Washington: The International Monetary Fund today announced a USD 100 million in emergency assistance to Haiti, where according to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tens of thousands of people are feared killed in the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country early this week.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn announced that the Fund will provide USD 100 million very rapidly in emergency financing to Haiti to assist it in dealing with the aftermath of the massive and devastating earthquake that has hit the country.
"I have asked staff to look into all the possibilities and am pleased to announce that we are able to make USD 100 million available very quickly," he said in a statement.
"We are coordinating with other international agencies to mobilise assistance as quickly as possible in order to help Haiti with the difficult task ahead of rebuilding the country," Strauss-Kahn said.
The emergency financing would be provided as an augmentation to the existing IMF-supported arrangement with Haiti under the Extended Credit Facility (formerly the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility).
The USD 100 million in new funding is subject to approval by the IMF Executive Board, which could consider the augmentation under accelerated procedures.
Since 2006, the IMF has disbursed close to USD 170 million under its PRGF-supported arrangement.
The programme was approved in November 2006 in an amount equivalent to about USD 114.4 million; in June 2008, an augmentation of about USD 25.4 million was approved to help Haiti cope with the impact of high international food and fuel prices.
A second increase in IMF financial assistance, of about USD 38.1 million was approved by the Executive Board in February 2009 to help mitigate the negative effects of a series of hurricanes in 2008, as well as the global downturn.
Haiti received USD 1.2 billion in debt relief in June 2009, as it reached the completion point under the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative approved by the Executive Boards of the IMF and the World Bank.
PTI
