UN asks Bill Clinton to oversee Haiti aid coordination
AFP
UNITED NATIONS- UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that former US president Bill Clinton agreed to take on an "expanded leadership role" in coordinating international aid to quake-hit Haiti.
The secretary general told reporters that Clinton, a UN special envoy for Haiti since last May, "will provide strategic guidance in our work for Haiti's early recovery and long-term reconstruction with special emphasis on mobilizing international support and donors funding."
Bill Clinton at the international airport of Port-au-Prince
"We agreed that we must move as urgently as possible to develop a clear strategy that mobilizes all UN agencies and their partners, including national governments, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and the private sector," the UN boss said.
The January 12 earthquake devastated impoverished Haiti, killing more than 200,000 people, leaving another 300,000 injured and a million homeless, according to authorities.
"The trick is to get the Haitian people back where they can stop living from day-to-day and start living from week-to-week or month-to-month and then start the long-term efforts," Clinton said.
"They, the leaders there, want to build a functioning, modern state for the first time, and I will do what I can to faithfully represent and work with all the agencies of the UN and help them get it done," he added.
Ban noted that he and Clinton agreed that Haitians urgently needed shelters, particularly ahead of the hurricane season, just months away.
And he stressed the need to scale up UNDP's cash-for-work scheme which has so far put 30,000 Haitians to work rebuilding their country.
Ban said donors have so far pledged 23 million dollars to the scheme, under which people receive five dollars a day for their work.
The UN boss spoke to reporters after giving a closed-door briefing to the UN Security Council on his recent visits to London, Addis Ababa and Cyprus.
He said he also asked Clinton to launch a revised flash appeal for funds on February 17 to carry the humanitarian effort for the entire year.
The appeal, the amount of which is not yet known, would complement one for 575 million dollars in emergency aid launched last month by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for a period of six months.
Ban also said Clinton would also help prepare an international donors conference on Haiti's reconstruction due to be held at the UN headquarters here next month.
Last week the former US president urged global corporate bosses at the World Economic Forum in Davos to use the Haiti catastrophe as an opportunity to lift the devastated Caribbean nation out of generations of poverty.
And last month, US President Barack Obama asked Clinton and another former US president, George W. Bush, to oversee private fund-raising in the United States for Haiti's reconstruction.
A Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund was set up to collect money for immediate relief aid -- food, water, shelter and first-aid supplies -- as well as long-term support to quake survivors.
With around one million left homeless by the temblor, hundreds of thousands have fled the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, for promised tent camps in the countryside that the government is still setting up.
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