US pledges $1.15 billion to rebuild Haiti

The amount exceeded by more than $1 billion the goal for the conference, cosponsored by the United Nations and the US government. In total, nearly $10 billion was committed by countries, development banks, and nongovernmental groups for Haiti in years to come.

“This is the down payment Haiti needs for wholesale national renewal,’’ said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. He emphasized, however, that donors now had to deliver on the promises of cash; something they have sometimes been slow to do in the past.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton noted that nearly 50 countries made pledges, twice as many as contributed to rebuilding the area hit by the 2004 tsunami.

She announced $1.15 billion in US funds for the massive nation-building effort in Haiti.

The reconstruction plan calls for building ports and hundreds of miles of roads, resurrecting Haiti’s withered agricultural sector, relocating people from its overcrowded capital, and establishing an efficient bureaucracy in a country that never had one.

If the aid effort is insufficient, Clinton warned, “then the challenges that have plagued Haiti for years could erupt, with regional and global consequences.’’ She raised the specter of a stream of boat people, increased drug trafficking, and the spread of drug-resistant diseases.

In the past two decades, billions of dollars in foreign aid have been sent to Haiti, with limited results. Money was stolen by corrupt Haitian bureaucrats or wasted on uncoordinated projects by development organizations.

The architects of the new Haitian nation-building effort, including the US government and international development institutions, say they will try to do things differently.

The new plan calls for an Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, which will be cochaired by Haiti’s prime minister and by former president Bill Clinton. It will oversee the reconstruction with the assistance of scores of foreign technocrats, including officials seconded by the US government. It will also have a watchdog office to discourage corruption.

The commission, which is to be in place for 18 months, will provide a sort of scaffolding for the creation of a senior Haitian bureaucracy, officials said.

Haiti’s already-weak government was devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake, which killed an estimated 17 percent of civil servants and leveled all but one of the ministry buildings.

The donor conference, held in a wood-paneled hall at the United Nations, thrust the Clintons into perhaps their most prominent international role since Bill Clinton’s presidency. They both sat on the dais, flanked by President René Préval of Haiti and the UN secretary general.

The couple has had a deep interest in Haiti since a post-wedding trip there in 1975. Haiti was high on the agenda during Clinton’s presidency, with US troops restoring Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the presidency after a coup.

The commission will work with a multidonor trust fund administered by the World Bank.

The US contribution to Haiti, which must still be approved by Congress, is focused on four areas — agriculture, health, security and governance, and infrastructure.

It is still unclear whether Washington will give any money directly to Haiti’s government.

Congress has been leery about giving the Haitian government cash because of its history of corruption and dysfunction.