Office of the Special Envoy for haiti President Clinton Announces

piporiko Lun 10 Aoû 2009 - 18:03

Office of the

Special Envoy for haiti

President Clinton Announces Trade Mission to Haiti in his Address to the Second Annual Congress of the Haitian Diaspora

Miami,
9 August 2009 - President Bill Clinton addressed an audience of
hundreds of participants today at the Second Annual Congress of the
Haitian Diaspora. In his remarks, he reiterated his commitment to
assist the people and Government of Haiti as they expand job
opportunities and essential services in their country. As
part of this mission, President Clinton continues to encourage
international private sector investment in Haiti , and today announced
his plans to travel to Haiti on a trade mission in October 2009 with
international investors.

In
his first public address to the Haitian diaspora in his capacity as UN
Special Envoy for Haiti , President Clinton invited audience members to
expand their work and collaboration.

“Given
the leadership of President Préval and Prime Minister Pierre-Louis and
Haitian Parliamentarians, the promise of the HOPE II legislation passed
last year by the United States Congress, the recent $1.2 billion in
debt relief from the international community, and the strong commitment
of the Haitian people, we have a unique opportunity to act now to
reclaim Haiti’s proud past while shaping a better future,” said
President Clinton.

On
the need for donors to disburse their pledges expeditiously, President
Clinton reminded the international community that too much is at stake
for governments not to honor their commitments. “Every single day a
child is hungry; a parent comes home without a job; a mother dies in
child-birth, a community is uprooted by a storm, the window of
opportunity we have today closes a little more,” President Clinton
added.

Today he also announced that:

•
The Soros Economic Development Fund has launched the Haiti Invest
Project, an equity-investment program with an initial commitment of up
to $25 million. Haiti Invest already has approached potential partners
in an effort to significantly expand this initial capitalization by a
factor of six, up to $150 million, and it is considering investments in
garment manufacturing, agriculture, logistics, tourism, energy, and
housing.

•
Michael Carey, an Irish businessman, and a group of Irish
businesspeople who recently established the Soul of Haiti Foundation
after a number of visits to Haiti , have offered to host a delegation
of Haitian businesspeople for a visit to Ireland , in October.

•
James Lee Witt, former Director of FEMA, who traveled with President
Clinton to Haiti in July 2009, has committed $250,000 to provide
disaster preparedness training for women in Haiti . The Witt team is
scheduled to visit Port-au-Prince and possible training sites on a
fact-finding mission in the next 10 days. The UN is assisting this
effort and identifying partners in civil society and the Government to
ensure that the new training programs do not duplicate or undermine
existing initiatives.

•
Desh Deshpande, who traveled with President Clinton to Haiti in March
2009 and is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, has offered to
share technical assistance to expand school feeding in Haiti . The
Deshpande Foundation and the Akshaya Patra Foundation run a
school-feeding project in India that currently provides hot,
nutritious, daily meals to one million children across India .

•
Rolando Gonzalez Bunster, of Basic Energy Ltd, has offered to install
initially 5 windmills totaling 8 MW. These new Vestas windmills are
unassembled in the Dominican Republic and could provide renewable
energy at competitive prices in Haiti within a few months.

In
closing, President Clinton asked the Haitian Diaspora to use their
influence to project the real face of Haiti to the international
community -- the challenges as well as the tremendous opportunities.
He urged the international community to view Haiti as a country poised
to reclaim its future.

For further information, please contact:

Jehane Sedky, Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti , jehane.sedky@ undp.org, 212 729 8257