What We’re Reading 2/8/10

Feb 8th, 2010 10:45 AM UTC
By Virginia Simmons

BBC News: G7 nations pledge debt relief for quake-hit Haiti:
“Canada’s finance minister announced at a summit in Iqaluit, northern Canada, that Group of Seven countries planned to cancel Haiti’s bilateral debts. Jim Flaherty said he would encourage international lenders to do the same.”

Washington Post: In Haiti, cooperation among aid groups is unprecedented:
“There has been an unprecedented degree of cooperation among aid groups in Haiti, especially in comparison with the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, the only rival to this catastrophe in terms of outpouring of medical help. Three things are responsible — the nature of the injuries, improvements in communication and an awareness that victims will suffer if relief groups don’t cooperate.”

The East African: Bottom-up poverty plan for Africa needed:
“European leaders and US President Barack Obama, who has called for a new global plan to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, are already on board. A new plan can avoid the pitfalls of past top-down approaches — if it supports a more bottom-up, citizen-led strategy for sustainable development.”

Ghana Agency News: UNICEF launches $1.2 billion appeal to help women and children in crises:
“Accra, Feb. 5, GNA – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday launched an appeal for $1.2 billion to provide life-saving emergency support to women and children impacted by severe humanitarian crises around the world, including the Haitian earthquake.”

NYT: Bill Clinton, in Haiti, Emphasizes Urgent Need for Sanitation and Health Care:
“Mr. Clinton praised the progress being made in the relief effort, especially in addressing the need for food, shelter and security, but he expressed a growing sense of urgency about the country’s requirements for sanitation and health care. ‘We learned a lot from the tsunami relief effort, and the United Nations and the international community worked in a far more coordinated fashion this time,’ he said while touring the Gheskio health clinic in the Bicentenaire neighborhood. ‘But we can still do better, and one of the areas that I think we have to improve is sanitation.’

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