GEORGETOWN, Guyana
(CMC):
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments are joining the international community in providing funds to Haiti to jump start the Caribbean country's economic and social development.
The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) will contribute US$17 million towards the country, while Haiti will also have access to the Petroleum Fund established by Trinidad and Tobago in 2004 to provide relief to CARICOM member-states experiencing economic hardship resulting from persistently high international prices for energy products.
This is according to CARICOM's Assistant Secretary-General for Foreign and Community Relations, Ambassador Colin Granderson.
CARICOM to do utmost
Mr. Granderson said CARICOM would also "do the utmost with its own resources to lend support to Haiti's efforts to create the necessary conditions for reconciliation, reconstruction and recovery."
Granderson, who was part of the CARICOM team at this week's International Donors conference in Port-au-Prince, said plans were in train for a CARICOM technical assessment mission to visit Haiti in the coming weeks to work along with a Haitian counterpart team, in response to a request by President René Preval.
He said the community also intended to re-establish a technical office in Port-au-Prince, to facilitate Haiti's "regulatory and other efforts, as well as functional cooperation with the community in areas such as health, education, agriculture and natural disaster mitigation."
The CARICOM official said Haiti's re-engagement with CARICOM provided it with the "political, technical and functional support of the sub-regional grouping whose integration process continued to advance and to deepen."
Resuming support
"In this regard, Ambassador Granderson noted that CARICOM will focus on "resuming the support for Haiti's establishment of the required juridical, regulatory and administrative arrangements arising from the integration process."
The donor community meeting saw pledges of US$750 million coming from the international community, a sum in excess of Haiti's request for $500 million to expedite rebuilding activities for the period up to September 2007.
