(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government Special Representative on Haiti, the Most Honourable Percival Patterson and CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General Foreign and Community Relations, Ambassador Colin Granderson are in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic attending a preparatory meeting for the Pledging Conference on Haiti convened by the United States and scheduled for 31 March at the United Nations headquarters, New York, USA.
The meeting, on Wednesday 17 March under the chairmanship of His Excellency Leonel Fernandez, the President of the Dominican Republic, will receive the report of a technical team which conducted a Post Disaster Needs Assessment Report over the past few weeks. The Report was initiated at the request of the Government of Haiti and the work guided by Haitian sectoral teams was undertaken with the assistance of the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC). Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake on 12 January which resulted in catastrophic loss of life, property and infrastructure.
The Report will constitute the framework for the reconstruction and recovery of Haiti and focussed on areas such as decentralisation, infrastructure, social services, productive sectors, governance, macro and socio economic issues, youth, gender and the disabled as well as the environment and disaster risk management. It is expected that the discussions will help refine the formulation of a strategic national development plan for Haiti, an emergency programme to stabilise the situation and the reconstruction needs of the affected regions of the country.
The Pledging Conference will benefit from the outcome of this meeting as the recommendations will be submitted to the participating countries and agencies in advance of the 31 March session. CARICOM, which has been asked by Haiti to be its advocate in international fora on the reconstruction of the country will be participating in the Pledging Conference.
