MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bill Clinton asks Davos forum for money and distribution trucks

The former president also appealed for long term investment

Former US President Bill Clinton appealed for global business leaders to help Haiti rebuild after the earthquake which devastated its coastal capital and killed as many as 200,000 people.

United Nations special envoy for Haiti Bill Clinton, said on Thursday there was an immediate need for cash to help fund food and water distribution and to provide safe and sanitary shelter for people made homeless in the January 12 disaster.

“There are serious unmet food and water needs. Part of it is the distribution system does not exist,” Clinton told the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.

“Right now we need cash more than anything else,” he said, adding there was also a need for pickup trucks to help distribute supplies. “I need 100 yesterday.”

But he also appealed for long term investment to help the country recover. Citing what he said was a quadrupling of Rwanda's economy in the decade following its 1994 genocide he said Haiti had strong investment potential.

“I also believe a country can rise from the ashes in a very short period of time,” he said. “This is an opportunity to re-imagine the future for the Haitian people, to build what they want to become, not rebuild what they used to be.”

The quake devastated Port-au-Prince and thrown the country into chaos. Twenty thousand commercial buildings and 225,000 homes have collapsed or must be razed.

In Washington, the International Monetary Fund approved an additional 102 million USD in funding for Haiti and said it would disburse 114 million USD to the government by the end of the week to help with rebuilding after the earthquake.

Doctors in Haiti say the quake had created a litany of health problems, including perhaps tens of thousands of new amputees. With many hospitals and clinics destroyed, there was little chance they would get the therapy they need, doctors said.