Haiti seeks years of aid; donors to meet in March

Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:11pm GMT

* Montreal talks begin to plot reconstruction strategy

* Clinton says novel to think first, pledge later

* Need to decentralize away from Port-au-Prince (Adds Clinton, Bellerive remarks; figures in U.S. dollars)

By Randall Palmer and Arshad Mohammed

MONTREAL, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Haiti needs at least five to 10 years of reconstruction help after its people were "bloodied, martyred and ruined" by the devastating earthquake this month, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said on Monday.

"The people of Haiti will need more and more and more in order to complete the reconstruction," Bellerive told an international aid conference, intended to survey immediate needs and then begin plotting Haiti's long-term recovery.

"I bring you the thanks of a people who have been bloodied, martyred and ruined but who are standing," he told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and representatives of 10 other countries.

The meeting was not intended to bring specific aid promises but instead to assess immediate needs and also to look beyond to a strategy to rebuild from the Jan. 12 quake that killed up to 200,000 people and smashed the capital Port-au-Prince.

The group decided to hold an urgent international pledging conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York in March.

"We're trying to do this in the correct order ... Sometimes people have pledging conferences and pledge money and they don't have any idea what they are going to do with it," Clinton told a closing news conference.

"We actually think it's a novel idea to do the needs assessment first, and then the planning, and then the pledging."

A key theme that emerged was the importance of ensuring development and population was not so concentrated in Port-au-Prince, which sits right on a fault line.

"In 30 seconds, Haiti lost 60 percent of its GDP (gross domestic product)," Bellerive said, referring to excessive centralization in the capital. "So we must decentralize."

He noted that people have been steadily leaving the devastated city since the quake struck.

Clinton said agriculture, which can act as a magnet back to the countryside, had not gotten the attention it deserved.

"I was quite heartened to hear the prime minister say that ... we should look at how we decentralize economic opportunity and work with the Haitian government and people to support resettlement," she told reporters.

Bellerive said Haitian President Rene Preval had just called him to press urgently for an additional 200,000 tents for people who lost their homes.

But U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said stronger temporary structures would be needed for Haiti to face the start of the rains in April and hurricanes in June. "Tents, while the only shelter solution available quickly enough now, will not be much good for these purposes," he said.

Oxfam called on the meeting to cancel Haiti's foreign debt, which it said amounted to $890 million. Bellerive said this was not his main concern, although it would free up resources.

"In the face of the real demands we have, our debt is minimal," Bellerive told CBC television before the meeting started. "What we're looking for is a long-term commitment... At least five to 10 years."

Harper went further: "It's not an exaggeration to say that 10 years of hard work at least awaits the world in Haiti."

Haiti's neighbor on the island of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic, proposed to donors last Monday the creation of a $10 billion, five-year assistance program for Haiti.

Asked to confirm reports that he had asked for $3 billion, Bellerive said various academic and professional studies had come up with total needs, and he had seen that figure. But he said his government had no official number and had not put a number on the table in Montreal.

PARTNERS NOT PATRONS

"It's important that we see ourselves as partners with Haiti, not patrons," Clinton said at a closing news conference, echoing a theme throughout the day that Haiti had to be in charge of its own reconstruction.

Asked earlier about complaints the U.S. military had dominated the relief, she said effective aid delivery would not have succeeded without it.

"It's just easier for the United States to get there first because Haiti is our neighbor. We appreciate the very positive endorsement of our efforts that we have heard," she said.

Bellerive said the government had received signals before Jan. 12 that a quake might be coming but did not act.

"We must admit that our geological technicians had warned us of the possibility of an earthquake but dealing with social conflicts, such as the fight against poverty, meant we didn't have the time or the means to take the measures needed to limit the damage," he said. (Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by David Storey and Cynthia Osterman)





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