Higher education is key focus of Bill Clinton's Haiti reconstruction efforts
USA Today
April 22, 2010
As he prepares to help oversee $5 billion in reconstruction spending in Haiti, former president Bill Clinton paints a challenging but hopeful picture. There's much to do: Haitians displaced by the magnitude-7 earthquake in January need sturdy housing, nutritious food and clean water, to name the basics.
But Clinton also says higher education will be a top priority.
On his preliminary to-do list: help pay tuition for private university students whose families were hurt, killed or lost jobs when the quake hit; recruit faculty to Haiti to teach; and rebuild the universities. Just four of the public University of Haiti's 13 campuses escaped serious structural damage, Clinton says.
"We've got to get those colleges open again," he told a crowd of student activists at the third annual Clinton Global Initiative University, which wrapped up Sunday at the University of Miami.
A few days earlier, Haiti's parliament approved a commission, to be co-chaired by Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, to manage how billions of dollars are spent over the next 18 months and to keep a check on corruption.
