Zeenews Bureau
Washington: Haitian President Rene Preval on Wednesday called for the creation of a United Nations rapid response team to better co-ordinate emergency aid following natural disasters, like the January earthquake that claimed over 230,000 lives in his country.
"I support the idea of the creation of so-called 'red helmets' within the United Nations and these would be an observatory, a warning provisional system for natural disasters and a humanitarian force which will be the equivalent of the 'blue helmets'," Preval said.
After holding talks with US President Barack Obama at the White House, Preval hailed the US, Canada and other nations for the humanitarian effort that was "commensurate with the disaster”.
However, he insisted on drawing “lessons from what occurred in Haiti”.
"The massive, spontaneous, generous help was a good response to the disaster. However, its effectiveness must be improved, because effectiveness depends on the quality of co-ordination."
The Haitian president is also mulling proposing a "donors’ trust fund" that would see money distributed to Haiti by a single authority.
Earlier, Obama said, "The situation on the ground remains dire, and people should be under no illusions that the crisis is over.”
"With the spring rains approaching, those needs will only grow. The challenge now is to prevent a second disaster."
Addressing a press conference at the White House along with his Haitian counterpart Rene Preval, Obama said, “There is an enormous set of challenges in front of Haiti and I personally thank the NGOs, who came forward to help the earthquake victims. Our heart goes out to the people of Haiti.”
Obama further said, “We must draw lessons from the quake and Haiti should start the procedure of re-building the country now.”
The total number of US forces in Haiti is expected to drop to about 8,000 in coming days, from a peak of around 20,000 on February 1.
(With Agencies’ inputs)
First Published: Thursday, March 11, 2010, 10:19