A Haiti reconstruction fund has been established and US$9.9 billion pledged to carry out the development task, says former prime minister and special representative of Caricom on Haiti, PJ Patterson.

The Action Plan for National Recovery and Development of Haiti was presented at an International Donors’ Conference in New York on March 31, Patterson said. And, an Interim Haitian Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) consisting of 17 members is to be constituted to manage the development process outlined in the plan in the short and medium term.

“I speak constantly about the rebirth of Haiti, or as the French would prefer to say, the renaissance of Haiti,” Patterson told members of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) at a breakfast meeting in St Andrew on

April 8.

“You need to build a new country,” he said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a recent interview, said that the means now exist for what will be a “sweeping exercise in nation-building on a scale and scope not seen in generations”.

The 7.0 earthquake which struck on the morning of January 12, killed more than 230,000 Haitians and left approximately 1.2 million homeless. Patterson said it devastated a country which was on the cusp of achieving self-sustaining growth.

“Haiti had moved out of dictatorship,” he said. “It was beginning to build a constitutional democratic process.”

The institutions required to promote that process needed some support and some strengthening,” Patterson stated. “That incidentally is one of the areas where I think Caricom has the capacity

to make a very

meaningful contribution.”

The role of Caricom in Haiti’s development planning will be strengthened by the fact that it is to be a full voting member on the Interim Haitian Reconstruction Commission, with Patterson serving on it as the region’s representative. He thanked private sector organisations, including Sagicor Life Jamaica Limited, Jamaica National Building Society and Digicel, for supporting the development of the Special Representative’s Office in Jamaica.

Haiti’s Action Plan, which is to be implemented by the Commission, is to be carried out in three phases, he told PSOJ members. Following on a six-month emergency phase, a period of reconstruction lasting 18 months will follow, leading into a development phase lasting more than

a decade.

The Haitian authorities have identified several key areas as priorities in their plan. The first is shelter, as the housing sector suffered about 40 per cent of the US$2.3 billion in overall damage caused by the quake.

This issue is also a priority because the country has already started to get abundant rainfall, Patterson said.

“The shelter conditions being what they are, there has to be some urgency in dealing with those problems,” said the former prime minister.

Beyond housing construction, the plan foresees developing the economic infrastructure required for growth such as roads, energy and communication. Patterson said improving the country’s land tenure system was necessary to facilitate the large projects under consideration.

Another goal is to modernise the agricultural sector to increase food security and take advantage of the country’s export potential in fruits and tubers, livestock farming

and fishing.

“The Ministry of Agriculture in Jamaica has already started to respond to the possibilities of support,” said Patterson.

Promotion of light manufacturing will be important for the country, which is still “heavily involved” in 807 garment manufacturing, noted Patterson. Additionally, the development of small business is “cardinal to their plan for development”,

he stated.

Tourism development is also an area of emphasis under the development plan. Caribbean tourism authorities have put forward the Montego Bay Initiative to make sure Haiti’s tourism “can make a meaningful and significant contribution to the growth of the economy”, Patterson said.

For these proposals to be successfully implemented, the Interim Haitian Reconstruction Commission will have to play a co-ordinating critical role, added Patterson.

“It is a lot of money and a lot of projects and we have to make sure that it can be done in a timely fashion, in an efficient fashion, and in a fashion that promotes integrity at every level,” he said.