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By Peter Bate, Stockholm In a vote of confidence and solidarity, the international community pledged on May 28 to provide some $9 billion in humanitarian aid, long-term financing and debt relief to help Central America recover from Hurricane Mitch, one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit the region.The pledges were made in Stockholm on the final day of a meeting of the Consultative Group for the Reconstruction and Transformation of Central America, an international effort to raise financial and technical support for Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, the countries ravaged by the hurricane. Support was also pledged to Costa Rica, which took in hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring nations after the catastrophe. Late in October last year, Mitch dumped the equivalent of one year of rainfall in less than a week on a region that had been parched by an eight-month drought. Its destructive force was compounded by man-made environmental blunders, triggering massive floods and landslides that killed nearly 10,000 people and left many more missing. Millions lost their homes, their farms and their jobs. Entire crops were ruined and roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and other buildings that represented decades of investment in infrastructure were razed or washed away. Economic losses mounted to around $5 billion, or 17 percent of the gross regional product. The international community's support, which includes millions of dollars in aid delivered since the beginning of the tragedy, is intended to help the ravaged countries build not the same, but a better Central America. The assistance will help to continue the process of political and social transformation which had begun in the 1990s. Then, following a series of peace accords, the region's countries entered into an era of freely elected governments, the rule of law and steadily improving economic growth. "This truly was an extraordinary harvest of solidarity," IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias told reporters in the closing news conference of the four-day event. "Such a high level of commitments is nothing short of astonishing, given the competing demands for aid, even in the European continent," he added, referring to the crisis in the Balkans. The meeting, organized by the IDB with strong political backing from the government of Sweden, also laid the foundation for a long-term partnership between donor and beneficiary countries. In a document titled "The Stockholm Declaration," participants pledged to share responsibility for achieving a successful reconstruction and transformation of Central America, based on the principles of democracy, participation of civil society and respect for human rights; transparency, good governance and decentralization of government; and the reduction of social and environmental vulnerability. "The tragedy of Hurricane Mitch provides us with a unique opportunity to rebuild, not the same, but a better Central America," said Honduran President Carlos Roberto Flores. "We must not shy away from the challenge to create something new and better," said Sweden's Prime Minister Göran Persson in a speech delivered during the inaugural session. "The destruction caused by Mitch can be turned into a strong impulse for social change." The aid flows will help Central American countries finance the ambitious and detailed national plans they presented in Stockholm. These programs not only include the rebuilding and improvement of damaged infrastructure, but also projects to rekindle economic activity and modernize education, health and other social services. The plans also aim to improve environmental management and disaster prevention mechanisms in a notoriously hazard-ridden region. One after another, the Central American leaders who addressed the conference vowed to pursue these goals without giving up their defense of macroeconomic stability and their commitment to preserving the peace achieved during this decade after drawn-out civil wars. Honduras, the worst-hit nation, tendered a five-year, $4 billion master plan for reconstruction. Nicaragua put forward a five-year, $2.5 billion plan. El Salvador unveiled a 10-year, $1.8 billion plan and Guatemala presented a portfolio of projects with an estimated cost of $830 million that would complement its 1997 peace accord programs. While international aid will help Central America jump-start its reconstruction, the region's leaders also reminded donors that their countries would require help on debt relief and access to foreign markets for their exports in order to ensure that recovery becomes a lasting achievement. "The dilemma of the overwhelming external debts is one of the key factors keeping us anchored to the poverty and the past we wish to overcome," Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Alemán said. "We call for renewed understanding and support, which can be translated into a flexible and accommodating treatment that would view sensibly and realistically a significant reduction or a massive pardon (of the debts), in order to make our development viable and sustainable." The presentation of the national reconstruction and transformation plans also offered an opportunity to broach other issues that are rarely discussed openly in such fora, such as participation of civil society and corruption. On the first, Central American nations were commended for their efforts to involve a wide variety of political, social, economic and ethnic groups in the formulation of their national plans. Several national delegations included leaders of such groups, who were able to address the donors and lay out their specific concerns. Donors encouraged the governments of the region to deepen these mechanisms in order to strengthen their democracies. The issue of corruption was frequently raised during the meeting. One of the greatest challenges for the Central American countries and a central concern of the international community is the need to ensure the efficient and transparent administration of the resources that will support the reconstruction of the region. The IDB organized a workshop on transparency and good governance in which officials from donor and beneficiary nations, international experts and representatives from civil society groups had a chance to discuss the various aspects of this complex phenomenon. At the conclusion, they recommended the following measures: - Modernize administrations, control government procurement, and improve internal auditing systems in state institutions; Central American governments put forward their own proposals to strengthen controls on how resources are spent. Honduras, for instance, said it had hired three international auditing firms to check its emergency reconstruction programs and planned to establish an independent inspection unit that will verify whether projects awarded to contractors are well executed and in keeping with deadlines. |
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