NEW YORK–(ENEWSPF)–19 August 2010 – United Nations projects in health, education, job creation, rubble removal, reproductive health and improving access to food have been approved for Haiti as the poor Caribbean country continues its effort to rebuild after January’s catastrophic earthquake.
The Interim Haitian Recovery Commission (IHRC), which was set up in April to coordinate and oversee the recovery and reconstruction campaign, announced yesterday in Port-au-Prince, the capital, that it will back $220 million worth of UN projects.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) reported that it has received approval for a $65 million project to rehabilitate infrastructure, building on earlier cash-for-work projects that have given more than 120,000 jobs since the quake.
The new project, which will be carried out in conjunction with the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), is expected to provide temporary jobs for 300,000 people over the next 12 months.
It will focus on training Haitians and giving them work in constructing new roads, bridges and trails, rehabilitating damaged shops and community centres, cleaning and recycling rubble, demolishing severely damaged buildings and maintaining public infrastructure. The project will also provide jobs in soil conservation and stabilization efforts and agricultural production.
A $17 million debris-removal project, to be jointly run by UNDP, the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), will be implemented in six neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince.
Other initiatives include a World Health Organization (WHO) project that aims to boost access to health care, a food security project run by FAO, a UN agency effort to strengthen reproductive health services and a joint school feeding project of WFP, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank.
The IHRC is co-chaired by Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and the former United States president Bill Clinton, who is now the UN Special Envoy for Haiti. The UN participates in the commission as a voting member, and this week it was represented by Rebeca Grynspan, the Associate Administrator of UNDP.
Source: un.org
