montreal. "Sometimes people have pledging conferences and pledge money, and they don't have any idea what they're going to do with it. We actually think it's a novel idea to do the needs assessment first and then the planning and then the pledging."
The donor nations called for an independent damage assessment, which could begin as early as next week, made up of experts from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations Development Program.
"This is an opportunity," said Eric Overvest, the Haiti director for the United Nations program. "You can see opportunities in awful situations, and it is possible to rebuild a better Port-au-Prince."
Before the quake, the capital had been dangerously overcrowded, with makeshift homes built on the steep hillsides surrounding the city and narrow, winding roads clogged with traffic. Construction standards were all but absent. "We have to do things differently," said Jacques Gabriel, the minister of public works. "We're sending a message to the population not to rebuild their damaged homes. It's not safe. We need to evaluate the buildings first."
The donor nations agreed that the Haitian government would be front and center in the international effort to rebuild the country, with the United Nations acting as a conduit for donations. They also agreed that the aid would be closely tracked.
"We bear a responsibility to our taxpayers to assure that the money that our government commits will be well spent, transparently, and with results on the ground for the Haitian people," Mrs. Clinton said.
In marathon meetings over the last week, Mr. Delatour said, the beleaguered Haitian government considered moving the capital to a new location. But he said it was agreed that doing so would take too long and cost too much.
Instead, he said, officials intend to keep most government ministries close to the locations where they fell. He said, however, that some secondary services might be moved out of the downtown to address the chronic overcrowding and insecurity that has long plagued the area.
"God didn't strike with a short-term plan and a long-term plan," Mr. Delatour said. "He just hit like Muhammad Ali. One shot and we're lying on the mat."
He said the government would focus most of its attention on putting roofs back over people's heads. And in the meantime, he said, rebuilding businesses and public offices would allow the government and the private sector to put people to work.
"Our motto is 'build back better,' " he said.
In addition to the sheer magnitude of the physical task ahead, Mr. Delatour said that Haiti's recovery effort was challenged by the difficulty of coordinating the countless countries and humanitarian organizations eager to provide assistance. And he said it would not be easy for the government, with its long history of corruption, to win people's trust.
Multimedia
Slide Show
Haiti Considers a Reconstruction Plan
Video
Haiti: Stolen Tents
Related
Fighting Starvation, Haitians Share Portions (January 26, 2010)
A Deadly Quake in a Seismic Hot Zone (January 26, 2010)
Girls' Rescue From Haiti Expands Family by Two (January 26, 2010)
Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute | Tips on Donating
More Multimedia on the Haiti Earthquake
Rather than waiting for a government they are skeptical of to help them out of this crisis, Mr. Delatour said, Haitians of all classes have already begun their own recovery efforts. Port-au-Prince is bustling with work crews hired by those with means to clear away the rubble so they can begin rebuilding their homes or businesses.
Towns outside the capital have been flooded by earthquake victims in search of places to start new lives, stretching water, food and other essential resources dangerously thin. And the poorest of the poor have settled into makeshift camps across the city, many of them vowing not to move without credible assurances that the government intends to provide them with stable living arrangements.
"Haitians have been managing their own survival for 200 years, so they're not waiting for the government," Mr. Delatour said. "The government is playing catch-up."
In the back of everyone's mind here was a fear of the donor fatigue that typically sinks in when disasters stretch on too long. Haitian officials were eager to capitalize on the international outpouring of support by outlining their needs now.
Mrs. Clinton declined to say how much the United States would provide in the long term. The donor nations' foreign ministers will meet again in March at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The one-day meeting in Montreal was not intended to map out a detailed plan for Haitian reconstruction. Instead its goal was to develop a structure for future, extended talks about the reconstruction.
"This conference is an initial, albeit critical, step on the long road to recovery," said Lawrence Cannon, the Canadian foreign minister. "We need to identify with the Haitian government key priorities in order to define a road map of the tasks ahead."
Multimedia
Slide Show
Haiti Considers a Reconstruction Plan
Video
Haiti: Stolen Tents
Related
Fighting Starvation, Haitians Share Portions (January 26, 2010)
A Deadly Quake in a Seismic Hot Zone (January 26, 2010)
Girls' Rescue From Haiti Expands Family by Two (January 26, 2010)
Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute | Tips on Donating
More Multimedia on the Haiti Earthquake
Rather than waiting for a government they are skeptical of to help them out of this crisis, Mr. Delatour said, Haitians of all classes have already begun their own recovery efforts. Port-au-Prince is bustling with work crews hired by those with means to clear away the rubble so they can begin rebuilding their homes or businesses.
Towns outside the capital have been flooded by earthquake victims in search of places to start new lives, stretching water, food and other essential resources dangerously thin. And the poorest of the poor have settled into makeshift camps across the city, many of them vowing not to move without credible assurances that the government intends to provide them with stable living arrangements.
"Haitians have been managing their own survival for 200 years, so they're not waiting for the government," Mr. Delatour said. "The government is playing catch-up."
In the back of everyone's mind here was a fear of the donor fatigue that typically sinks in when disasters stretch on too long. Haitian officials were eager to capitalize on the international outpouring of support by outlining their needs now.
Mrs. Clinton declined to say how much the United States would provide in the long term. The donor nations' foreign ministers will meet again in March at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The one-day meeting in Montreal was not intended to map out a detailed plan for Haitian reconstruction. Instead its goal was to develop a structure for future, extended talks about the reconstruction.
"This conference is an initial, albeit critical, step on the long road to recovery," said Lawrence Cannon, the Canadian foreign minister. "We need to identify with the Haitian government key priorities in order to define a road map of the tasks ahead."
Fighting Starvation, Haitians Share Portions
Maggie Steber for The New York Times
Children waiting for rice and beans distributed by the Haitian government in Port-au-Prince. More Photos >
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By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: January 25, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Maxi Extralien, a twig-thin 10-year-old in a SpongeBob pajama top, ate only a single bean from the heavy plate of food he received recently from a Haitian civic group. He had to make it last.
Multimedia
Slide Show
Haiti Considers a Reconstruction Plan
Video
Haiti: Stolen Tents
Related
A Deadly Quake in a Seismic Hot Zone (January 26, 2010)
Agreement on Effort to Help Haiti Rebuild (January 26, 2010)
Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute | Tips on Donating
More Multimedia on the Haiti Earthquake
"My mother has 12 kids but a lot of them died," he said, covering his meal so he could carry it to his family. "There are six of us now and my mom."
For Maxi and countless others here in Haiti's pulverized capital, new rules of hunger etiquette are emerging. Stealing food, it is widely known, might get you killed. Children are most likely to return with something to eat, but no matter what is found, or how hungry the forager, everything must be shared.
The communal rationing, along with signs all over the city that say "S O S" and "we need food," suggests that the food crisis here is growing. In a country where malnutrition was common even before the earthquake, the United Nations now estimates that two million Haitians need immediate food assistance. And despite frantic efforts by aid groups, distribution has been limited. As of Saturday, the World Food Program had reached 207,392 people in Port-au-Prince and 113,313 in other areas.
Compounding the problem, Haiti's commercial food supply has been strangled by the earthquake's damage. Fruits and vegetables from the countryside are still available, but in smaller quantities, at inflated prices.
And food imports — typically 48 percent of the nation's total food consumption, according to the United Nations — have slowed to a trickle.
"The whole food supply chain has been trashed by the earthquake," said David Orr, a spokesman for the World Food Program. "The port, the roads, the trucks, the whole commercial life of the country has been disrupted."
It is not, after all, just homes that fell when the earth shook on Jan. 12. Supermarkets have collapsed to rubble. Butchers and bakers are dead.
At the Dimino bakery in Bourdon, a middle class area in the foothills above downtown Port-au-Prince, five people died when the ceiling fell in. The ovens are now buried in dirt. On the floor, plastic foam cakes lie overturned, their cheerful messages made invisible.
A few doors down, Elsie Perdriel cooked up what little she could. Her one-story home with maroon trim survived the earthquake, making her one of the lucky ones. But now she has 20 mouths to feed instead of four: seven children, including her grandson, a few extended relatives, and neighbors who lost their own homes.
It is a miniature civilization focused on food. Every day, one or two people are given the task of buying a single meal for the lot, but the purchases are small because money is tight. Work, a paycheck and disposable income all look a long way off.
Ms. Perdriel, an administrator with the national electric utility, has not heard from her bosses since the earthquake. Her son, Jean Sebastian Perdriel, 30, said his office by the port, where he worked for an import-export company, no longer stood.
"Nobody knows when they're going to get started again," he said. "Food, oil, rice, beans, it's all expensive."
Ms. Perdriel, a no-nonsense cook with her hair pulled back, displayed a pot with half of a chicken cut into pieces. "This should be for two people," she said. "Now it will have to do for 20."
Many other Haitians, while shouting for help in ever louder voices, are finding ways to share. In several neighborhoods of Carrefour, a poor area closer to the epicenter, small soup kitchens have sprung up with discounted meals, subsidized by Haitians with a little extra money. At 59 Impasse Eddy on Monday, three women behind a blue house stirred a pot of beans and rice, flavored with coconut, spices and lime juice.
They started cooking for their neighbors the day after the earthquake. On many mornings, they serve 100 people before 10 a.m.
"Everyone pays a small amount, 15 gourd," or a little less than 50 cents, said Guerline Dorleen, 30, sitting on a small chair near the bubbling pot. "Before, this kind of meal would cost 50."
Smiling and proud, the women said they did not have the luxury of waiting for aid groups to reach them in their hilly neighborhood. The trouble was, they were running out of food. They used their last bit of rice and beans on Monday.
Organizers for the group that fed Maxi, part of a government program that previously fed children in schools, also said their supplies were dwindling.
The most wrenching battles against starvation, however, can be found in the camps, the metropolises with tents that would resemble forts for first-graders, if not for the smell of urine.
Maxi lives in the best known of these locations, under a few sheets downtown, near the presidential palace.
The United Nations, the Haitian government and others have delivered food several times there in the past week. Thousands have been served — and thousands more are still hungry.
But at least they get food regularly. A few miles away, at a former military airfield outside the neighborhood of Belair, people still fondly recall the time four days after the quake that a United Nations truck appeared with boxes of fortified biscuits. Barefoot children smiled and packed their "cookies," as they called them, into dirty T-shirts. An older woman with braids was so thrilled that she sang loudly with her hands over her head, and tried to hug one of the workers.
But that was the last time anyone came with food. Now the planes swollen with aid simply crisscross the sky overhead. The children who used to chase the helicopters hoping they would drop something have given up, as empty biscuit packages now collect underfoot.
Some people, like René Odge, 29, said they stretched the ration for more than a week by breaking the biscuits into small pieces.
But it could only do so much. Mr. Odge held up a green soda bottle. "I put salt in the water and it keeps me alive," he said. "It keeps my stomach calm until I can find something else."
Many of the mothers in the airfield said they had eaten only a few meals since the earthquake. Oslaurd Lundi, 25, sitting on the ground near her son Benson, 3, and her 6-month-old daughter, Shaina, listed her recent meals as the sun began to set: "Today, nothing; yesterday, a little bread; and a little bread the day before."
She could see what she wanted. Just a few feet away, Mary-Claudette Alexi, 35, displayed a few pieces of pork and small breaded pies. The prices were relatively low: less than 15 cents for a small pie. But for Ms. Lundi and thousands of others, the price was still too high.
"I don't sell much of anything," Ms. Alexi said. "No one can afford it."
Maggie Steber for The New York Times
Children waiting for rice and beans distributed by the Haitian government in Port-au-Prince. More Photos >
Sign In to E-Mail
Reprints
Share
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: January 25, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Maxi Extralien, a twig-thin 10-year-old in a SpongeBob pajama top, ate only a single bean from the heavy plate of food he received recently from a Haitian civic group. He had to make it last.
Multimedia
Slide Show
Haiti Considers a Reconstruction Plan
Video
Haiti: Stolen Tents
Related
A Deadly Quake in a Seismic Hot Zone (January 26, 2010)
Agreement on Effort to Help Haiti Rebuild (January 26, 2010)
Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute | Tips on Donating
More Multimedia on the Haiti Earthquake
"My mother has 12 kids but a lot of them died," he said, covering his meal so he could carry it to his family. "There are six of us now and my mom."
For Maxi and countless others here in Haiti's pulverized capital, new rules of hunger etiquette are emerging. Stealing food, it is widely known, might get you killed. Children are most likely to return with something to eat, but no matter what is found, or how hungry the forager, everything must be shared.
The communal rationing, along with signs all over the city that say "S O S" and "we need food," suggests that the food crisis here is growing. In a country where malnutrition was common even before the earthquake, the United Nations now estimates that two million Haitians need immediate food assistance. And despite frantic efforts by aid groups, distribution has been limited. As of Saturday, the World Food Program had reached 207,392 people in Port-au-Prince and 113,313 in other areas.
Compounding the problem, Haiti's commercial food supply has been strangled by the earthquake's damage. Fruits and vegetables from the countryside are still available, but in smaller quantities, at inflated prices.
And food imports — typically 48 percent of the nation's total food consumption, according to the United Nations — have slowed to a trickle.
"The whole food supply chain has been trashed by the earthquake," said David Orr, a spokesman for the World Food Program. "The port, the roads, the trucks, the whole commercial life of the country has been disrupted."
It is not, after all, just homes that fell when the earth shook on Jan. 12. Supermarkets have collapsed to rubble. Butchers and bakers are dead.
At the Dimino bakery in Bourdon, a middle class area in the foothills above downtown Port-au-Prince, five people died when the ceiling fell in. The ovens are now buried in dirt. On the floor, plastic foam cakes lie overturned, their cheerful messages made invisible.
A few doors down, Elsie Perdriel cooked up what little she could. Her one-story home with maroon trim survived the earthquake, making her one of the lucky ones. But now she has 20 mouths to feed instead of four: seven children, including her grandson, a few extended relatives, and neighbors who lost their own homes.
It is a miniature civilization focused on food. Every day, one or two people are given the task of buying a single meal for the lot, but the purchases are small because money is tight. Work, a paycheck and disposable income all look a long way off.
Ms. Perdriel, an administrator with the national electric utility, has not heard from her bosses since the earthquake. Her son, Jean Sebastian Perdriel, 30, said his office by the port, where he worked for an import-export company, no longer stood.
"Nobody knows when they're going to get started again," he said. "Food, oil, rice, beans, it's all expensive."
Ms. Perdriel, a no-nonsense cook with her hair pulled back, displayed a pot with half of a chicken cut into pieces. "This should be for two people," she said. "Now it will have to do for 20."
Many other Haitians, while shouting for help in ever louder voices, are finding ways to share. In several neighborhoods of Carrefour, a poor area closer to the epicenter, small soup kitchens have sprung up with discounted meals, subsidized by Haitians with a little extra money. At 59 Impasse Eddy on Monday, three women behind a blue house stirred a pot of beans and rice, flavored with coconut, spices and lime juice.
They started cooking for their neighbors the day after the earthquake. On many mornings, they serve 100 people before 10 a.m.
"Everyone pays a small amount, 15 gourd," or a little less than 50 cents, said Guerline Dorleen, 30, sitting on a small chair near the bubbling pot. "Before, this kind of meal would cost 50."
Smiling and proud, the women said they did not have the luxury of waiting for aid groups to reach them in their hilly neighborhood. The trouble was, they were running out of food. They used their last bit of rice and beans on Monday.
Organizers for the group that fed Maxi, part of a government program that previously fed children in schools, also said their supplies were dwindling.
The most wrenching battles against starvation, however, can be found in the camps, the metropolises with tents that would resemble forts for first-graders, if not for the smell of urine.
Maxi lives in the best known of these locations, under a few sheets downtown, near the presidential palace.
The United Nations, the Haitian government and others have delivered food several times there in the past week. Thousands have been served — and thousands more are still hungry.
But at least they get food regularly. A few miles away, at a former military airfield outside the neighborhood of Belair, people still fondly recall the time four days after the quake that a United Nations truck appeared with boxes of fortified biscuits. Barefoot children smiled and packed their "cookies," as they called them, into dirty T-shirts. An older woman with braids was so thrilled that she sang loudly with her hands over her head, and tried to hug one of the workers.
But that was the last time anyone came with food. Now the planes swollen with aid simply crisscross the sky overhead. The children who used to chase the helicopters hoping they would drop something have given up, as empty biscuit packages now collect underfoot.
Some people, like René Odge, 29, said they stretched the ration for more than a week by breaking the biscuits into small pieces.
But it could only do so much. Mr. Odge held up a green soda bottle. "I put salt in the water and it keeps me alive," he said. "It keeps my stomach calm until I can find something else."
Many of the mothers in the airfield said they had eaten only a few meals since the earthquake. Oslaurd Lundi, 25, sitting on the ground near her son Benson, 3, and her 6-month-old daughter, Shaina, listed her recent meals as the sun began to set: "Today, nothing; yesterday, a little bread; and a little bread the day before."
She could see what she wanted. Just a few feet away, Mary-Claudette Alexi, 35, displayed a few pieces of pork and small breaded pies. The prices were relatively low: less than 15 cents for a small pie. But for Ms. Lundi and thousands of others, the price was still too high.
"I don't sell much of anything," Ms. Alexi said. "No one can afford it."
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