WASHINGTON – The Secretary General of the Organization Of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, called the international community to provide “urgent” help to Haiti in a speech at the Haiti Donors Conference that took place Tuesday in Washington, DC.
“The impact the global financial crisis will have on the Americas is considerable and, in the specific case of Haiti, it has been and will be more profound, given the country’s weakened social Framework and precarious economic structure,” said Insulza
“It is therefore urgent that this Conference considers this situation and the best ways to help the government and people of Haiti in these difficult moments.”
The Haiti Donors Conference, organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) at their Headquarters in the US Capital, intends to gather commitments from countries and multilateral institutions to allow Haiti to recover from the 2008 crisis caused first by high food and fuel prices and afterwards by the devastating impact of several hurricanes and tropical storms.
La Conferencia de Donantes, organizada por el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) en su sede en la capital estadounidense, tiene el objetivo de obtener los compromisos suficientes para que Haití se recupere de la crisis en la que se sumió en 2008 como consecuencia primero de las alzas en los precios de los alimentos y combustibles, y después del devastador impacto de varios huracanes y tormentas tropicales.
In that regard, the Government of Haiti developed an action plan already supported by several international organizations stating the main goals that international support should achieve. Among them, the programs seeks to address the US$125 million financing shortfall in the budget and to create 100,000-150,000 new jobs over two years impacting up to 600,000 people.
“Trust and mutual accountability must become the norm for cooperation between Haiti and donors. In that context, budget support to the Haitian Government appears to be an excellent mechanism to increase transparency and efficiency in a new cooperation framework”, he said. Insulza also insisted on the importance and need of coordinating the international relief efforts.
OAS Secretary General Insulza also mentioned the need to “strengthen democratic institutions” developed in Haiti in the last few years.
Insulza explained to the Conference the different help and relief operations carried out by the OAS in Haiti over the years. Among them he mentioned the civil registry modernization project, digitalization of National Archives, support for the Electoral Provisional Council and the electoral process, work to assist people with disabilities, the issuing of 600,000 ID cards for the upcoming elections on April 19 and initiatives by the Pan-American Development Foundation (PADF) regarding community-driven development, disaster relief and mitigation, Human Rights and border development.
Insulza also announced that PADF will be partnering with the Government of Haiti to implement a new US&8.8 million urban community-driven development program, and insisted that the OAS is prepared to make a contribution to judicial and penitentiary reform.
“We are fully aware of our historic responsibility to the Haitian people, and are working with the peoples of the Americas to ensure that Haiti will be able to achieve socioeconomic development in a democratic setting and thus occupy the place it deserves in the concert of nations of the Americas,” he said.
Also took part in the Donors Conference the Prime Minister of Haiti Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis; the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; the Minister of Cooperation of Canada Beverly Oda; UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon; IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno; International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn; and World Bank President Robert Zoellick.
