Clinton and Zoellick look to building a new Haiti

As new estimates of the death toll in Haitian earthquake rise above 200,000, the international community is edging toward the question of long-term reconstruction. "If we handle this right it might [post-quake] be a more broad-based and successful effort than it would have been before," former President Bill Clinton and UN special envoy to Haiti told the Miami Herald yesterday.

Clinton's optimism comes as the World Bank gave notice that international donors need to start preparing for the long-term
challenge of reconstructing the devastated country.

World Bank president Bob Zoellick told the Financial Times that Haiti had some of the "worst human development indicators in the world" even before the crisis. It was essential, he said, to ensure that "when the cameras leave, the donors do not leave with them".

Among the plans under early discussion are for a Haiti-specific 'Marshall Plan', the US-led programme for European recovery post World War Two. The country may need to become a ward of developed nations being institutionally so weak it will not be able to direct its own re-development.

With Guantanamo Bay soon to be emptied of Muslim prisoners, the Cuban base could be turned over to Haitian refugees as it was in the mid-90s.

World Bank officials are already scanning satellite images to gauge damage to essential infrastructure such as hospitals, power plants, water and sewage systems and the port.

Plainly, reconstruction is likely to take years and billions of dollars. Officials look to the reconstruction of Aceh, where some 160,000 people were killed by the 2003 tsunami and where more than 140,000 houses, 1,750 schools, and 350 bridges were built in the first four years of the $6.7 bn effort.

No estimate has yet been attempted. Bank officials anticipate "food for work" programmes to clear rubble and restore roads, plus a massive program of reforestation. Like Clinton, Zoellick believes a better future can rise from the tragedy. "We want to emphasise learning from the past as you rebuild for the future," he said.

But with Haiti already full of competing church groups, aid agencies and charities that have not always proven effective - hip-hop singer Wyclef Jean's charity Yele Haiti has come under withering criticism for its accounting practices and questionable distribution of funds - a centralised reconstruction authority may be needed.

Yesterday, the Paris Club of international creditors issued an appeal for nations owed money by Haiti to cancel their debts. "Considering the financing needs that Haiti will face in reconstructing the country, Paris Club creditors call upon other bilateral creditors also to urgently provide full debt cancellation to Haiti," the statement said. According to the club's figures, Haiti's public external debt totaled $1.885 billion in September 2008.

Previous Haitian natural disasters do not lend confidence: when four tropical storms in 2008 buried Gonaives, crippled Haiti's economy and caused damage estimated at $900 million, it took international donors nearly a year to meet and pledge just $353 million.

Even as the international community struggles to co-ordinate its immediate disaster response, there are better lessons to look to. After 1998's Hurricane Mitch the world's donor nations pledged $6.3 billion to rebuild central American states affected by the storm in just six weeks. The question is, can the world do something similar for Haiti.

"I'm worried," Mark Schneider, vice president of the International Crisis Group. "Given the magnitude of the devastation, the kind of immediate massive response that we have seen during the life-saving stage has to be followed by the largest long-term development investment ever made to a single country in this hemisphere.'' ·