Donors Approve Haiti Aid Projects

World donors approved $1 billion in aid projects for Haiti on Friday, promising to repair its roads and rebuild its battered power grid in an effort to help the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation as it prepares for fall elections.

A meeting here in French Guiana’s capital confirmed pledges made last summer, but diplomats attending the one-day summit said that assigning specific projects to each contributing nation would increase accountability. In July, donors pledged more than $1 billion for Haiti, but less than a fifth of that has been disbursed.

“If a project isn’t going well or according to plan, you’ll know who to ask,” Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew said at the summit, organized by France.

A little more than a year after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled into exile amid an armed rebellion, Haiti’s roads, schools and hospitals remain in disrepair, undermining faith in the interim government.

Languishing projects also have meant few new jobs for Haitians, most of whom are unemployed and without access to basic healthcare, running water or electricity.

Of the 380 reconstruction projects approved Friday, most were assigned to half a dozen nations, including France, the United States, and Canada, as well as the European Union.

The projects range from repairing major roads and improving the electricity grid to giving Haitians access to medical treatment and water.

Frederick W. Schieck, deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the United States was pleased to see so many nations stepping forward to help.

“It’s terrible to have a country this poor in our hemisphere,” Schieck said. “This aid will help change that.”

U.S.-funded projects include water purification, garbage collection and HIV/AIDS education. The promise of aid comes as Haitian police and 7,400 U.N. peacekeeping forces struggle to curb escalating violence while preparing for elections to fill the power vacuum.

Armed ex-soldiers who helped oust Aristide still control much of the countryside, and the former leader’s loyalists and detractors wage frequent gun battles in the slums of Port-au-Prince, the capital. More than 400 people have died since September in clashes between police, former soldiers and Aristide supporters.