Haiti has an ocean's worth of problems, but money shouldn't be one of them. The world's response to the Jan. 12 earthquake was swift, with more than 150 countries and organizations promising to send hundreds of millions of dollars for emergency relief and billions more for long-term rebuilding.
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Three months after the country and its government were all but crushed, nearly $800 million for relief projects has been committed. That is generous but still only slightly more than half of the $1.5 billion that the United Nations believes Haiti needs just to get through the next year -- to build housing, provide public health services, security and meet other basic needs.
The Haitian government also needs an estimated $350 million in cash simply to function over the coming fiscal year -- for ministry payrolls, policing and schools. So far, it has received pledges for about $200 million.
The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, told last month's international donors' conference that unless the government got direct budget support it would be impossible to expect bigger rebuilding plans to succeed.
Source: New York Times
