On the second of a three-day visit to Haiti, former US President
Clinton, accompanied by Haitian President René
Préval, flew to the northern city of Gonaives, which
suffered extensive damage last year following a series of
devastating storms, as record floods displaced tens of thousands
and left the city encased in mud and debris.

Over the past months, IOM and its partners have actively
contributed to recovery work initiated by the  Haitian
government, launching large-scale mud removal operations and
rehabilitating some of the city’s most essential
infrastructure, including irrigation canals, schools and roads.

One such project is currently under way on Mecklembourg Street,
in the heart of the K Soleil district, one of the most destitute
parts of town. IOM originally helped reestablish access to the area
through its street cleaning programme, which over the past six
months has enabled many among the displaced to gradually return to
their neighbourhoods.

The street, playing host to both Presidents, is now being paved
over, and adjacent canals are being rehabilitated, in an effort to
decrease the area’s extreme vulnerability to natural
disasters due to poor and deteriorating infrastructure. The IOM
rehabilitation intervention, which helped generate employment for
4,300 individuals in the community, is part of the USAID-funded
PREPEP community stabilization programme. 2009 also saw the
establishment of the USAID-funded HIGHER (Haiti Integrated Growth
through Emergency Recovery) programme, in order to support recovery
efforts launched in the aftermath of the 2008 hurricane season.
Activities carried out by IOM in the framework of both initiatives
should continue to go towards the rehabilitation of key public
infrastructure and create an estimated 63,000 jobs this year.

Surveying the K Soleil project site, Mr. Clinton emphasized the
need to replicate such initiatives on a larger scale and address
the dangers brought about by Haiti’s increasingly fragile
environment and deteriorated infrastructure. The former US
President is on his first visit to the country since being
appointed as UN Special Envoy for Haiti.  He  has
announced that his priorities as Special Envoy will centre  on
mobilizing the international community’s resources so as to
encourage job creation and the delivery of social protection to the
country’s impoverished population, both of which are key
elements to Haiti’s long-term stability and development.

For more information, please contact:

Frislain Isidor

IOM Haiti

Tel. +509 2244 1218

E-mail: "mailto:fisidor@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">fisidor@iom.int