KINGSTON, Jamaica – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) officials will meet with their Haitian counterparts and officers of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in Kingston, Jamaica, January 5-7, 2011, in a high-level and broad-based meeting with critical focus on building institutional capacity in Haiti, and development project-planning, towards assisting in the recovery of the earthquake-torn French Speaking CARICOM Member State.
The Meeting, which is being coordinated by the Office of the Special Representative of CARICOM Heads of Government to Haiti, comes on the heels of a one-day consultation between the President of Haiti, His Excellency Rene Preval, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and the CARICOM Special Representative the Most Honourable P.J. Patterson held in Haiti on 21 December last.
At that meeting the parties had agreed to the strengthening of Haiti’s institutional capacity by harnessing the full support of the Caribbean Community, the private sector and the Diaspora.
Acknowledging the urgent need for implementing the strategies towards Haiti’s reconstruction, the Parties agreed that the project planning meeting in Jamaica will pursue arrangements to strengthen the Haitian Government’s institutional capacity through assistance from CARICOM development partners and the private sector.
Against this backdrop, CARICOM officials and their Haitian counterparts will seek to establish two Working Groups that will provide Technical Support and Institutional Support in the development of specific projects proposals to be submitted to the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC).
During the three-day consultation in Jamaica, which is expected to benefit from a briefing by Prime Minister Bellerive, these Working Groups will discuss areas attached to their specific responsibilities. With regard to the Working Group on Technical Support, discussions will centre on issues pertaining to the support needed for infrastructural related projects.
This Group will have a mandate to assist with the preparation of project documents on areas including Haiti’s emergency shelter; housing projects; and residential housing projects.
The Working Group with responsibility for Institutional Support will discuss the assistance needed for institutional capacity building in the medium term. For the short term, this Group will focus on work to be undertaken by the authorities to support the implementation of priority areas including the debris removal and management; water and sanitation; education; and health.
At the end of the three day session specific institutions would be given the task of preparing projects determined to be of priority within a given time frame for presentation to the IHRC.
