In early January, 2005, three weeks after a tsunami in the Indian Ocean battered Thailand and many of its neighbours, Jan Egeland, the head of the United Nations Emergency Relief Fund, appeared to undermine his own efforts to raise funds for the crisis by reminding donors that they also had a responsibility to continue to stand by the rest of the world's poor.
"The world needs to agree that it is as terrible to starve in Darfur, Sudan, as it is to starve on the beaches of a tsunami-stricken nation," Mr. Egeland told an assembly of representatives from 70 donor countries in Geneva.
A pure pitchman might have tried to keep his audience focused on the issue at hand. If only international reconstruction efforts were so simple.
The gathering that Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon is set to host on Monday in Montreal will begin the gruelling and often confusing business of marshalling the international community's resources to rebuild a devastated neighbour.
Mr. Cannon will be working with the loosest of templates. There's no set-in-stone process for these things, and no central organizing authority. By hosting the initial meeting, Canada stands to inherit a central role in a project that will take years to complete.
Despite the absence of structure, nations always manage to come together to commit billions to the rebuilding effort, usually at a donor's conference within a few months of the disaster. With the help of organizations such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, governments as disparate as France and Brazil will settle on a rebuilding plan for Haiti that - hopefully - will avoid duplication and overlap.
Along the way, the process will likely expose regional jealousies and conflicting world views. In the case of Haiti's neighbours, it's easy to imagine the governments of the United States and Cuba clashing on the proper course for the country's future. But if there's one thing that will link the Haiti reconstruction effort with all that have come before, it's the touchy subject of spending the public's money. Inevitably, someone like Mr. Egeland will have to cajole countries to make good on their pledges, and to keep in mind that there are millions of others in need.
"Most countries mean what they say when they pledge," said Clay Lowery, a former senior U.S. Treasury official who was involved in organizing several reconstruction efforts, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It becomes more difficult the further they get away from the crisis because that initial support starts to compete against other needs, which aren't anticipated at the time of the pledge."
But before donor governments can renege, they first have to be given a target toward which to pledge.
That number doesn't exist yet, although rough estimates could start to emerge by the time Mr. Cannon gathers with Hillary Clinton of the U.S., France's Bernard Kouchner, Brazil's Celso Amorim and about a dozen other foreign ministers next week for what the host is calling a "crucial" plenary session that will lay the ground for an eventual leaders conference on the reconstruction of Haiti.
The early estimates on the cost of a Haitian reconstruction effort will surely test the resolve of this emerging partnership, as many of the countries, including the U.S. and Canada, are facing hefty budget deficits after pumping tens of billions into their economies to reverse the global recession.
Leonel Fernandez, President of the Dominican Republic, has estimated it will take $10-billion (U.S.) over five years to put his country's neighbour back on its feet. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, wrote in The Washington Post that "one could imagine" annual disbursements to Haiti of $2-billion to $3-billion over the next five years. "There aren't a lot of countries that have room to increase aid," said Scott Gilmore, executive director and founder of Peace Dividend Trust. "There is going to be a lot of robbing Peter to pay Paul."
Experts caution against attaching a dollar figure to the reconstruction effort too soon. The authoritative estimate eventually will come from the World Bank. It will be a few weeks from the date of the earthquake before the Washington-based lender sends an assessment team in order to ensure its economists don't get in the way of the relief effort, said John Simon, a visiting fellow at the Washington-based Centre for Global Development and the former senior director for relief, stabilization and development at the U.S. National Security Council.
But the lack of a solid figure for rebuilding doesn't prevent Mr. Cannon from taking steps to increase the chances that pledges are met.
One thing he can do is ensure Brazil and other Latin American countries are part of the process, said Andrew Thompson, a research fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont. Their growing wealth makes them important players, yet their ongoing struggle with poverty makes them better able to relate with Haiti's government, Mr. Thompson said.
Countries and institutions have also become more rigorous at keeping track of who is falling behind on their pledges. This doesn't guarantee full payment, but at least it brings accountability and should be applied to the Haitian rebuild, Mr. Simon said. "Holding people to account doesn't happen as much as people like," Mr. Simon said. "But what exactly is the recourse? At the very least, it should be public so people can draw their own conclusions."