HAITI: Recovery Bill Estimated at 11.5 Billion Dollars

HAITI: Recovery Bill Estimated at 11.5 Billion Dollars, by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service News Agency, March 17, 2010 Two weeks before a major donors conference, the Haitian government has estimated that the country will need some 11.5 billion dollars over the next three years to recover from the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. In its draft "Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment" (PDNA), which was prepared with the help of some of its bilateral and multilateral donors, the government projected total damages and losses caused by the quake at close to eight billion dollars.That sum represented the equivalent of roughly 120 percent of Haiti's 2009 gross domestic product (GDP), making the quake's cost relative to a country's economy the world's greatest since the current methodology used for assessing costs of natural disasters was adopted by international authorities 35 years ago, according to the Assessment. More...